Throughout the history of musical theatre, many films have been adapted into stage productions. In the last ten years especially, there have been dozens of these adaptations, including Bring It On, Catch Me If You Can, Dogfight, Elf, Ghost, Heathers, Kinky Boots, Legally Blonde, Little Miss Sunshine, Rocky, School of Rock, Shrek, Sister Act, Waitress, The Wedding Singer, and more. Most, if not all, of these show titles end in, “The Musical.” While the majority of these shows are well-written and contain many catchy songs that have created an entire new genre of contemporary musical theatre, their presence in the theatre community leads one to ask, “What happened to original concepts?”
With many of these productions, rather than forming novel, unique concepts and plots, many writers have instead chosen to create interpretations of stories that already exist. For the most part, the writers of these musicals utilize the already set characters and plot and stretch, bend, and enhance characterization as well as character relationships. Through this revision process, aspects of the film’s plot are added or deleted, leaving the audience with a feeling similar to how one reacts after seeing the film version of their favorite book. They can’t help but sit there and compare and contrast between the two mediums through which the same storyline was developed.
While this concept also can apply to musicals that are based on novels, there are integral differences between interpreting text to stage and putting already directed scenes, pre-formed images of characters, and direct quotes with the same vocal inflections onto the stage. This can be seen when looking at popular musicals Wicked and Hamilton. While both of these productions are based on novels, Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz (Wicked), as well as Lin Manuel Miranda (Hamilton), took much poetic license in taking what they read and spinning it around in their own imaginations in order to create musical masterpieces. When a writer takes an already visualized concept, they can’t help but lose this integral imaginative aspect of the writing process. If one is turning a movie into a musical, they’re already going to have a preconceived image of the show that they’re producing that is not their own; it would be impossible to ignore. Additionally, any major attempt to move away from what has already been done could alter the film’s plot in a way that makes it so dissimilar from the original storyline that anyone familiar with the movie would question or be upset with the interpretation.
I understand why one would desire to adapt a musical from a film because much can be expressed through music that cannot be expressed through purely cinematic elements. And in many cases, such as in Dogfight and Waitress, the musical is so beautifully written that it truly enhances the plot and characters of the film without losing any of the sentiment of the original cinematic rendition.
However, I cannot help but fully commend those who have developed completely fresh and innovative concepts. Although all musicals are inspired by something, whether it be an experience in one’s life, a historical event, or a completely imagined fantasy world, these never-before-written ideas flourish from the tiniest of inspirations into a full-blown show rather than stemming from an already established plotline.
