These days it seems the new hot thing is to develop a flashy Broadway production around a cult hit film or other property. We've seen the success of Mel Brooks' The Producers, which led to Hairspray. The smash hit The Lion King, and the underwhelming Tarzan. And let's not forget the positive Off-Broadway response for Evil Dead: The Musical! Upcoming screen-to-stage adaptations include Young Frankenstein and Spiderman (directed by Julie Taymor, natch).

As I've been trapped in a rather lame college production lately, I've been thinking: of all these filmic properties being mined for Broadway gold, which of my favorite movies needs the treatment next?

Three Amigos!
Very little adapting would actually need to be done for this one, it's already got everything: great humor, clever musical sequences, gunplay, horses (okay, maybe some alternative would have to be considered for the horses). Did I mention I'm in a lame Western play right now?

Mulholland Drive
Stay with me here. I'm not saying we should turn it into Rent. A lot more trimming would be have to done here, but can you imagine the Club Silencio sequence live on stage? With canned instruments, of course.
And Betty's delivery would be a lot more suitable for the theater. Expect some very impressionistic theater director to develop some positively Lynchian lighting and sound effects.

Barton Fink: The Musical!
With such memorable tunes as Author! Author! and- how's this for a show-stopper- That Barton Fink Feeling.

Logic Hat Online- logichat.org

other Barton Finks tunes...

The Life of the Mind

Charlie's Lament (Some Stories)

Putting an End To Rumors...RIGHT NOW!

and let's not forget Old Black Joe...   

"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

Oh, please God, NONE! If the theeee-atter insists on perpetuating its tired retro art form, let them stick to revivals of that summer stock fave, Carousel or, if they want to be really edgy, how about Oh, Calcutta.

I am so tired of the film that becomes the sequel and then another sequel and then a TV show followed by the stage show and then a remake after which it becomes a Broadway musical followed by the film version of the Broadway musical. FEH! If there still is a need for live theater... if the tour buses still come to fill up those seats... how's about a fresh new idea?

Hey, I've got a couple of fresh ideas. How about a radio serial of Carousel? Or a silent film version of Oh, Calcutta? Boffo!

Susan

PS  Lipnick's Big Balls 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I only thought up this concept because I don't know of any plays worth seeing that aren't connected to films I already like (case in point, Spamalot). I only like musicals if there's a sense of humor about them (I mean current humor, not tired old vaudeville shtick).

Am I reading correct that there is no love for the theatre on the Twin Peaks Gazette? 

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Booth, don't forget the entire season of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry David starring in a production of The Producers. Ohmygawd, the final episode with the stage production of the old movie turned musical turned television show device -- dreadful! 

Logic, I doubt there is a general lack of love for theater on the Gazette. I'm really just speaking for myself. It took me a while to realize I was sick of the theater. I think it was after Cats. And Les Miserables, which I saw in London. I laughed nearly through the entirety and only afterward realized it wasn't a spoof. The singing heroine in one breath coughing up blood from her consumption and belting out a tune with the next -- oh, there was so much humor! A Century City Shubert Theater production of Jesus Christ Superstar similarly left me cold. But I didn't give up then.

The ones with the fancy costumes and the song and dance numbers are particularly grating.  Even the Academy Awards show finally figured out it was passe to do the dance numbers. 

About a decade ago, after a season of Mark Taper Forum plays that we pretty much walked out of -- oh, and that Tom Stoppard thing about quantum physics! -- it just hit me like the curtain falling. I really don't like live theater very much. Eureka.  I won't look back.

Here in LA there are lots of small theaters too. I've had my fill of them as well.  

Last plays I enjoyed - Rocky Horror Picture Show and Little Shop of Horrors. Hair was pretty good too but that was 40 years ago.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Well now see, this is what I'm talking about. I don't care for any of the Andrew Lloyd's or his ilk. I can't take musical theater seriously, and I can't understand the people who do (okay, I can understand high school girls' [and a couple of the boys'] obsession with Phantom). Cats is grating enough on video, I can't imagine hearing it live and in person.

But I'm still attracted to some aspects of live performance. For one thing, there's direct audience feedback. There's the fact that, for the most part, a play is linear, while film is just fragments put together.

Also, like Booth pointed out, there are more types of plays then just big, splashy, musicals. I don't recall a whole lot of choreographed dancing in Mamet's stuff.

Logic Hat Online- logichat.org

Yeah, Mamet.  Even there I prefer the films.  Don't forget I included "Hapgood" the Tom Stoppard play whose name I couldn't recall yesterday.  Sweet oblivion of a faulty memory.  Now I am faced with recalling the escape we made from the theater midway through that horror.

It's a personal thing.  Being the crowd avoider I have become, I don't even care about the audience's reaction to a film let alone a play. 

I'm sure there are exceptions.  I once saw a couple of Sam Shepard plays I really enjoyed on the same trip to New York.  And then there was that one-woman show by Fionnula Flanagan "James Joyce's Women."  That was pretty good.  I'm just generalizing about the live theater genre from my perspective. 

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Hehe.

I think Reservoir Dogs would make a great adaption to the stage. 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin