In light of my career change decision that I posted about this morning, I’ve been thinking about what project I should work on. Here are some possibilities.
- In light of the success of other animated film to stage transfers, such as “The Little Mermaid” and “Shrek: The Musical”, I think we should bring the animated film “Cats Don’t Dance” to the stage. We all know how successful musicals about cats can be, and it has really great music to build upon. Additionally, I think we could get some of the original leads to recreate their roles. Scott Bakula is a great stage actor and singer, for example.
- There have also been a lot of recent revivals of Rogers & Hammerstein properties. We’ve seen restagings in recent years of “Oklahoma” by Trevor Nunn, “Flower Drum Song” by David Henry Hwang, and the current revival of “South Pacific”. I believe the time is ripe for a revival of “Pipe Dream”, the Rogers & Hammerstein musical about the whores of Monterey and Cannery Row.
- One of my favorite musicals in terms of score is “The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public”. I can always just see the choreography for the opening number in my head. However, it had significant book problems and closed very quickly. I think it should be reworked and revived, with a new end to the book as the current ending is just too unbelievable. After all, electing a madam as President. It just couldn’t happen these days.
- September will see the opening of a new musical on Broadway, “A Tale of Two Cities” (no, I’m actually not joking about this–ETA: and I’ve heard the music, and it’s pretty interesting). Many Dicken’s properties have been successful (or not so successfully) turned into Broadway productions: “Pickwick”, “Oliver!”, “A Christmas Carol”, “Nicholas Nickleby”. So, I’m thinking of doing a radical reimaging of “Oliver”. We’re tired of the syrupy stuff that Lionel Bart wrote. I see a darker Oliver in my head, one that shows Oliver for the vindictive brat that he was and vindicates, at long last, the true hero of the piece: Fagin.
P.S.: In other news, Sam Zell has renamed Tribune Corporation as ZellCoMedia (don’t believe me? check out the Tribune Website), describing the company as “America’s largest employee-pwned media company. We’re so 1337 that other companies wish they were us. They wake up and say, “Hey, I wonder what ZellCoMediaEnterprises Inc. is doing today. I bet they’re doing an April Fool’s Day gag. Why didn’t we think of that?” Then they read amNY, post some pics on enginehead.com then go to work and whine about how the Cubs are so going to beat the Yankees this year. The winds of change are blowing.” They also plan to go to a paperless operation, using Edible Ink and Licorice Printing System. In case you get some fake page, here’s what it looked like.
