{"id":2754,"date":"2008-04-01T11:32:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-01T18:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=2754"},"modified":"2008-04-01T11:32:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-01T18:32:00","slug":"a-magnificent-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=2754","title":{"rendered":"A Magnificent Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In light of my career change decision that <a href=\"http:\/\/cahwyguy.livejournal.com\/707226.html\" target=\"_blank\">I posted about this morning<\/a>, I&#8217;ve been thinking about what project I should work on. Here are some possibilities.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In light of the success of other animated film to stage transfers, such as \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/disney.go.com\/theatre\/thelittlemermaid\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Little Mermaid<\/a>\u201d and \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.shrekthemusical.com\" target=\"_blank\">Shrek: The Musical<\/a>\u201d, I think we should bring the animated film \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0118829\/\" target=\"_blank\">Cats Don\u2019t Dance<\/a>\u201d to the stage. We all know <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reallyuseful.com\/rug\/shows\/cats\/\" target=\"_blank\">how successful musicals about cats can be<\/a>, and it has really great music to build upon. Additionally, I think we could get some of the original leads to recreate their roles. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Scott_Bakula\" target=\"_blank\">Scott Bakula<\/a> is a great stage actor and singer, for example.\n<li>There have also been a lot of recent revivals of Rogers &#038; Hammerstein properties. We\u2019ve seen restagings in recent years of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shulerhensley.com\/perfect_oklahoma!.htm\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cOklahoma\u201d by Trevor Nunn<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.talkinbroadway.com\/world\/FlowerDrumSong.html\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cFlower Drum Song\u201d by David Henry Hwang<\/a>, and the current <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatermania.com\/content\/news.cfm\/story\/7474\" target=\"_blank\">revival of \u201cSouth Pacific\u201d<\/a>. I believe the time is ripe for a revival of \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pipe_Dream_(musical)\" target=\"_blank\">Pipe Dream<\/a>\u201d, the Rogers &#038; Hammerstein musical about the whores of Monterey and Cannery Row.\n<li>One of my favorite musicals in terms of score is \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Best_Little_Whorehouse_Goes_Public\" target=\"_blank\">The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public<\/a>\u201d. 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\u2019t happen these days.\n<li>September will see the opening of a new musical on Broadway, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ataleof2cities.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">A Tale of Two Cities<\/a>\u201d (no, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.playbill.com\/news\/article\/116235.html\" target=\"_blank\">I\u2019m actually not joking about this<\/a>&#8211;ETA: and <a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.talemusical.com\">I&#8217;ve heard the music, and it&#8217;s pretty interesting<\/a>). Many Dicken\u2019s properties have been successful (or not so successfully) turned into Broadway productions: \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pickwick_(musical)\" target=\"_blank\">Pickwick<\/a>\u201d, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Oliver!\" target=\"_blank\">Oliver!<\/a>\u201d, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sdecesare.com\/scrooge.html\" target=\"_blank\">A Christmas Carol<\/a>\u201d, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Life_and_Adventures_of_Nicholas_Nickleby_%28play%29\" target=\"_blank\">Nicholas Nickleby<\/a>\u201d. So, I\u2019m thinking of doing a radical reimaging of \u201cOliver\u201d. We\u2019re tired of the syrupy stuff that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nodanw.com\/biographies\/bart_lionel.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Lionel Bart<\/a> 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.<\/ul>\n<p>P.S.: In other news, Sam Zell has renamed Tribune Corporation as ZellCoMedia (don\u2019t believe me? check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tribune.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">the Tribune Website<\/a>), describing the company as \u201cAmerica\u2019s largest employee-pwned media company. We&#8217;re so 1337 that other companies wish they were us. They wake up and say, &#8220;Hey, I wonder what ZellCoMediaEnterprises Inc. is doing today. I bet they&#8217;re doing an April Fool&#8217;s Day gag. Why didn&#8217;t we think of that?&#8221; 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.\u201d They also plan to go to a paperless operation, using Edible Ink and Licorice Printing System. In case you get some fake page, <a href=\"http:\/\/pics.livejournal.com\/cahwyguy\/pic\/0006tcdc\" target=\"_blank\">here\u2019s what it looked like<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In light of my career change decision that I posted about this morning, I&#8217;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 \u201cThe Little Mermaid\u201d and \u201cShrek: The Musical\u201d, I think we should bring the animated <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=2754\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,1],"tags":[164,284],"class_list":["post-2754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theatre","category-lj-xfer","tag-special-days","tag-theatre-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}