From Screen to Stage: Musicals Adapted from Movies
Foundations of Drama II, Spring 2021
The musical theatre industry is no stranger to adaptation. Many of the most well-known musicals are derived from separate source material: Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1943 hit Oklahoma!, which is arguably the first musical comedy, was based off of Green Grow the Lilacs, a 1931 play by Lynn Riggs. Les Misérables, the longest-running musical in the West End, takes its story from Victor Hugo's 19th-century novel of the same name. Hamilton, one of the world's most popular musicals in recent years, tells the story of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. However, the past decade has seen a drastic uptick in the creation of musicals adapted from popular films. Some of these have become Broadway hits, and some never made it past their initial run. How are adapted musicals responding to a 21st-century cultural landscape? Furthermore, how does an increased saturation of this genre serve the commercial theatre industry in a capitalist society? I argue that stage musicals adapted from films appeal to their audiences through nostalgia, who are drawn to the novelty of seeing a re-imagining of a story they're already familiar with and the pop culture surrounding it. Additionally, musicals of this genre adhere to a profit-driven formula, meant to gain the trust and funding of producers in an increasingly competitive theatre industry.
A goal of theaters is often to draw audience members who might not otherwise be theatergoers. Nicholas Hanson wrote, “An institution can increase participation...by diversifying it – i.e., attracting new markets comprising those individuals who typically would not entertain the idea of participating in the arts” (Hanson 188). The movie-to-musical formula attracts new audience members by putting the stories they know and love on stage, with the added novelty of said stories being set to song and dance. There are many examples of this formula to be examined, but perhaps one of the most notable examples in recent years has been Mean Girls, which opened on Broadway in 2018 (14 years after the premiere of the film upon which it's based). Mean Girls remains an incredibly popular teen movie to this day, and its impact on pop-culture is undeniable--it's chock-full of quotable, immediately recognizable lines. In a review of Mean Girls the musical, Ben Brantley said that "Fans of that movie will be happy to learn that Ms. Fey’s script for the protracted stage incarnation...retains many of the oft-quoted catchwords and quips of the original. When early in the show, a character hopefully says 'fetch' (a neologism for really cool), the audience is chuckling before she lands that final 'ch.'" (Brantley). On the other hand, director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw said in an interview on opening night, "I think it stays...truthful to the movie and has the spirit of the movie but it's stage-worthy now" (Nicholaw). Mean Girls faced the challenge of creating a balance between familiarity and newness, between the original material and its current relevance. This is, of course, no easy feat. In a fast-moving world where consumers demand immediate satisfaction from entertainment, this creative team had to play into the familiarity of the movie--this makes an audience feel like they're all in on a joke--while also adding songs which expanded upon the original story and making the book different enough to prevent audience members from getting bored. Though its run was disrupted by the Broadway shutdown prompted by COVID-19, Mean Girls was a box-office and critical success (receiving 12 Tony nominations) and will continue a national tour post-pandemic (Paulson). In a 2019 report covering the demographics of Broadway's audiences, it was found that "Sixty-five percent of admissions were made by tourists" (Broadway League). Tourists are less likely to consistently attend regional theatre productions, and Broadway's establishment as a New York tourist attraction has made it all the more important to appeal to mainstream audiences.
This desire to appeal to a wide range of consumers is ultimately driven by profit. The commercial theatre industry exists under capitalism and, therefore, has to make money to sustain itself. Creative teams need money to put on shows, and producers fund shows they deem likely to return a profit on their investment. Hanson wrote, "Tethering audience development to monetary targets compels administrators to play it safe, by programming theatre productions and activities that audiences will probably appreciate, based upon their enjoyment of similar encounters in the past. Philosophically, this audience development strategy connects potential audiences to specific productions rather than to theatre as a broader art form" (Hanson 189). So, by this logic, movies which received popular success and were enjoyed by their audiences are more likely to create musicals that the same audiences will also enjoy. Therefore, the market for movie-based musicals has become increasingly oversaturated and competitive, which has the potential to push theatremakers and producers further into this formula for apparently guaranteed success. In an essay on the progression of Marxist values in the theatre, Ezra Brain argued, "The systematic governmental defunding of the arts since the days of Reagan has led most theatre companies to rely on corporate and private donors. Because theatre artists rely on those with power and money for a platform, they are effectively forced to create relatively unconfrontational political art" (Brain). Profit-driven theatre restricts the creation of new art, but it also continues to feed its own cycle. Hanson also wrote, "On Broadway, commercial producers usually sell shows based on name recognition of the play or performers, not familiarity with a specific organization or venue; as such, they can leverage various supply-and-demand ticket-pricing strategies to maximize revenues before the production closes" (Hanson 187). A ticket is a product. The goal of a show is usually to sell as many tickets as possible. Therefore, theatremakers conceptualizing a show may view it as a product before looking at it as a piece of art. Even those who insist on artistic integrity still need to make money somehow. This leaves many artists disillusioned--a director or playwright usually has to achieve great commercial success before they are allowed to produce whatever theatre they'd like to free of restriction.
The drastic increase in musicals adapted from movies can be attributed to a cultural landscape shaped by capitalism, in which theatre (especially theatre operating in the commercial industry) must be profitable in order to be deemed valuable. These circumstances call the next generation of artists to work against this structure in order to refocus the American theatre on the values it claims to uphold.
Works Cited
Brain, Ezra. “Towards a Marxist Theatre.” HowlRound Theatre Commons, 15 Apr. 2021, howlround.com/towards-marxist-theatre.
Bennett, Susan. “Theatre/Tourism.” Theatre Journal, vol. 57, no. 3, 2005, pp. 407–428. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25069671. Accessed 25 May 2021.
Brantley, Ben. “Review: 'Mean Girls' Sets the Perils of Being Popular to Song.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Apr. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/04/08/theater/mean-girls-review-broadway-musical.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article.
Broadwaycom. “Erika Henningsen, Tina Fey, Taylor Louderman & More Paint the Town Pink for MEAN GIRLS Opening Night.” YouTube, YouTube, 14 Apr. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFQL5eG5WQI.
“The Demographics of the Broadway Audience: 2019-2019 Season.” Research Reports | The Broadway League, The Broadway League, Nov. 2019, www.broadwayleague.com/research/research-reports/.
HANSON, NICHOLAS. “Including Millennials in the Theatre of the New Millennium.” In Defence of Theatre: Aesthetic Practices and Social Interventions, edited by KATHLEEN GALLAGHER and BARRY FREEMAN, University of Toronto Press, Toronto; Buffalo; London, 2016, pp. 178–195. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctv1005c88.16. Accessed 25 May 2021.
Paulson, Michael. “'Mean Girls' Won't Return to Broadway.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Jan. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/theater/mean-girls-closing.html?searchResultPosition=1.
Wollman, Elizabeth L. “The Economic Development of the ‘New’ Times Square and Its Impact on the Broadway Musical.” American Music, vol. 20, no. 4, 2002, pp. 445–465. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1350153. Accessed 25 May 2021.
