Mommy, Where Do Musicals Come From?

A wise director once told me that musical theatre is a "manufactured" art. You take different types of art - music, dance, and acting - and combine it into a whole new form. So it seems to make perfect sense that in order to manufacture a musical, you need to add something else to the combination: A really great piece of source material to drive the story. Some of the most important pieces of musical theatre are inspired by other pieces of art and if this year's Tony Awards were any indication - that number will only continue to grow. I think it's fun to look at how the musical theatre interpretations of these works has added to the fullness of the original piece. Below are three examples of pieces of art that will be forever changed for me because of their musical counterpart.

Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte (or A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte) was the painting that inspired Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George. This musical has taken a lot creative liberties with aspects of George Seurat's life - not that adaptations have to be or even should be factually accurate. But I really enjoy how it's added creative dimension to an already amazing work of art and given the painting subjects personalities and even names. 
So when your eye is drawn to the woman in the far right of the painting and you think of Dot:

"But thank you for the shade

And putting me in front."
Or the little girl in white in the middle of the painting (Louise):
"I want my glasses!"
You can thank a musical for giving you a little bit of a soundtrack as you view it. Sondheim's modern masterpiece has influenced Seurat's as well - sometimes this painting is incorrectly called "Sunday in the Park." A bucket list item for me is to stand in front of this painting in Chicago and listen to "Sunday." I'm not crying, you're crying!

The Wild Party, a 1928 poem about debauchery at a party during prohibition inspired not one, but two musicals in the same year both appropriately called The Wild Party. The thing I find really interesting about both musicals is that both opening numbers are called "Queenie Was A Blonde" in reference to the opening line of the narrative poem by Joseph Moncure March. A bunch of lines throughout both song catalogs are pulled directly from the poem, but I think the musical stylings of both add the most to source material.
LaChiusa's The Wild Party debuted on Broadway in 2000 and uses various song styles straight from the 20s to paint a musical picture for the world of the show. Variations of ragtime, vaudeville, and jazz themes also establish important story points for the characters. Lippa's version of The Wild Party that debuted Off-Broadway in 2000 uses some of the same 20s musical stylings as LaChiusa, but adds electric guitars and rock riffs that give this particular show a modern feel. Reading the source material after listening to both shows was a really fun experience because the story feels more rounded out when you can hear Queenie's singing or Burrs' breakdown in your head. But don't try to write a book report based off of either musicals' plot - both writers have changed the ending slightly from the original poem, but I find that their new ending has given the story a more ironic feel that I enjoy.

Probably one of the most famous musicals from a book is good ol' Les Miserables and I can say from personal experience how much the musical adds to the source material. My junior year of high school I was not only performing in Les Mis, but I was also reading it in English class. Les Mis the musical is definitely not super expository when it comes to some of the more minor characters (e.g. basically any of the revolutionaries besides Marius and Enjolras), but the book goes into great detail on each person in this story. Reading the book helped me understand the importance of every character ("Cheer up, Man 5 - you're Grantaire in this scene and he's totally cool and has a solo!") and the musical helped carry me through what is a pretty dense piece of literature. I remember doing well on my final test of this book because I could remember the sequence of events really well based upon the song list and I killed it on the essay portion because what are these songs other than really good statements on the theme and underlying messages in the play?
I love a musical that can help me with homework.


Do you have any particular musical adaptations that you enjoy? Any that've helped you pass English or American History (*cough Hamilton)?