Musical theatre has long struggled with the challenge of reaching a wider audience. Many people skip the experience of live musical theater due to it being mostly local and very expensive. Only the truly devoted and financially stable tend to go. The industry’s exclusivity has left the general public largely unaware of just how incredible live musical theatre can be. As a result, the industry has repeatedly found itself in genuine existential danger, since there simply aren’t enough audience members to guarantee profit for such an expensive business.
During each time the industry struggled to keep standing, musicals like The Lion King, Wicked, and Hamilton emerged, each in their own time, and pushed through these struggles. They ultimately revolutionized the theatre world by reaching a young audience and opening their eyes to musical theatre like never before, and helping keep the industry alive. But even then, Broadway productions were still restricted to those who could afford to travel to major cities like New York City or London, or those lucky enough to live close to where a national tour could reach.
These days, how Broadway productions manage to survive is still a mystery to many. Still, with shows opening and closing within just a few months, it’s clear the industry is struggling to convince people to pay hundreds of dollars for a single performance. That leaves the Broadway world with a mission to find ways to open its stage doors to wider audiences, despite their geographical location or financial state.
Devoted musical theatre fans have been singing a similar tune for years, calling out from the back row that they want their beloved art form to be more accessible. And for many musicals, those wishes were granted through the release of film adaptations.
We’ve experienced two main ways for a Broadway production to reach the big (and small) screen. The first is a new kind of production that adapts the show from stage to screen from scratch, like Wicked. This allows the film version of the musical to expand on elements of the original without the limitations of the stage. Instead of being confined to one space, movies offer a much wider range of visibility of the characters and the world they inhabit. Take Grease, Mamma Mia!, and Chicago as examples of beloved musicals with worldwide successful adaptations.
But just as we’ve seen in Wicked, especially in the second part, many film productions can’t resist the temptation of unnecessarily changing the original as they delve into the piece. If you were in a movie theater when you watched Wicked, you must’ve heard at least one theatre kid muttering that the stage version did that part better, that they shouldn’t have changed this dialogue, or added that song. As soon as details from the original piece begin to change, people will have something to say about it, for better or worse.
This is obviously not the first time there has been criticism over the changes in a film adaptation of a musical. Dear Evan Hansen, Into the Woods, and Les Misérables are just a few examples of musicals with film adaptations that were rejected by fans (and everyone who has seen Cats is still traumatized by the experience).
Cats via TUNE - Musical Moments
The second, and, in the opinion of theater kids, a better way to adapt a musical production to the screen, is by not adapting it at all. Many, if not all, Broadway productions these days make a point to record the original show during its run. Called a “pro-shot” of the musical. That proshot is a perfect “adaptation” in itself, which many musical theatre enthusiasts will be happy to see as its own movie.
A perfect and most popular example of that is Hamilton.
Holding the record of the fastest Broadway musical to reach one billion dollars in revenue, Hamilton is known worldwide. Despite its obvious success in-house, Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator, still ensured that a proshot of the musical was released on Disney+ in 2020 and again in movie theaters this last fall. This adaptation provided those who never got to see the show live with exactly what they wished for: the recording of the original Broadway cast performing the musical live on stage. No additions or changes were made, just the musical, almost as one would see it if they spent thousands of dollars on travel and tickets. So simple yet so smart.
Other musicals have done the same as Hamilton, and they all got the appreciation they deserved. Waitress, Next to Normal, and most recently, Merrily We Roll Along, all provided people around the world a chance to glimpse at their musical theatre production in its true form from the comfort of their own movie theaters and homes.
This accessibility only encourages more people to make the effort and support live theatre in the flesh. Hamilton remains one of the most profitable musicals on Broadway, even though it is offered to anyone with a Disney+ subscription. Plus, Wicked on Broadway has seen its best year in the box office thanks to the movie release of Wicked: Part 1. These adaptations have actually proven to be an asset to the Broadway production! A fact that leads a wider audience of fans to ask for more proshots of other productions, introducing them to more beautiful and often underrated musicals.
Wicked gave us two wonderful movies. Despite the criticism, they did justice and honored the original musical just as it should, and their worldwide recognition introduced the musical theatre world to many who never showed interest in it before. If Wicked taught us anything, it’s that bringing Broadway to the screen isn’t just good for fans, it’s good for the art form. It keeps musicals alive, accessible, and part of the cultural conversation. And since we love the original musicals just as they are, often giant movie productions aren’t necessary. All we need is the original stage production shot professionally, then handed to us on the big screen, and we are good to go.
Via LuminousDagger, aelinsrvne
