BS: LOTR-The Musical?

Subject: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: GUEST
Date: 28 May 03 - 05:32 PM

Well, who would have believed it? Dancing frodos? Singing Nazguls? A prancing Gandalf???

Well according to the following article it is coming: click here

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 28 May 03 - 06:27 PM

That high-pitched whine you're hearing is JRR spinning in his grave...

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 May 03 - 06:36 PM

Anywhere I can place a bet that it's going to be a total flop?

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: Giac
Date: 28 May 03 - 06:51 PM

Doubt you'd get any takers, McGrath.

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: GUEST,original guest (amergin)
Date: 28 May 03 - 06:56 PM

that is almost as disgusting as the amount of money they're going to spend to bring it about.

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 May 03 - 07:01 PM

To do any sort of presentation of LOTR on stage, without radical plot cuts, you'd have to do a LONG play--much longer than in the movie, because of the necessity of moving people on and off stage, shifting scenery, et cetera. I can't imagine it in less than five hours, and probably a lot more than that. I don't think it will make it to actual opening, and if it does it will have a very short run.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: Giac
Date: 28 May 03 - 07:04 PM

and if it does it will have a very short run.

If the gods be merciful, Uncle DaveO.

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 28 May 03 - 07:07 PM

Well if Wagner can have a Ring that goes on for hours, why not Prof. Tolkien?


LTS

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 May 03 - 07:11 PM

I was thinking Wagner. But, compared to Lord of the Rings, that is comic book stuff, so far as the plot is concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: mouldy
Date: 29 May 03 - 02:54 AM

The LOTR addict that lurks in the pit upstairs said it'd never work, when I told her about it. Then in the next breath announced that she'd find some way to go and see it.
(I have visions of a chorus of tap-dancing orcs...thigh-slapping heroic figures...urghh!)

Andrea

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 29 May 03 - 04:43 AM

But the thought of all those beautiful elves in ballet tights... now that is something else!!!

Of course, the Dwarf would be the 'Dame'.... you can never tell if a dwarf is male or female anyway, so it won't matter!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: DMcG
Date: 29 May 03 - 05:56 AM

I can't help thinking of Mel Brooke's 'The Producers' for this one. "Springtime for Nazguls", anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: JJ
Date: 29 May 03 - 08:29 AM

Just in case anyone wonders who's writing the bugger (which sounds like a bad idea gone wrong):

"The Lord of the Rings will feature music by Stephen Keeling and Bernd Stromberger and a book and lyrics by Shaun McKenna. (Keeling and McKenna previously collaborated on the musical Maddie, which premiered at the Salisbury Playhouse in 1996 and moved to the Lyric Theatre the following year.)"
==========

Who can tell us anything about MADDIE?

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 May 03 - 08:29 AM

The recent UK stage production of The Hobbit, while not quite a musical, had its share of singing and dancing. I was a bit unsure how it would work but work it did - and very well!

The few songs were in right place and appropriate and the dance sequence put a smile on the face of even an old curmugeon like me! (It was the feast at Beorns house BTW.)

Still - like everyone above I would be very wary of trying it with a tale of such epic proportions as LOTR!

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: Hollowfox
Date: 29 May 03 - 10:28 AM

Why don't they start with something a bit shorter like, say, the Old Testament? Of course, this mal open the way for a revival of Beowulf--the Rock Musical. Yes, it does exist.

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 29 May 03 - 12:50 PM

Actually, I don't react badly to the idea of a musical of The Hobbit at all, and I gather it has been done. But The Hobbit, as we all know, is MUCH lighter, simpler, and of course, shorter than LOTR.

If you want music and singing with LOTR, seems to me it's got to be an opera. I still don't like that, but that's at least partially because I'm an opera-hater. And it's still going to be too long.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 29 May 03 - 03:23 PM

Lord of the Ring of the Neiblung?

I can just see the Ents come striding into Isengard to the strains of Das Valkyrie.....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 29 May 03 - 04:11 PM

I will only like go t os ee it if Shania Twain gets the main role eh? Like as Arwen maybe. I would be willing to play opoosite her if it comes to Blind River or Sudbury. Acshally, anywere if they pay me travel expenses eh?

- BDiBR

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: mouldy
Date: 30 May 03 - 03:06 AM

The Lurker and Orlando Bloom groupie upstairs is hoping he gets to reprise his part, as she says he went to Guildhall and is apparently trained in the art of the musical...

A friend last night said that he could stomach the idea of a musical as long as Lloyd-Webber didn't get his claws into it!

Andrea

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: JJ
Date: 30 May 03 - 08:37 AM

Hollowfox, is that the version of BEOWULF that came out of Canada in the late 70s?

I saw that particular rock opera in NYC back then, an Off Off Broadway mounting by AMAS Musical Theatre, and most odd it was...

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: Hollowfox
Date: 30 May 03 - 09:43 AM

I dunno. I found it in Books in Print a few years back, and got it on interlibrary loan. I think I had better lyrics in mind than the ones they had. I wanted something like:

"We're drinking in the mead-hall,
We're all gonna die!"

Anyway, it's still in print.
Beowulf: a Rock Musical
by Ken Pickering
I.E. Calrk Publications
1986
ISBN 0-88680-248-2
$4.50 trade paperback (yes, four dollars and fifty cents, according to BIP)

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: artbrooks
Date: 30 May 03 - 09:58 AM

How about the elves doing a slow (but tasteful!) strip, to the sounds of tamburs, zils and a bass sax?

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: GUEST,Julia
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 11:18 PM

This is amazing! At our recent Tolkien party (costumes and food a la Middle Earth) we were speculating on a Broadway production. Of course all the songs would be to the tune of famous broadway songs- "Uruk hai" (Bali hai- South Pacific) for example
BTW I played harp for a musical production of Beowulf about five years ago. It was Celtic harp, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, viola, flute, vocals and a huge pile of ethnic percussion!! Way cool

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 01:28 PM

Puts me in mind of when I heard Disney {{shudder}}} was making a cartoon version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"...I couldn't help wondering what might be next: "The Tin Drum"? "The Jungle"? "Sophie's Choice"?

Dumb, dumb, dumb...

D.

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 01:36 PM

It's very sad this thing is still going forward....

Subject: RE: BS: LOTR-The Musical?
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 03:39 PM

I think that many would go to see it and that it would inevitably flop. First of all, it takes place over an awful long period of time. The best musicals are condensed into a more immediate time frame. Also, the special effects onstage can never equal what the movie has.

The idea of musicalizing LOTR is not new. I had friends who did this
in a workshop on musical writing that I attended in LA.

What possibly could make it work is a sub-plot involving the Elf romance or the other heroic characters but my guess is that it would be written as a flat oddysey which without comparitive movie effects could prove boring. How much dry ice or projections can you use before going to sleep? Besides, it compares in length to the other Ring that Wagner popularized. For this reason, it might make an opera. Maybe in segments like the Niebelung.

One bad reason to write a musical is that someone thinks it could make a lot of money rather than be a good musical. Broadway has dropped a lot of money to prove that point.

Harry Potter the Musical next?

Frank