Could My Own Private Idaho be adapted into a musical?

Hasn't there been enough shit on Broadway?

NO. I can't imagine that story with any other actors. Leave it alone.

It's amazing OP wants to make that movie even gayer by turning it into a Broadway musical!

Looking forward to the big tap number (or is it nap?) about narcolepsy.

no OP, fuck that shit. Trust you to want to commodify a story about teen poverty and prostitution.

Oh, Jesus. Please don't give the Bway producers any ideas....

"My Own Private Idaho" is to "Henry IV" as "Dawson's 50 Load Weekend" is to "Romeo and Juliet."

If you can’t improve on it don’t musicalize it.

r8, if that held true, there wouldn't be a "West Side Story."

Not if it's musicalized in the same way we are seeing everywhere.

Given that this is a dark story, the composer should be someone with a lot of gravitas that isn't going to turn this into another Dear Evan Hansen.

R10, I was thinking something like Les Mis or Chess.

I could see all the boywhores singing Hard Knock Life.

Or Lovely Ladies, R12

It could use a dream ballet.

I would only watch if Lizzo has a flute solo.

Les Mis is too grandiose to be a good model.

It's too bad that there aren't enough good musicals and composers to be able to fantasize about turning a story this dark into a musical.

Something for addicts.

Something for sad dicks.

Something for johns and tricks.

Some heroin tonight!

R16, what about Miss Saigon? Not as grandiose, but still just as poignant?

LOL, R17!

But imagine the fabulous number with Hans and the lamp shade!!

R16 I would think the team behind Fun Home would be a better model of possibilities.

Aaron Tveit in the River Phoenix role???

Musicals are do the light of mind

I'd rather see " Cats." Again and again.

The problem with most musicals is the tendency for the composition and the singing to be sounding "brassy" like how they feel Classic Broadway always was.

I wish this would stop. Sondheim had the right idea, but he was one bright light in a sea of brassy tacky children.

"It's a hard fuck life. For me!

Nothing but dicks, you. Can see!

Stick it in and out for a fee.

Take another prick pic for all to seeeee!" - the Porn Orphan Ensemble

If they make Idaho into a musical, I am done with all of you. Gay culture has turned into garbage.

I think Udo Kier's little number in the original film should stay intact, though. The one where he sings into the lamp about whatever he was on about (something about Tokyo! Moscow!). One of the best moments in the film.

I think a musical that had a fair amount of this creepy vibe throughout might be a good idea.

Considering the subject matter, I think it would work better as an opera.

It seems like the sort of think that Matthew Bourne could do if he wanted to stretch himself beyond pure dance theater.

Brokeback might work better, with a twangy score & Ben Platt singing "I Wish I Knew How to Quit You!"

Maybe if Wagner were still alive... (opera)

There already is a Brokeback opera

Any story can be musicalized. Some stories are just much harder than others to do well.

In the hands of a master, Idaho could be chillingly brilliant. Give it to a hack to write, however, and you get what you deserve.

R34, I am not sure if I should have you define “musicalized” or “just much harder” (as in “near impossible” perhaps?)

I used to know John Kander in the 1980s. One time he went on a riff about shows that could be made into musicals and those that could not. He gave The Miracle Worker as an example of a show that might work as an opera, or even a ballet, but not a musical. He proved his point decades later with The Visit. The German musical version of The Visit doesn’t solve the problem either. Gottfried von Einem’s opera doesn’t really work, in my opinion, even though Dürrenmatt is the librettist.

Also, since you said, “any story”, biographic musicals are a real problem. Funny Girl, Mack and Mable, Roadshow, and The Scottsboro Boys all fail because real life may be dramatic, but it doesn’t have a dramatic arc.

I hope not, OP. I've hated that "film-to-Broadway musical" trend since it really took off more than a decade ago.

Then you must loathe "The King and I"

The end result would resemble "Be More Chill."

It would be a huge hit--specially since I know just the guy to play the Keanu Reeves part! He's hunky and sensitive, and he's even gay!

"Clean, Little Dutch Boy!" would be a show-stopper.

[quote] "Then you must loathe "The King and I"

Why, R37? It was a show that became a film. Multiple films, actually. It didn't start as a film which transferred to the stage, which was the trend I referenced.

And for the record, it isn't my favorite, but I don't mind "The King & I".

R41, before it was a Broadway show, it was a movie called Anna and the King of Siam.

It even with half price tickets…

I get Viktor’s haircut, but what was the symbolism of Alison cutting her hair?