(Untitled)

[centaur]

So I need everyone's help.  I was going to take Russian Blockbusters right?  Well it turns out Russian blockbusters are depressing.  So new plan, I have a private reading on creating plays out of novels.  Of course a huge part of this is going to be reading plays and the novels they're created out of.  So if you have any idea of any plays I should

Comments

some ideas

[faerykat]

Isaiah suggests Dracula, Dangerous Liaisons

I suggest The Phantom of the Opera (not all versions are musical!), One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The Secret Garden

Wikipedia suggests The Wizard of Oz, His Dark Materials, Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead

Also there are, of course, the Greek dramas and the medieval passion plays

We will continue thinking, but right now it's late and we're out of ideas. Great idea for a reading, though!

for starters. . .

[altoone]

In all cases, the movie came later.

Harold and Maude (Colin Higgins)

The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (Herman Wouk)

Billy Liar (Keith Waterhouse)

If you haven't seen the movie Billy Liar (with Tom Courtenay), rent it right this minute.

and furthermore

[altoone]

The longest-running . . . Mousetrap (Agatha Christie).

The Color Purple (Alice Walker) novel-->film-->stage play (that count?)

moreover, . . .

[altoone]

The Wizard of Oz (L. Frank Baum) Not The Wiz; there was a stage play in 1902.

Raisin in the Sun (Lorraine Hansberry)

You could write a dissertation on the dramatic offspring of Frankenstein (Mary Shelley). "By 1826 Frankenstein had been dramatised in burlesque and melodramatic forms fifteen times"
(http://members.inode.at/359743/frankenstein/frankenstein-theatre.htm), and we're not even talking Mel Brooks.

A one-act version (!) of Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky) is playing in Hollywood as we speak.

Another up-to-the-minute example: The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison) opened last week at the Long Wharf Theatre.

Finally (for tonight anyway), The Satanic Verses (Salman Rushdie) is being adapted for the stage.* God help us.
*Does that make it a play?

[roseblack]

Well, you're trying to avoid musicals, but this is a funny tidbit anyway: I'm pretty sure that the National Theatre in London made a musical out of the His Dark Materials trilogy a few years back.

[centaur]

It's actually a play and the reviews were pretty good. The only reason I'm not tackling it is because its three books to one play, which doesn't seem intelligent timewise.