I've been thinking a lot about this recently. How many shows are there out there that are truly, 100%, based off of no previous base. Of the shows I have seen, a vast majority have been based off a person's life, a book, a movie, music from a band, or other pre-made storyline. Can you think of any shows not previously based off of anything? All I have right now is WSS and N2N..
Company Follies Anyone Can Whistle Pacific Overtures Sunday in the Park with George Into the Woods (more or less) Assassins (Do you see a common thread here?)
MarkBearSF: Sunday in the Park with George is based on (or inspired by) a painting. Assassins is based off of actual people. Into the Woods revolves almost entirely around already conceived plot lines (at least the first act.)
Company was based on a series of one act plays George Furth had already written.
If we go by the OP's criteria he is not even looking for bio or historical musicals.
I took it to mean fictional works that weren't based on anything or anyone in history, or any book, movie, play etc.
As far as I know these would qualify: Pippin Plain and Fancy Urinetown Robber Bridgegroom (was this a play first?) The Rink The Act Glory Days The Story of My Life Got Tu Go Disco 13 Do Re Mi All American Darling of the Day Celebration Drat! The Cat! Via Galactica
Ok. I'm confused. Is the OP asking about shows NOT based on any previous piece, or based on pieces that are NOT based on a book, movie, or band, but are based on something ELSE? Cuz SITPWG is based on a painting, of sorts.
This thread is giving a headache, and it's not anyone's fault (or basis)
"Based on" and "inspired by" are two different things. If you go with "inspired by" and "based on" as the same thing, there is no such thing as an original musical. They've all been inspired by something. An idea, an illness, a relative, an event, a person, a painting, a photograph, an emotion.
If you go with "based on" a previous artistic (or at least a narrative) work, like a book, movie, play, then you'll have a clearer answer. If you want to say that a painting or a photograph is a "narrative work," then you can exclude both Sunday in the Park and Follies. I would rather say they were inspired by the painting and the photo, since the narrative story in question isn't part of the artistic source material, it's part of the authors' imaginations.
The Robber Bridegroom is based on the novel of the same name by Eudora Welty.
Sure I'm wrong about a few of these but here goes:
Avenue Q, Bye Bye Birdie, Hair, Caroline, or Change, Falsettos, City of Angels, Urinetown, The Drowsy Chaperone, I Love My Wife, Me And My Girl, On A Clear Day, Grease, Anything Goes, Dubarry Was A Lady, Passing Strange, Chess, Lady in the Dark, Oh, Kay, Of Thee I Sing, Plain and Fancy, They're Playing Our Song, Bells Are Ringing, Jamaica, Redhead, Milk and Honey, No Strings, Stop the World - I Want to Get Off, Hallelujah, Baby, Babes n Arms, How Now, Do w Jones, The Me Nobody Knows, Ain't Supposed to Die A Natural Death, A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine, Sugar Babies, Pump Boys, Baby, Sarafina!, Steel Pier, The 25th Annual Putna..,, Curtains
Robber Bridgegroom (was this a play first?)- Based on novella of same name Got Tu Go Disco- liberal variation on Cinderella All American - Based on novel, Professor Fodorski Darling of the Day - Based on novel, Buried Alive
If you want to say that a painting or a photograph is a "narrative work," then you can exclude both Sunday in the Park and Follies.
IIRC, THE GIRLS UPSTAIRS (or whatever it was called) went through years of drafts (and other directors and producers) before Prince discovered the Swanson photo. The photo was the director's "doorway" into the material, not the inspiration for the material itself.
I think any of us who have done the sometimes tedious work of constructing a narrative will agree that a mere notion or the existence of an historical figure is not a true source for adaptation.
Now if the painter Georges Seurat really had a mistress named Dot who married a baker named Louie and emigrated to the States, that would be another matter. (I don't mean the names are important so much as the actions.) THEN I would consider it an adaptation.
There have been numerous musicals about kings of France. Few have been based on anything more than the name of an heir or a single (and probably apocryphal) incident with a consort. I'd call those "originals", too.
The MARVIN musicals are great examples, but some of the definitions employed here are so strict one would have to claim the second two plays were "adapted" from the first.
Likewise, Firth's 20-some plays on marriage were not produced before a few were combined to become the book of COMPANY, so that, too, is an "original" musical.
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Posted: 9/6/12 at 06:30pm