All tagged The Sound of Music Live
This week we will finally get to see the next live musical on television: Hairspray. Since its announcement earlier this year, I have been eager with anticipation for three reasons. First, I think it is a good choice for the live television treatment since it is a vibrant, energetic and family-friendly piece with a lot of messages that are particularly pertinent right now. Second, the film version starring John Travolta left me feeling unsatisfied, as if the fun had been drained from the piece. Finally, and perhaps foremost, I think Harvey Fierstein's indelible performance as the blossoming Edna Turnblad needs to be preserved for posterity.
The Wiz was an unqualified hit for NBC and what has become their annual holiday LIVE! musical. In fact, it was so much better than its predecessors The Sound of Music and Peter Pan that it has injected a little more life into this teetering series that is always on the brink of extinction, dependent on ratings and an assured audience made up of musical theatre enthusiasts (are we a dying breed?). Let’s face it: if they make a musical, we will come. Those of us who love musicals in any format will show up and give it a try, but live musical television counts on a much larger crowd getting on the bandwagon.
With the TV-Live adaptation of The Wiz set to “Ease on Down the Road” tonight, I thought it would be fun to go back and look at the Broadway musicals made into TV productions/movies over the last 25 years. Some of them have been terrific and others have had their problems. Still, we always tune in and give them a chance with the hope that we will be delighted and transported by compelling staging, unique interpretations, spot-on casting and, of course, to support such endeavors so that they will continue to be produced. Here are the TV musical adaptations of the last 25 years, ranked from (in this writer’s opinion) from the worst to the best:
Considering the final products of both the LIVE television productions of The Sound of Music and Peter Pan in the last two years, I probably wouldn’t wish this format on any musical. I do, however, think that taking musicals with iconic, beloved film or television versions and recreating them as live television productions is just asking for trouble. People adore Julie Andrews’s in The Sound of Music, Carrie Underwood as Maria Von Trapp was bound to pale in comparison, no matter how hard she tried.
