Film-to-Stage Musicals

From Sweet Charity and Beauty and the Beast to Once and Mean Girls; discover how Broadway took inspiration from Hollywood.Musical theatre creatives have long used pre-existing stories as inspiration for many of Broadway and the West End's biggest hits. In recent decades, popular films from Some Like it Hot to Back to the Future to Legally Blonde have increasingly been adapted and musicalized for the stage.Film-to-Stage Musicals offers a detailed historical record and analysis of popular Broadway and West End musicals adapted from films. Tracing the practice from lesser-known, often non-English movies that allowed for creative liberties in adaptation to the recent trend of leveraging a film's existing popularity and fan base, this book explores how these shifts have shaped Broadway's artistic and commercial landscape, balancing creative reinterpretation with commercial expectations.Published in Methuen Drama's Essential Musicals series, Film-to-Stage Musicals explores the evolving relationship between film and theatre and offers a structured survey of this significant musical theatre subgenre, ideal for students and those wishing to deepen their understanding of the form.