There was a backer's reading of this... I didn't even know one was in the works, but I admit, it's not a bad idea... http://broadwayworld.com/article/EXCLUSIVE-Chenoweth-Stamos-Krakowski-Milioti-More-Set-for-SOAP-DISH-THE-MUSICAL-Reading-20121017

I gotta get tickets for this!!!

Ha well it'll be a while--usually productions don't go up till at least a year after such readings to get interest and funding--and who knos of Stamos and others will still be attached, but...

Argh! Who do I have to screw/marry/kill to get an original musical made? Everything is a movie knockoff these days.

I wonder if it has a song called "He Doesn't Have A Head".

I totally forgot that this was happening. I heard about this last year.

Yeah, I guess it had a reading a few years back in London, as well. And others have pointed out that Doesn't Have a Head screams musical number

Marceline, normally I'd agree with you--most of these movies to musicals have been busts (though it's not really a new phenomenon--the 60s were filled with them too, including classics like Promises Promises, Sweet Charity, Zorba, Cabaret--based more on the movie version of I Am a Camera than anything else--and epic flops like Breakfast at Tiffany's with Mary Tyler Moore or La Strada with Bernadette Peters). It just seems more cynical now. Still, I admit, in this case I think there's potential...

Edited October 17, 201213 yr by EricMontreal22

Won't most of this seem very badly out of date?

Won't most of this seem very badly out of date?

Given that by the time it makes it to the stage there may only be two soaps left on the air?

Some people have mentioned that--and someone said they're toying with, amongst many changes, an added desperation about trying to stay on the air with more gimmicks. I wonder, given the cast, if this is just something Robert Harling (who talked about a musical version 5+ years back) has brought up to work with some of his CGB stars. He wrote Soap Dish (the best thing he ever wrote, by far IMHO--I found CGB pretty awful and forced, and I never got the love for Steel Magnolias, though it does work better in his original stage version, it's extremely mediocre), and is doing the stage version.

The film itself was a bit out of date--while about a daytime soap it obviously is mocking more the Dynasty style of 80s primetime soap IMHO which by '92 or whenever the film came out were falling out of favour, but of course they were more current in people's minds.

I do like the songwriting team, though, who have yet to have US success (unless you count their ok new songs for Mary Poppins on stage, but nobody sees that show for their material, obviously)--but have done some superior scores for smaller musicals, this seems to suit their style.

I remember admiring a few of the soap actors who, instead of going along with easy PR, said, "This has nothing to do with daytime soaps."

If it has John Stamos I can't see myself watching it.

I am against this.

This is reminding me of the The First Wives Club musical that never made it to Broadway.

Sometimes a movie (like the two aforementioned) are just such fun campy perfection that they need not be touched. I just think it cheapens the overall impact of the source material. Oh whatever, maybe it'll be great.

But a musical of a film satirizing a television medium, it's all a little too meta for me.

So whatever happened to the novella-esque Soapdish reboot they've been talking about?

*sits and waits for the She-Devil and Death Becomes Her musical announcements*

(and *DEAD* at the young man who commented from Facebook at the bottom of the article, like, of course)

Edited October 17, 201213 yr by SFK

Ha well First Wives Club proved to truly be amateur hour, more so even than messes like 9 to 5 (which, while a flop, seems to be doing well on tour thanks to Dolly's name). If you haven't youtubed some clips of Club, you MUST.

The whole idea of making these musicals so many years after the movies came out seems odd to me unless the original movies were timeless. First Wives Club was not (I thought it sucked and I think it mostly just got attention because of the stars and the timing), and Soapdish is also of that era. Even a musical version of something like When Harry Met Sally might make more sense.

I agree about First Wives Club (sorry SFK ) but actually I disagree on the other front. It's often a more interesting show (when it comes to musical adaptations) when it's done from a movie that has been out of the public consciousness for a while, and so a fresh angle can be taken without the old "worry' that fans will object.