USA Today’s Elysa Gardner interviewed me and Andrew Lippa about Big Fish and the influx of movie-based dramas on Broadway this season:
“The musicals that have been very successful with audiences over time are generally the ones that traffic in big emotions,” notes Lippa, whose credits as a composer and lyricist range from Broadway’s The Addams Family to the darker, more reflective The Wild Party. “You don’t see a comedy a second time, because the jokes aren’t as funny, mostly. But people have gone back to see Les (Miserables) five, six times.”
Lord knows I hope he’s right. In Chicago, I met women who saw Big Fish five times in five weeks.
It’s usually comedies that get adapted for the stage: The Producers, Legally Blonde, Priscilla Queen of the Desert. This year, in addition to Big Fish, we have upcoming adaptions of The Bridges of Madison County, Rocky, and A Time to Kill.