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[0:00] David Armstrong: Welcome to another episode of Broadway Nation, the podcast that takes you deep inside the history of the Broadway musical, with a special emphasis on the immigrant Jewish queer and black artist who invented it. It's my great pleasure today to welcome author Adam Rush to the podcast, whose latest book is titled Adaptation in Musical Theatre. Adam is a program leader and senior lecturer in musical theatre at the University of Winchester in the UK, and you may remember him from his previous appearance on this podcast when he and his co-author Millie Taylor joined me to discuss their book, Musical Theatre Histories: Expanding the Narrative. Hello, Adam. Welcome back to Broadway Nation.

[0:49] Adam Rush: Amazing. Thanks so much, David. It's lovely to be back. So excited to talk to you about all of this stuff.

[0:53] David Armstrong: I really enjoyed reading this book, and I look forward to hearing more about it now. This is another in a series of very small format books from Matthew and Drama that are billed as, quote, short introductions to significant theories, concepts, forms, and elements of musical theatre. How did this book come about, and how did it end up as part of this series?

[1:17] Adam Rush: This interest I've had in musicals, recycling other things and it being core to the form has been sort of my main academic interest since I started having academic interest. So it kind of grew out of all sorts of things. My initial undergraduate dissertation was on adaptation, and that became a PhD in textuality. I just have always had this fascination with the fact that musicals don't just come from nowhere, that they're always engaging with other forms of popular culture and the way it crosses over. The work was going to be a much longer book, but I found that the kind of one nagging piece of work that I really wanted to do, which is the undercurrent of this, and it's what I use to set up the book, is just this broader perception that's, I would trace in the book, kind of always been around, but it's definitely been around kind of in the time I've been going to the theatre over the last 20, 30 years, is that there are so many high profile shows that are adaptations and have automatically been dismissed by some form of audience.

You know, and you continue to read to this day for the last 20 years, all sorts of, particularly from the critics, there's so many articles about the musical being dead and that here's another Disney adaptation, here's another musical based on a film, and isn't it just terrible? And aren't these just bad musicals? This was really my response to that, to really kind of, in many ways, defend that trend and actually say, well, say many things, but one of them is that adaptation is so core to musical theatre, so why is it, why are we dismissing it now?

[2:56] David Armstrong: No, I love that you jumped into it, because that actually was where I was going to start this conversation, is the idea of the musical being dead, which we hear over and over again, and of course, we've heard that for the entire history of the Broadway musical, basically. There's always been predictions that the musical was dying, and of course, that the theatre itself is dying. I don't know, you may not remember this series called I, Claudius, which I think it was a BBC series originally, but it's set in ancient Rome, of course, it's about the Emperor Claudius, and one thing that I always remember about that is, I think in the very first episode, there's discussion of the theatre and somebody says, well, the theatre isn't what it used to be, which I always thought was hilarious, because of course, the setting is ancient Rome. But that idea persists. Talk a little bit more about that. Why is the death of the theatre tied to adaptation in so many people's minds?

[3:52] Adam Rush: I think that what's ultimately happening, sort of from the 90s onwards, really, I would say the major shift is, well, two things. There's been a major shift around the commercialism of the form, in terms of, you know, changing the production models. And so we're seeing a lot more, you know, much more commercial producers, much more corporate producers. You know, I've already mentioned Disney, you know, we know that many major musicals are now being produced by film corporations. We've moved away from the model of David Merrick in the States or Cameron Mackintosh in the UK, these single one-man band producers, and we're instead, and we have done for decades now, seen, you know, these shows that are really not only being produced by lots of people, because of that, the types of shows are in some ways shifting to just be much more commercial choices.

What gets wrapped up in that is an assumption that the issue is what's being adapted, or an automatic assumption that because what's being adapted is so well known, that there's automatically a problem there. You know, if we jump back to, you know, the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein, all of their shows are adaptations, you know, pretty much. And in fact, the ones that weren't adaptations are the ones that failed for the most part.

[5:05] David Armstrong: Absolutely. What is the major difference between Oklahoma being an adaptation versus The Lion King being an adaptation? In many ways, it's not maybe what we see on stage, it's everything around it that's changed. And somehow within that, the perception has kind of all got a little bit warped in some senses. And it is this idea of, you know, these cash-in shows. And I think what has happened along the way is it's become such an easy target that the artistry of these shows has been kind of ignored. And in some of these reviews you might read, no one really cares about what's happening on stage. It's just about, you know, the way in which the show is marketed or framed, or how it's connected to these major brands.

And so what I really wanted to do with this book was kind of, yeah, go behind the curtain as it were, and explore some of these shows. And there's still many, many more commercial, more high-profile shows I could look at, and actually say, and look and think about, are these shows really sort of these artistic things that we should just forget? Surely there's something to these shows that's meaning they're being performed time and time again. Beyond that, everyone knows where they come from. One thing I would add to that, or really two things really, is that one of the big differences is they used to change the name of the source material to the show. Hello, Dolly! is of course based on a famous play, a hit play, but they didn't call it The Matchmaker, the musical.

And so I think that adds to this feeling that corporations or others are just cashing in and just trying to repurpose the way they do. Part of this, I think, also comes from the way films are made. Everything is a sequel. Everything is reusing. I hate the term IP. I appreciate that you didn't use that term very much in your book. I think it diminishes the source material in a way, but that corporations are trying to just recycle things they already own and make more money out of something they owned. Sometimes that is happening, I think, in the musical theater, but your book expands beyond that sort of limited point of view. I personally could point to a few shows like Beetlejuice, I think especially, or Back to the Future that just seem sort of crass attempts to provide the audience with a nostalgic recycling of something that they want to see again, because they try to put it on stage as closely as possible to the film experience, just with some songs added to it.

But your book goes well beyond that, I think, what is sort of a limited view of adaptation. And in fact, you know, as you say, most musicals for the history of the Broadway musical have been adaptations. In my book, I trace this all the way back to the Princess musicals, which really started this idea of, let's start with a play that works, with a story that works, and turn that into a musical. And that became the template for, you know, 125 years or so.

[7:54] Adam Rush: Yeah, absolutely. Interestingly, talking about those more modern shows, I haven't seen Beetlejuice, I'm seeing the London production next week. Thank you. I found Back to the Future interesting, because you might put the argument, as I guess what we're discussing is whether it holds up as a musical on its own is because I don't really have much connection with Back to the Future, the film. And it's not a film that I grew up on, it's not really something I have much connection to, apart from I know what it is. And I think there were times when I saw that show, where I found it quite isolating, because there were things that audiences were laughing at, that I just didn't get. And I just felt like humour was so tied into that original film, it just didn't speak to me.

And I wonder if there's an element of that too, is all these source texts being opened up and pushed out in a new way, which I think lots of the works I look at in the book do. And maybe, as you say, yeah, I would, I would be inclined to agree that, you know, I've tried to be as optimistic as possible in the book about opening up lots of these shows. But that's not to say that there aren't many that probably do completely fall into these traps. But I wonder how long they will, what kind of life they will have. Legally Blonde, which is one of my main case studies, is 20 years old next year, you know, still performed everywhere. I'm not sure that once the Back to the Future hits the amateur market, for example, it is going to have this life, you know, it will have its big productions and, you know, it won't exist without that big commercial backing, potentially.

I'll be intrigued. It'll be very interesting to see. I think you're very likely right. As you say, you have three selected case studies in this book. There's Legally Blonde, Fun Home, and Wicked. But you also delve into a wide range of musicals from Showboat to even Beetlejuice, as mentioned in your book. And the first chapter is titled An Original Musical. This addresses that idea we were just talking about, which you hear a lot these days, that the problem with Broadway is that we should have more original musicals. Talk a little bit about that, where that comes from and why and how your book addresses that.

[9:53] Adam Rush: Absolutely. So this was another one of those kind of key issues that kind of bugged me, really, is this idea, this kind of myth, arguably, that originality, you know, that's the thing that's died. You know, you'd go and see these shows that were so original. And I think what's really interesting, and hopefully the book tries to separate, is that there's differences between the content and the form and the structure. And they have really two interesting relationships, is that arguably, if we trace back a really basic history of musical theatre form, it's the form that's changed. It's the amount of song or the amount of dance or the way the story that's changed. But actually, you know, the telling of story and the recycling of an existing story to do that hasn't really changed.

But yet, when we think about originality, often people really cling to that idea of source material. And so, yeah, one of the simple things that that chapter tries to do is really just try to dispel that assumption and also try to really open it out in terms of what are we actually saying about original musicals and what does that term mean? As I say, it often gets really tied up with the story that's being told. An example that I mentioned very briefly in the book is The Book of Mormon. If we're saying that an original musical is one in which this story itself has never been told before, then yes, The Book of Mormon is an original musical. You know, Elder Cunningham and Elder Price, they don't exist in a film version or a book or anywhere else.

However, if we go and watch The Book of Mormon, we're spending two and a half hours being, you know, all sorts of unoriginal ideas are being thrown at us, references to The Lion King, music that sounds like it comes from Disney or Wicked or references to all sorts of different stuff. It's a really intertextual and recycled and referenced show. So is it original then just because the basic storyline is new? So that's just one example of the idea of originality just being so complex in musical theatre because as an art form, you know, it's been described as that kind of Frankenstein monster of all these bits and bobs and parts thrown together. And therefore that's what musical theatre is at its core.

It can't ever be original because it's always blending lots of different elements with all sorts of different histories and kind of cultural baggage, if you like, that kind of comes with it. So that was, I guess, another kind of bugbear that I really wanted to unpick, that actually let's get rid of the word original. And one of the things that I kind of found through writing the book and I kind of set in stone was after that chapter, I'm not going to use the word original again. It's not helpful. There have been earlier books and there have been earlier films, but there is no true original that we're trying to trace.

[13:09] David Armstrong: Tell us a little bit about what you're delving with in that chapter.

[13:16] Adam Rush: Sure. So the first half of that chapter is, well, firstly, it's a sort of an overview of the kind of the academic field of adaptation, really, and thinking about how it's grown and expanded over years and decades, and certainly in the 21st century, become much more forward-thinking in terms of how adaptations aren't just simply judged from the basis of what was in the original or what was in the earlier version, and has that been maintained? How closely was that replicated?

[13:47] David Armstrong: Absolutely.

[13:47] Adam Rush: Yeah. How faithful was it to the original? It's funny, I'm still finding myself using the word original. It's so kind of like bound into how we talk about these things. So it kind of explores the way in which adaptation studies has kind of dismissed this idea of fidelity and moved beyond that to really actually explore how texts in the contemporary era are much more intricate and interesting in the way in which they negotiate with so many different texts and different forms of storytelling. I'm always intrigued to talk about an example of, you know, we talk about how many films are turned into musicals, but many films are also turned into computer games, for example. Well, how do you trace the adaptation of a computer game if every time somebody sits down to play it, they're going to have a different experience? How can you trace the fidelity between those two sources? That's such a different art form.

[14:38] David Armstrong: So anyway. And my question would be, why is fidelity even what anyone's trying to achieve? I would argue the best musical adaptations are when they reinvent the material to a great extent, which brings to your second part of your chapter, I think, which is about dramaturgy, which you say discussions of dramaturgy unpack the choices made by the creative team in telling a given story.

[15:00] Adam Rush: Yeah, absolutely. So that really delves into the issue that's ultimately often dismissed about what really interests me in that section is just trying to lay the groundwork for thinking about firstly, what is it that musical theatre does? How does it communicate? How are ideas communicated? You know, an example in that section is Les Miserables, and it uses the very simple example that Fontaine's backstory in the novel is a massive chapter, and in the musical, she sings the song, "I Dreamed a Dream." They communicate at totally different speeds. One might take you three days to read, one you listen to for three minutes, but they communicate very differently, and they express very differently, and they ultimately probably communicate quite different ideas as well.

The kind of stereotype or assumption around musicals, and song in particular, is of course they're driven by emotion. We get more of Fontaine's emotional expression when she sings the song versus Victor Hugo's description of her life and her background.

[15:30] ♪ Musical number: "I Dreamed a Dream" ♪

[16:57] David Armstrong: I thought that was a really insightful observation that this giant chapter in a book can be very artfully condensed by expert musical theatre writers into one song and basically accomplish the exact same thing, at least in theatrical terms and at least in terms of what we can accommodate in a three-hour musical, which is already a long musical to begin with.

[17:22] Adam Rush: Absolutely. And again, it goes back to that idea of the vocabulary of the form. What is it that a musical does? You know, of course, we talk about the emotion of song and all of those elements, but we're also seeing a performer live in front of us in a setting that's been constructed artificially. You know, they communicate so differently, so differently to that experience of sitting there and reading the novel. And so it's about thinking about the shift in communication is so much bigger than this idea potentially of kind of streamlining it down to, you know, they speak in this version or they speak in a film adaptation and in this version they're singing. There's so much more to it. There's so much more to the theatrical experience that actually having one person on stage on their own and the audience being told, this is your focus, this is what we're interested in.

We maybe take for granted some of those elements that when the show kind of stops and the character has a solo moment, we are just, by the very nature of what we're seeing, we are focused in and every word is being listened to in a very different way than if we, as you say, you know, if we were to read that element or, you know, maybe see it in a, you know, of course there's many non-musical film adaptations of Les Miserables. Again, tackling that same information, but so in a totally different way.

[18:32] David Armstrong: And I actually think more difficult to convey Fantine in dialogue than it is in song where we get to go inside her head in a way that you can do in a novel, but you can't really do in a film.

[18:44] Adam Rush: Totally. And, you know, she gets lost in everything else, you know, we're seeing her in her day-to-day life. And I guess there's also that slight element of, you know, most mainstream films are not going to, you know, they're realistic in their nature, you know, the dialogue is back and forth and it's conversational. A musical allows us to tap into information so much more directly, as you say, go inside her head. We're getting her perspective in that moment. Granted, it's using quite, you know, there's rhyme schemes and it's quite poetic language, but ultimately we're going, bam, this is the information that you need to take from it.

[19:15] David Armstrong: Absolutely. And I would also argue that the rhyme scheme and the poetic language is also informing her character as well, is revealing her character. Yeah. That's why sometimes I say musicals are realer than real, because they can go inside the characters and the story in a way that a more realistic, either a play or a movie can't do. So many more dimensions.

[19:37] Adam Rush: So many exactly layers. You know, that's one element, but also thinking about the theatricality of some of these stories, some of the films and the stories that are adapted, you know, they really speak to theatre. We of course know there's a long history of backstage musicals and, you know, musicals about putting on shows, but also, you know, is there elements within some of these stories that can be really overtly theatricalised? And so the example I give there, well, there's two, I believe. One is Priscilla Queen of the Desert, a musical that comes from a, you know, a classic camp Australian film all about drag queens. So it kind of has that sense of that theatricality, that flamboyance, that queerness is rooted in it, but that's extended even further on stage by adding further kind of theatrical characters.

It has this trio of divas that fly around the stage. So, you know, it leans into the theatricality of the work. The other one that I explore in a little bit more detail is Matilda. The idea around Matilda is of course all about storytelling in many ways. And so there's a whole theatrical element that's added to the stage adaptation of Matilda, which is about Matilda telling the story of these performers who end up being part of Miss Honey's story within the show. So ultimately what's being explored is this idea of are the writers digging into and trying to find what musical theatre or theatre does best? You know, is it leaning into what the music can do? And is the adaptation leaning into what the theatricality can do? And arguably some of the best examples are those ones that find new elements or find new ways of exploring old elements that are more theatrical.

[21:15] David Armstrong: Absolutely. And when I work with authors, if they're doing an adaptation, I'm often pushing them to figure out a way to achieve that story element in a way that was perfectly done on film, in a way that the stage can accommodate, which again is I think one of the reasons why we see this. I'll bring Back to the Future back up again. I mean, it culminated in a big movie sequence on film. It's like, well, that's just cheating in my book, number one, and a lack of theatrical imagination. I think they needed to figure out a way to tell the story on the stage with stage effects, not resort to showing us a movie at the climax of the story. All right, let's jump to chapter three from screen to stage. And this is where you focus on Legally Blonde. Why Legally Blonde? I'm sure you thought about what show you should focus on for this chapter. Why did you end up with Legally Blonde?

[22:09] Adam Rush: Because it's so good. And it's so difficult to answer because I feel like, and obviously I'm sure there are many people that don't think it's great, but I think there is something that's interesting about the way that it has, it still is continuing to be performed. And I think it's, for me, it's a really perfect example of being, you know, so similar to the original film, but also so different. It really creates and generates its own language and it's in a way, it completely stands alone. And for me, it has these really perfect examples. And it's probably one of the key reasons why I chose it of being able to say, you know, this is an example that knows that film exists and it knows that, you know, it knows that the source material comes from a film, but also it's completely theatricalized at the same time.

[22:53] David Armstrong: And it also acknowledges that most people in the audience will have seen the film, but it's not them trying to replicate that film.

[23:01] Adam Rush: Absolutely. And so, you know, there's some of the moments I talk about in the book are just those moments where the story is exactly the same and you might be watching it. If you hadn't seen the film that recently, you might just be like, oh, maybe this did happen in the film. The example that's springing to mind is the moment, probably 20 minutes in when Elle rocks up at Harvard and demands to go in to be enrolled on the law program. In the film version, it is a film. She sends in an audition tape, as it were, an entrance essay as a film. And, you know, we watch Reese Witherspoon in that film. In the show, the exact same moment happens, but instead she crashes through the doors of Harvard. She brings a ton of cheerleaders with her and we get this five-minute dance break.

[23:47] ♪ Musical number ♪

[24:56] Adam Rush: And so what we're not seeing is, you know, in many, many film stage musicals would probably have done that moment where they put in the videotape and we get a projected version of this great video and they would do it exactly the same. But what Legally Blonde has, and there are other musicals that will do this too, is it takes the exact same moment. It accomplishes all of the exact same plot points, but it does it in the most theatrical way possible.

[25:16] David Armstrong: Absolutely. Exactly what we were talking about. And I think that's a great example of theater artists creating theater and not trying to replicate the film. Talk a little bit about the Greek chorus, which I think is a unique aspect of that show as well. And again, smart theater writers thinking, what can we add to this? How can we bring a new element to the story that we can only do on stage?

[25:57] Adam Rush: Chorus, of course, stemming from Greek theater and, of course, used in musicals often quite dramatically. And what's so great about "Legally Blonde" is that it takes this really playful idea of the girls being part of the Delta Nu sorority, and they're part of this sorority system which uses Greek numerals. All of that kind of playful subtlety, which is missed by lots of audience members potentially, will certainly sound higher to look up in more detail, you know, having not studied in the States. But it takes that element and applies this kind of dramatic function to a group of cheerleaders, effectively, and it inserts them in the action in a way that doesn't exist in the film. We see Elle's friends at the start of the film, and then we see them appear at the end.

But actually, what we see in the musical is whenever there are these moments of change or indecision for Elle, her Greek chorus pops up, which just so happens to also be her best friends from back home. And it kind of allows the writers to just, again, really open the story, really open that work and say, "Okay, we want to add a lively ensemble number here, but we don't just want to add something random." It's, you know, how do we, you know, so threaded into the work. We know that numbers pop up at these moments of change in musicals, but what we've got is this great other additional element here that's sort of pulling on all of these threads really knowingly in a really playful way.

[27:12] David Armstrong: And are there any other elements that you want to talk about in terms of "Legally Blonde"? In a way, you're sort of using it as an example of one of the best ways to adapt a popular movie into a musical. "Legally Blonde" has done it better than most.

[27:29] Adam Rush: Absolutely, yeah. So I guess the only other example that kind of really jumps out to me is the top of Act Two, a song called "Whipped Into Shape." And again, it's another moment where in the film version, all of the young lawyers are at Harvard, and they're watching a video. They're watching a fitness video of the person they're about to defend, Brooke Windham. But of course, we're now on stage, and so we see again, we see that moment, we see the fitness video. But what then is enabled to happen there is it then becomes really playful because what we've also got on stage is a group of lawyers watching this video with a remote control. And so there's lots of just playful moments where they're starting and stopping it and trying to get her, you know, she ends up, Brooke in the video, but obviously she's live on stage.

She ends up in all these kind of playful positions, and so they can kind of make these kind of sexual jokes and similar by putting it on stage and by putting both locations, both situations on stage together. We therefore just have these moments of playfulness that are just found within the text, which don't happen in the same way on film because of just the realistic nature of how that story's told.

[28:35] David Armstrong: Exactly. They lean into the theatricality of it, which is what makes it work and produce just more comedy. Arguably, seeing "Legally Blonde" on stage is far funnier than the film version.

[28:40] Adam Rush: I think that's probably true.

[28:46] David Armstrong: All right, let's jump to Chapter Four, which is titled "Adapting Graphic Text." And here's where you focus on "Fun Home," a very different property than "Legally Blonde."

[31:15] Adam Rush: Absolutely. And it's probably the one that sticks out the most, really, in terms of it. It's definitely the least commercial of them. That said, you know, it was a Broadway musical, it won lots of Tony Awards, it has done well. You know, it doesn't have the kind of brand name recognition of the other works. And so kind of the core of that chapter and one of the things that I kind of get to early on, and again, this is kind of a discovery because graphic texts and graphic novels is not something that I've really grew up with or really experienced, so I don't have that much of a relationship with that type of source material. But what I found really interesting is exploring this idea of the kind of emotional core of some of these works.

So one of the things that I explore early on is some of the other adaptations of graphic novels. You know, there's the infamous "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" musical. But, you know, then we also jump to something like "Annie," which is one of the most popular musicals of all time. And so what kind of crept out of that work, and there's a great quote from Alison Bechdel, who I'll mention in relation to "Fun Home," you know, she speaks about the fact that what she believes that what musicals have and graphic novels have in common is this kind of ability to explore emotion or this ability to kind of tap into the kind of psyche in some way. Now, arguably, musicals and graphic texts are so totally different.

They're totally different ways of expression and arguably quite different audiences and fan bases. But it was exploring that idea that kind of held the chapter together for me. And that's kind of the recurring idea, really, is that something like "Annie" really taps into the emotion of the story and constructs from this comic strip this quite traditional Golden Age model musical, you know, in a way that it may be quite different to an adaptation of a, you know, a Marvel Spider-Man story. So that kind of became the core interest there.

[33:04] David Armstrong: It's very interesting because, in a way, a graphic novel is more like a film because it's really a series of pictures that, if you flip them, would turn into a film basically. And yet somehow the authors of "Fun Home" were able to create a very theatrical experience out of it. You know, one of the differences, I would say, between "Annie" or "Li'l Abner," which is one of my favorite shows of all time, is that those were based on comic strips. And a graphic novel is sort of like a serious cartoon, I guess, in a way. It's a serious comic book. That doesn't mean there isn't humor in it, but the idea behind it is to tell a serious story, which may be why that also works well for a musical because there's emotion in that story as well.

[33:45] Adam Rush: Absolutely. It does take a much more extended version of some of those other works. Yeah, so "Fun Home" is a really interesting one for me. I think it's such a beautiful show, and I think one of the reasons why it works so well is because the nature of adaptation is at the core of what that show is. The graphic novel is all about Alison Bechdel, the graphic novelist, and her re-exploring her past and her relationship to her father. What the show adds on to that is that the musical is her. We see adult Alison crafting that novel. We don't just see the contents of the book on stage. We see her, the adult graphic novelist, dealing with and negotiating what content she wants to go into the book.

And she's jumping between all sorts of time frames, just like the book does, and we see that also performed by multiple Alisons. So I think, you know, the "Legally Blonde" examples were quite, you know, there are these specific moments where you really see the two forms combined. "Fun Home" is an interesting one because it very much feels like it was in the setup of that musical that they really went, "Okay, how are we going to tell this story on stage? What structure are we going to put in place to make these moments work?" And I think that's a really interesting framework that they've established there, let alone the specific moments within the musical that they then have adapted in very interesting ways.

[35:13] ♪ Musical number: "Ring of Keys" — performed by Young Alison ♪

[36:08] David Armstrong: Talk about one of those specific moments, which is "Ring of Keys," which I thought was a very interesting analysis because you're basically—the dramaturgy there is taking this very tiny little piece of this graphic novel, a few frames, I guess, or a few panels.

[36:22] Adam Rush: Exactly, yeah, a few panels of this and creating this centerpiece song for the musical. Absolutely. It provides a really interesting example of the idea of being selective and fidelity being unimportant. As you say, it's one of the centerpieces of the musical, and you would therefore expect to jump to the book and find pages on it, and you really don't. And especially that idea of the ring of keys and the metaphor. So yeah, absolutely. So in one of the panels, you see a woman holding, wearing a ring of keys. I've been exploring this song for years now, particularly with students. I always use it as my case study when I teach adaptations, and I feel like the interpretation grows and changes each year.

I've, you know, had so many great conversations about, you know, there's so many queer indicators of a ring of keys. Likewise, you know, all the ideas of what a ring of keys might symbolize in terms of unlocking and awakening. And, you know, some of those ideas are, of course, explored in the book, but effectively the writers of the musical have taken something so small and exploded it and explored all of its potential ways in which it might be read. And one of the ways in which they particularly do that, which is so different from the book, is that in the book, we see this woman. It's all about the moment, just to summarize if we haven't already, is a dad and younger Alison in a diner, and this kind of butch stereotype woman walks into a diner, and it's this moment of unlocking for Alison.

That's what the song is. But interestingly, on stage, we don't see this woman. Instead, in the graphic novel, we see this illustration, and then the story very quickly moves on. Instead, in the musical, we hear younger Alison's response, and that builds this image for us and inevitably makes the moment much more personal, but also can be much more personal for the audiences than how they interpret it. We all might have very different interpretations of what that stereotype looks like or what that unlocking or unawakening moment might be for us in our individual lives.

[38:28] ♪ Musical number ♪

[38:56] Adam Rush: I just think it's such a fascinating example of adaptation because it comes from something so small and so specific and yet they've expanded it into something five times as big but far more vague in a way, far more open to interpretation. It's such a, the transformation between the two is kind of so, is so different and again it to me it just really identifies that concept of adaptation is so much more than plonking A to B and you know the Back to the Future example of put the film on stage. You know there's so much richness in this type of work that hasn't really been explored in as much detail as it could and should be. When the artfulness of honing in on that one panel and deciding somehow to well let's make a song out of that, that's where the emotion is, that's where the story is, that's where the song is and then as you said to make it in that process make it universal in a way that it was very specific in its original incarnation.

Absolutely, yeah it just it stands in and it speaks for, it can speak for so many other things in a way that yeah as we've said the graphic novel it is what it is and it's such an important moment for Alison and it is in all versions but the musical version allows it to do something else. You can't help but admire the artfulness of that and the theater savvy of those writers.

[40:36] David Armstrong: All right let's go to chapter five your final chapter which probably takes on the biggest topic in a way because as you say in the title it's the wonderful world of texts. So now we're talking we're focusing on Wicked here. Wicked is a giant subject. Talk a little bit about what's different about Wicked from the other two examples that you talk about.

[40:56] Adam Rush: Sure, so Wicked is an example of a work that exists within a franchise but a quite complex franchise. So one of the things that I explore early on in that chapter is where I start with this idea of franchise storytelling and the idea of it's very commonplace within popular culture now to experience one text as part of a wider franchise just as we started this conversation and obviously theater has become a part of that. Examples that I draw upon include the Stranger Things play and the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play. You know we now have major multi-billion dollar franchises having a theater element to them and so when we shift over to musical theater we of course are so used to seeing that with you know Disney texts but what's I guess interesting here is this idea of you know original stories being crafted as part of franchises of lots of stories and so the Addams Family I use as an example there as well as you know there are many versions of the Addams Family characters being used but the Addams Family musical is the only one that tells that distinct story and so with all of that in mind Wicked therefore sits in an interesting position because on paper Wicked actually is really simple.

Wicked is billed as an adaptation of the Gregory Maguire novel Wicked from 95 which is in turn a reworking of the Wizard of Oz. That sounds very simple but as we all know and as you alluded to the Wizard of Oz and Wicked and Oz is one of the most biggest most complex popular culture franchises as it were even though it's not a franchise it's not all owned by the same corporation but people have been telling versions of the Oz story or different versions of L. Frank Baum's work for generations now so what really interested me about Wicked was exploring the idea that it on paper takes a single novel but ultimately it doesn't. It takes elements of that novel and then spends the rest of the show really reveling in the fact that the Wizard of Oz is very iconic and is littered with references and acknowledgements of all sorts of other versions of the Wizard of Oz most notably of course the 1939 film version of the Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland.

There has been some work on some of those elements before and you know I referenced some of Paul Laird's work throughout that chapter in exploring how the writers of Wicked Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman had to be really careful with you know not copying pasting the 39 film too much and which elements they could and couldn't take but ultimately what that chapter starts to do it starts to just look at the connections between these works much more broadly and really tries to open up this conversation to the extent really to think about as a even clearer example hopefully of the idea that the fidelity model is complete nonsense. How can we possibly trace how one text becomes another if there's another 150 other things in the way?

What interests me and continues to interest me about Wicked is the way in which it just takes from any and every version of Oz that's come before and it either kind of replicates or completely subverts you know it sits within this much wider dialogue with other versions of the same story or the same characters. And in terms of fidelity even just in regard to the novel Wicked the story is very changed they have very different story elements and climaxes turning points in the story because they knew they were putting it on the stage and they had to figure out a way to do that without failing I guess is the way to say it by trying to replicate a non-stage worthy element or a non-stage possible event.

Absolutely they ultimately took the concept of McGuire's novel and started again and the writers have in many ways said that they found their own version of that story it very much interests me and you see many kind of fan responses to this online when Wicked became a stage musical and more recently when it became a film musical you know Gregory McGuire's novel is republished with a brand new cover that links us to now it's a movie but Wicked the film in particular has got very young fans but then the novel is very much an adult fantasy that includes you know sex scenes and elements that are so unlike you know the mainstream musical versions of Wicked so it is interesting in terms of that work in particular is marketed in relation to its source material despite being so different very much so as you say you know it's been reimagined with a commercial somewhat family musical audience in mind and of course that's what's made it the mega hit firm for decades now but its source materials are really complex.

[45:34] David Armstrong: Absolutely I love all the layers of that that you explore in that chapter. The one element I haven't spoke about that I do talk about in that chapter is some of the thematic connections between Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz and Elphaba and Wicked and trying to extend some of the previous work that's been done on that and exploring the idea of heroines and the singing heroine in the musical and the complexity of of course a heroine in one work and a villain in the same work and how that all kind of how that all plays out. Elphaba and Dorothy are so similar yeah they're written so similar they are of course musically very different and the musicals they come from are very different but you know there's so much about the characters longing for home and belonging and their relationship with animals and their need to protect an animal you know even such simple things you know would never connect Toto and Dr. Dillerman but yet you know there is a core part of both of those stories where these two women are protective of animals. As you note Stephen Schwartz links the two characters musically very specifically.

[46:41] Adam Rush: Absolutely and for years people might be aware of that but it bears repeating. Yeah absolutely so well for years it wasn't really widely kind of known or spoken about but since the film's come out it's now everywhere and there's all sorts of youtube videos of Stephen Schwartz at the piano but effectively the kind of octave jump that starts somewhere over the rainbow is repeated in Wicked in the unlimited theme so when Elphaba sings my future is unlimited when she sings that I didn't expect to sing today when she sings that you know the first set amount of notes are are repeats so they both have this kind of same musical structure they're different they're not a direct replication but there is this mirroring between these moments and so one of the things that I explore in the book is not only saying look there's a connection there but actually saying okay what is that connection what does this theme or you know what does this motif mean for Dorothy and what does this motif mean for Elphaba and again there's lots of similarities there in terms of all the things I mentioned about their dreams they're wanting to find somewhere new both of you know this idea of wanting to find somewhere over the rainbow or wanting to fix Oz interestingly Elphaba needing to leave Oz in order to be happy whereas Dorothy returns back to her home with a new perspective on her happiness and again these are smart musical theater writers making these choices on purpose in order to add depth and resonance to the story even though the audience might not be aware except subliminally that this is going on absolutely you know there's so much complexity in all these works and there is that more contemporary term of an easter egg and you know works having all these kind of references in them for fans to find and I think that is happening you know in some cases in lots of these musicals but I think it's broader than that it's about demonstrating an appreciation for a complexity or exploring the nuances of those works and again going right back looping it right back to the start you know if all of that stuff's happening in a work how can we just say that the art form's dead how can we say that originality is not there you know there's so many layers of complexity within the structure and the writing of these works which I would argue definitely suggests that the musical is alive and well whether you like the Wizard of Oz or not.

[48:53] David Armstrong: I think that's the perfect way to leave this conversation on a hopeful note for the future of the musical. It's been great pleasure to talk to you today Adam about your book adaptation in musical theater I can't wait to have you back when your next book comes out are you working on something?

[49:08] Adam Rush: Very very early days I won't say anything because I don't know what will happen who knows but yes I hope that there is a definite future book project.

[49:13] David Armstrong: I understand that entirely. I'd be too scared to put it out into the public eye and then I'm then I'm locked in thank you so much for having me.

[49:26] Adam Rush: My pleasure great to have you thanks so much and we'll see you next time.