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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Mar 13, 2024 14:47:27 GMT -5
I would like some crowdfunding for a hypothetical Asoue musical. Anything goes: costumes, script, music, special effects. And as for music, it can be anything from song lyrics or melody. Regarding the script, I would like to be able to put together something including ideas from fans, without following Asoue's script to the letter. Any idea will be discussed, and I will put my ideas forward myself. Contradictory ideas are also accepted, because it is a Brainstorm.
Even pros and cons about the proposal itself are accepted, as well as obvious and non-obvious problems. The point here is to discuss the subject and possible solutions to possible problems.
Ideas from other musicals are also welcome.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Mar 13, 2024 16:21:08 GMT -5
So let me start. The first out of order topic that will be part of my brainstorm is what I call The Sunny Baudelaire Problem. How to portray Sunny in a musical. Last year, I saw the Back to the Future musical in London, and it was fantastic. I wondered how they would portray Einstein, the dog. And the solution found was to eliminate Einstein from the musical. (Sorry for the spoiler). So, I think they did this to avoid the difficulties of acting with a real dog. Even though a human baby is not a canine (despite Chabo) it is still a problem to act with a real baby, especially Sunny Baudelaire. And Sunny is not Einstein. She is one of the protagonists, and any Asoue story without Sunny is wrong. How to solve this problem?
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Mar 14, 2024 13:49:28 GMT -5
I've been thinking about how to deal with the Sunny Problem. I think it would be possible to hire a child actress, with a good voice. A girl around 9 or 10 years old. So, we would dress her like a baby, and train her to behave like Sunny. But she shouldn't be on stage all the time. She would act only when Sunny was the focus, and the scenery would be increased proportionately. I believe that 2.5 times more would be necessary to give the impression that the actress is a baby. As long as Sunny is in someone's hands, we would need to use an animatronic to pretend to be Sunny.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Mar 14, 2024 14:12:07 GMT -5
Talking about the script. I believe that musicals that adapt stories from films or books target people who already know the content. So you can throw away the element of surprise and the typical narrative structure of books and films. The main objective is to fascinate those who already know the work. So, I would love for the song titles to be fun and it would be interesting to keep the idea from the books that the musical is aimed at people in Lemony Snicket's universe and not people in our universe. It would be interesting if the titles or lyrics contained some kind of secret code. And it would be cool if we promoted this in the publicity campaign: the first to unlock the secret code would win a prize or a trophy of recognition.
But going back to the musical's narrative structure, despite the Baudelaires being the protagonists, the idea is that Lemony Snicket is trying to pass information to someone during the show, using the show itself. For this idea to stick in the public's mind, I think the first song should be called something like "To Beatrice: I know I shouldn't expose our organization's secrets in a musical but this was necessary". Beatrice here refers to Beatrice Jr, but the audience won't know that. The first song then makes a prologue about the history of VFD and even tells some brief things about Lemony's relationship with Beatrice. It will be something surprising I think, for Asoue fans, and still enjoyable, I think.
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Post by HAL 10,000 on Mar 14, 2024 20:22:34 GMT -5
I like the idea of Sunny being played by a child actress dressed as a baby. When she's being carried maybe we could use a baby doll or something. Violet and Klaus would probably be played by adults or at least older teens (16-19) since their roles are more demanding. I'm thinking of how Percy Jackson is 12-13 in the first book but is played by an adult in the musical and Alice (Alice in Wonderland) is 7 in the book but is usually played by an actress who's around 11-14. How would the musical be structured? Would there be an intermission between each book or put two or three books together then intermission.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Mar 14, 2024 21:20:25 GMT -5
Good question. I think the first step is to define how long we will be in the musical. Then we can make some decisions about how to divide the acts, and what the songs will be like.
Generally musicals are around 2 and a half or three hours long, including the intermission.
If we are going to write 13 books in 3 hours, we have to rethink a lot of things. Perhaps it would be better for the story to begin in Prufrock Prep, and the previous events in the Baudelaires' lives to be told in a summarized Flash Back. The scene would be a conversation between the Quagmires and the Baudelaires. The advantage of this is that we would quickly introduce recurring characters such as Carmelita, the Quagmires and Esme (in the next book), and we would leave characters that appear in only one book without prominence such as Dr. Owel, Uncle Monty, Aunt Josephine. This would make the script easier to write and less tiring.
Furthermore, the part of Asoue that often receives criticism (which I disagree with, but you can't say that criticism doesn't exist) would receive little attention.
With that being said, I think it would be interesting to adapt TAA, TEE, TVV, THH and TCC, have a break when the caravan is falling, and then TSS, TGG, TPP and TE.
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Post by Reba on Mar 14, 2024 22:05:13 GMT -5
I shudder to think about musical theater per se, but I did think about whether asoue would work better as an opera or as a ballet. Because the plot moves so quickly and the characters are all archetypes, I think it would work as a ballet. I’m reminded of the animation in the movie’s closing credits. the simplicity of the Olaf vs. Baudelaires formula meshes well with the graceful predetermined interactions of ballet characters. at the same time, their ‘choreography’ is repeated in very diverse settings, which would be great as backdrops/decoration. That would make for 13 different pieces.
It is worth noting that we do have 13 songs about asoue already — the tragic treasury. I think those would actually work well in a theater setting. but especially in a ballet, as most of the songs wouldn’t make sense being sung by an onstage character, except perhaps for Snicket himself. in any case, asoue characters have no business singing to each other, especially since so many of them are children. In my ballet we wouldnt have to hear the vomitous cacophony of children's voices, whether there are real children in it or not, but i would still prefer all adults, perhaps even with masks. the emphasis would be on the abstracted fairytale pantomime-like side of the story — pantomime meaning miming, but it's also worth noting that there have been british panto productions of asoue before.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Mar 14, 2024 22:55:34 GMT -5
I really don't know how to properly appreciate a ballet, I've only watched one in my entire life, and I didn't feel moved. I have to admit that having several children singing to each other would be a little uncomfortable. But if the people involved are good singers, (or if they sing in playback) I think this could be good.
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Post by Hego T. Tablespoon on Mar 15, 2024 21:58:13 GMT -5
All I can give in benefit of this production is one slightly beneficial idea.
Maybe in the costuming, express a theme of a pencil sketch, or illustration?
All the extras or lesser characters would be mostly grey and darker shades of white, while the three children and any characters we are to focus on express the clothing as seen in the book series. Maybe muted, but not too muted in their color scheme as to keep the dreary tone.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Mar 17, 2024 20:00:32 GMT -5
I was at an Elvis tribute show yesterday. It wasn't exactly a musical, but I realized something very important: in a musical the most important thing is the quality of the music and the singers. So, as Reba said, you can't sacrifice this aspect of the show that is most important.
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Post by twigz on Mar 18, 2024 4:35:13 GMT -5
the tragic treasury live would be magnificent
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Post by HAL 10,000 on Mar 18, 2024 17:46:13 GMT -5
I don't think a ballet would work. A big part of ASOUE is the dialogue and a ballet would only feature movement. I could be wrong though, since it's been quite some time since I've seen a ballet.
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Post by Reba on Mar 18, 2024 19:11:56 GMT -5
well, asoue is literally all made of words, of course, and has no music. a stage performance with music, inasmuch as it is a drastically different and arbitrarily chosen mode of adaptation, cannot hope to play to any of asoue's literary strengths -- it won't stand on its own as a way to present asoue to a different audience, but will be an experimental reimagining of whatever aesthetics and themes asoue suggests. as jean lucio said, "The main objective is to fascinate those who already know the work."
i say in that case you should go all the way and have no words, since the context wouldn't do them justice anyway. i don't even think daniel handler's verbose sense of humor, for example, can work at all on film (netflix), let alone the theatah.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Mar 20, 2024 8:17:39 GMT -5
well, asoue is literally all made of words, of course, and has no music. a stage performance with music, inasmuch as it is a drastically different and arbitrarily chosen mode of adaptation, cannot hope to play to any of asoue's literary strengths -- it won't stand on its own as a way to present asoue to a different audience, but will be an experimental reimagining of whatever aesthetics and themes asoue suggests. as jean lucio said, "The main objective is to fascinate those who already know the work." i say in that case you should go all the way and have no words, since the context wouldn't do them justice anyway. i don't even think daniel handler's verbose sense of humor, for example, can work at all on film (netflix), let alone the theatah. I understand what Reba means. But doing a musical would still be a dream come true. If they have already made a film and a series despite the problem involving adapting Daniel Handler's style, then nothing more fair than adapting a musical as well. If that's going to involve distorting it a little (or a lot) asoue... so be it. We are fans, and we make fanfics distorting asoue all the time. Let us make a distortion that is at least good.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Mar 24, 2024 11:36:42 GMT -5
So if we're brainstorming, let me suggest something controversial that just came to mind. What if we made something like Ben-Hur the story of Jesus? The story of Ben-Hur occurs parallel to the story of Jesus. What if our protagonists weren't the Baudelaires? It could be Lemony Snicket, Jacques Sncket, Kit Snicket, Dewey, and the main antagonists would be The Man With A Beard But No Hair and The Woman With Hair But No Beard. The Baudelaires would appear as a side story without singing.
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