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LOTR The Musical!
Blue Stone writes "The Lord of The Rings, is to become a musical, to be staged in London's West End, in 2005, on the book's 50th anniversary. The £8m (US$12m) production has lyrics by Shaun McKenna and music by Stephen Keeling and Bernd Stromberger, while Matthew Warchus will direct." If they can get Leonard Nimoy to sing the Bilbo Baggins song on
stage, I'd go ;)
Let's see them actually use some real height challenged people. Stupid camera tricks!
We're off to see the wizard.....
Fitting all six books into a reasonably long show will be hilarious. Think "Reduced Shakespeare Company". I'm all for it.
Lior
Papier Mache Balrog.
I think I'll pass.
...um...like...a sig...
This guy.
No, no, awfully sorry that's not quite what were looking for, NEXT!
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You'll never make a monkey out of me...
the fight between Sauroman and Gandalf would be dueling banjos. Hell, maybe they could even have an air guitar contest using their staffs.
Hey, it worked for the cartoon "The Hobbit" and "Return of the King".
An epic saga that is much akin to human growth, the adventure of youth and the burdon of responcibility over back drop of middle earth dragons and wizards is the perfect musical material, in the same sorta way that Les Miserables works. Les Mis sorta takes place in a romantised volitile time in French history, people vs the establishment, rocks and baracades. Not everyone's glass of tea, but it's something I enjoyed, even if it's a bit over the top. One thing that is considered a mark of good litature is something that can be enjoyed by all audiances... and The Lord of the Rings is something that can be read a child and read as an adult and still be enjoyed.
But to this day I still remember the edition of "Return of the King" cartoon, with the Orcs in Mordor chanting, "Where there's a whip, there's a way". While it was a sorta cheezy dumbed up cartoon, that is just classic.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
It's not that novel an idea. A few years ago the Finnish National Opera had a ballet version of The Hobbit for quite a while. Proof
This post is free (as in cheese in a mousetrap).
This is horrible. No, really horrible. Gouge-out-your-eyes and jam-hot-Q-tips-into-your-eardrums horrible.
I have these visions of Erik Estrada playing Aragorn and Bernadette Peters playing Aruwen and singing "Endless Love" while stagehands softly wave the fake plastic tree branches.
Once more, I'm left stunned that anyone can still believe in the existence of God.
They that would sacrifice their
> Is Troy McClure available?
:(
Sadly, no. Phil Hartman, who did Troy's voice, was shot to death by his wife in 1998.
Sentimentality is merely the Bank Holiday of cynicism.
- Oscar Wilde
Huge burning lidless paper-mache eye burns down west-end theater.
Sauron states he is pleased.
Reality has a notoriously liberal bias -- Stephen Colbert
Well... the first intro that I had to the world of hobbits was from a musical version of The Hobbit that I saw as a kid at a local community theatre that my friend was involved in. This sparked both my interest in theatre, and also my interest in the world of Tolkein. Following this performance, I went on to read all of the books, etc... Anyway, My biggest concern of this new musical is how the hell do you shrink it into a length that people will sit though. I fear this will be a mighty big challenge and that the results might not be so pretty... Time will tell I guess!
for us to see the porno version. Sauron will "really" make the middle earth suffer...
Lord of the Rings has now officially jumped the shark - musical episode. Next expect to see Frodo's long-lost cousin Bodo and his hip new catchprase 'it's bodocious'!. They tell me that Will Smith will be making a guest appearance as Sauron's evil twin.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
If they can get Leonard Nimoy to sing the Bilbo Baggins song on stage, I'd go ;)
If they can get Leonard Nimoy to sing the Bilbo Baggins song on stage, I'd strangle him with my own severed wind pipe as I flood the assembly room in tears...
Bored with karma, be a fan/freak
There was a Lord of the Rings musical in Berlin around 1999, played in a circus tent. A couple of pix can be found on this website: http://www.bnoack.com/pict/herr-der-ringe.html
What a lot of people seem to be missing is the fact that the original books were very musical to begin with. There's scores of songs in there.
At Slashdot, I would've expected more people to know the books, rather than just the movies.
This is not such a bad idea -- it might actually work out. The Beatles considered doing a musical adaptation of the LOTR many years ago.
/ has more information (and proves that I'm no troll...)
As conceived, John Lennon would have played Gollum, Paul McCartney would have played Frodo, George Harrison would have played Gandalf, and Ringo Starr would have played Sam.
http://www.hellomagazine.com/2002/03/29/beatles
If well executed, a LOTR musical *could* be quite enjoyable.
posted the official home page. It can be found here
They're interesting in hiring, and apparantly the show will be staged only in 2005, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the trilogy..
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
I'm not convinced by 'LOTR: The Musical', but I think some of the stories in the Silmarillion are very suitable for opera. For example, Beren & Luthien and a cut-down version of Turin Turamber. They are short stories with lots of drama & emotion and, of course, plenty of tragedy.
This would only make sense since an influence of LOTR was Wagner's opera Ring Cycle with a summary here . Both are based on Norse mythology and there are many similarities including both deal with the destruction of a powerful,cursed ring that everyone wants. The linked website lists some more similarities. The LOTR musical has the possibility of being good, but I doubt it will rival the original.
http://www.thelordoftheringsmusical.com/
Here ya all go
RING TIME FOR FRODO
Lyrics (C) 2001 by Terence Chua
(to the tune of "Springtime for Hitler" by Mel Brooks)
Middle Earth was having trouble
When we start our story
Sauron had awakened
To restore his former glory
So in Hobbiton
We looked there and found
The way to stop that evil sod
That wants to grind us down
And now it's
Ring time for Frodo and Company
We're setting out on the march
Journeying through perpetual gloom
Seeking to find the Cracks of Doom!
Ring time for Frodo and Company
Ring wraiths are hot on our tails
Ring time for Frodo and Company
Watch out Mordor, we're hitting the trail!
(spoken)
Just a word of sage advice - bashing Balrogs isn't nice!
Life in darkness can't be finer - when you are a Nazgul rider!
(cue dance number)
Ring time for Frodo and Company
(sound of bells ringing)
Questing's the best thing for fun
(sound of hoofbeats and clashing of swords)
Searching through dark and dusty tombs
(sound of screams falling into a dark abyss)
Finding our way through Khazad-dum!
Ring time for Frodo and Company
New friends to meet on our way
Ring time for Frodo and Company
And soon we'll be saving
We're gonna be saving
You know we'll be saving the day!
--------
Don't hurt me.
----------
Terence Chua khaos@tim.org
WWW: http://www.khaosworks.org
KhaOS@TinyTIM: telnet://yay.tim.org:5440
"The meek shall inherit the earth. The rest of us will go to the stars."
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
About a third the comments seem to be "that's good," LOTR has music in it.
..."
No! This is the musical genre. Think Gilbert and Sulivan, Oklahoma and, at its most serious, Les Miserables.
Musical is not serious music. That is reserved for Opera. That is why you have people dying all over the place and 6 hour playing times for opera.
I know people have said, "LOTR has music in it. Now we'll hear it." Forget it. Think of the practical reasons against it. They'll be taking the 6 hour plot of the movie and chopping it down to two hours, music included. Chances are it will be the Cats treatment.
This is not to say it will be bad, but fans of the book are definitely not its intended audience. Fans of the movie are probably its intended audience.
The earlier posts were right. Simirilion and LOTR need opera. They're serious and deserve a serious genre.
Never mind. Forget that. I want to see Pippin get a girlfriend (musical comedy), Sauron (played by a baritone wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with a red eye) howl out an opening solo, and who could miss the Nazgul chorus?
Good heavens! The article mentions The Graduate as one of the songwriters' credits. "Here's to you Frodo Baggin's sir
Who can burn the Shire, fill us all with fear?
Burn down all the villages and then pee in our beer?
The Saru-man can. Yes, the Saru-man can.
The Saru-man can 'cause he mixes it with mud and makes an army of orcs.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
They turned the 5-part, 1200-page Les Miserables into a serious three hour show which many think is one of the best musicals ever.
a world in progress...