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LOTR to Become a London Musical
PenguinRadio writes "Sky is reporting that Lord of the Rings will become 'the most expensive musical ever seen in London', sporting a price tag of 8 million pounds and a running time of nearly 3 and 1/2 hours."
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Rather surprisingly, they managed to turn the almost-as-complex His Dark Materials trilogy into what is, by all accounts, a fantastic stage show ... I'll certainly be getting tickets to see this...
Score:-1, Funny
LOTR RINGS TO BE MUSICAL
Fresh from its runaway success at the Oscars, fantasy epic Lord of the Rings is set to hit the stage as a lavish musical, reports say.
Producers are planning to turn the book series into the most expensive musical ever seen in London, according to the Sunday Telegraph.
News of the musical version comes weeks after the final film installment of the trilogy, Return Of The King, won 11 Academy Awards.
The 8m production will see dozens of actors portray hobbits, elves, wizards and orcs in complex battle scenes.
"I have been in theatre for 25 years and I know the power of theatre in telling epic stories," said co-producer Kevin Wallace, a former collaborator of successful stage composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.
"I believe that we will be able to make a version of The Lord of the Rings that will be a brilliant piece," he told the newspaper.
The show, to open next year, would last a mammoth three and a half hours, Wallace said.
"If Shakespeare can put all England on stage in Henry IV, I am confident that we can put on the whole of Middle Earth and tell the story of the entire trilogy over that time," he said.
The three books in the Lord of the Rings series, chronicling the struggle between good and evil in Middle Earth, were written by
British author JRR Tolkien from 1954-55 and have proved enduringly popular ever since.
My vote for: Sarah Brightman as Arwen Nathan Lane as Sam Deborah Gibson as Galadriel Micheal Crawford as Gandalf Choosing Frodo would be difficult Are the actors going to have be on their kness the whole performance?
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
-CH
Howard Shore is apparently touring the US with a 6-movement symphony version of his soundtrack.
One station will be Atlanta, where he will conduct the ASO (Hi Larry...).
"Shakespeare can put all England on stage in Henry IV, I am confident that we can put on the whole of Middle Earth..."
Oy veh...Note that putting the story of Henry IV on stage took Shakespeare two very long plays-- Henry IV parts one and two together are over seven hours, uncut. Even then, the scope of the plays is much smaller than the War of the Ring. Yes, the historical backdrop of Henry IV is a series of wars and rebellions that cover most of England as well as Brittany, but the realy story is much smaller. It's about the (contested) king, his son Hal, and a few other key court figures suh as Hotspur and Falstaff. The real plot is the search for honor by these characters, NOT the wars and the fate of the kingdom. Anyway, to cover the full scope of the war/political story, you have to include two more plays, Richard II and Henry V, which would bring the stage running time to over twelve hours.
So Shakespeare did NOT put "all England" on stage in Henry IV...he was much too smart to try that. Pity the West End producers can't learn from the Bard.
The whole singing thing really wouldn't be my kind of thing to enjoy. But the orchestra I would definitely buy a ticket for.
You can actually find it out on a CD here and some Ogg and MP3 files in a another directory here
Off topic, but you say the wrong thing. Next time go see Jerry Springer, The Opera. Worth it for the tap dancing KKK chorus line alone.
Hmmm, these kind of sites are becoming a nuisance.
Sorry, that website uses broken embed tags and Windows-specific registry CLSIDs to point to quicktime player. I don't have a "registry" or a "quick time" player. For those of us who choose our own browser helper applications (instead of it being decided by a "registry") here is the relevant link.
For those of you with a "registry" that decides which applications will open what, and when, you might want to go here.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
no, not Bangalore. But a place called Chennai (formerly Madras). One of India's foremost composers is doing the music
There is an official website: www.thelordoftheringsmusical.com
That info aside, I know some of the people working on this and they are truly passionate fans of the book. I know nothing about the musical itself, but I'm more than willing to remain open-minded about it's quality until I learn more.
ObDisclosure: I work on Tolkien licensed products.