Script:
You’re listening to Let’s Take a Five. It’s March 21, 2017 and today we’ll be talking with Melanie Sheahan, the director of Heathers the Musical about musical films and the recent film La La Land. I have Melanie here in the Fine Arts Building.
Are films like La La Land considered theatre?
I don’t think that’s theatre. I think the movie musical is a whole other beast. It’s not live. It totally exists within the world and it’s respectful of theatre but I think movie musicals do something that theatre can’t and theatre does something movie musicals can’t.
Heathers the Musical is the opposite of plays like Into the Woods and Les Mis which were originally musicals that were turned into musical films. Here, you’re taking the movie with no music and turning it into a musical. This has been done with plays like Legally Blonde the Musical, Shrek the Musical and Catch Me if You Can. Do you think plays like Heathers are more success?
The movie has a lot of locations. It’s kind of all over the place. That’s something, in general, movies are allowed to do. Their allowed to get more creative with locations, whereas the musical kind of has to build environments. Story wise, I think it adds a lot to each character. JD is a completely different character. In the movie, he’s just this homicidal jerk. He’s like a socio-path who just has no feelings and he doesn’t care about Veronica. In the musical, he’s this kid who’s been through a lot and is feeling a lot of pain and is really really angry at the world.
For more stories like these make sure to subscribe to the Thespian and we’ll see you next time on Let’s Take a Five.