When doing research into Stephen Sondheim for my Musical Theatre classes, I found that Sondheim not only approved of changing Bobby's Character to be female, but also of many of the other characters in musical. One thing that stood out to me is that Amy and Paul have been changed to Jaime and Paul. Although there are quite a few gender swaps in the musical, most of the couples have remained heterosexual, just like they are in the original piece, so it surprised me to see that just Amy had been changed in this instance. However, this change is not unwelcoming, in fact I believe that it updates the musical to reflect a society welcoming of homosexual couples. Although few people interpreted Bobby as gay in the original production or productions that have followed the traditional casting, the musical was written in 1970 which was a society that was less welcoming to the LGBT Community, so I do believe that updating Amy and Paul to be a gay couple was a great move! Following this, Not Getting Married Today sounds terrific on the cast album!
Looking into this for my work at university got me thinking if work is ever done on a musical, since Sondheim was willing to come back to one of his greatest musicals to change it around so there is a female lead, and to change many of the characters. Although it doesn't sound like a huge change (its not as if he has completely changed the ending of the story), it still must have taken time when he worked with the director to make these changes. There are many lyric changes and he would have had to transpose some of the songs to fit with the new characters vocal range. Still, I think it is amazing that Sondheim can come back to a piece of his work and change it up even 40+ years later to re imagine it as something greater.
This made me start to think about other changes that may have been made in other musicals that could have impacted or changes the story even in the slightest way.
Even with the 2018 production of Heathers the Musical, there were changes made. There where changes made to the production as the show was still running at The Other Palace Theatre, with Veronica's song "I Say No" being added to the production in the last few weeks of the song. Two additional songs were added to the production before it started, with "You're Welcome" and "Never Shut Up" being added to replace the song "Blue" and it's reprise. It was felt that Blue didn't really fit the production, and that You're Welcome was a better fit for the show, and then Never Shut Up was added to give Heather Duke more character development during the show.
I never got to see this particular production of Heathers the Musical, but I can see where the producers were coming from when they said that Blue felt a little out of place. I admire how they can see that this song wasn't the greatest for the production and sought out the best way to improve it, it just makes me wonder what other composers would change about their musicals if they were ever given the option.
Even though I adore musical theatre and I rarely come out of a how thinking "That could have been so much better", I still think that there are many ways that could make the musical better.
In Les Miserables, I always feel like Cosette should have her own song at some point in the story. It seems like almost every major character get's their own song, but I feel like Cosette's only big moment is during "A Heart Full of Love", which is a beautiful song, but I think Cosette deserves a bit more than that. After all, she is the face of Les Miserables, and the story is just as much hers as it is Jean Val Jean's story.
I had similar thoughts when watching the movie Frozen for the first time in 2014. I absolutely loved the move, but I felt like Anna needed a song at some point, especially since she is the central character to the story in my eyes. Listening to "True Love" for the first time made me so happy that Anna finally got the solo she deserved, and it added so much more to the character in my opinion. Again, I have not seen the Broadway Production of Frozen, so I have not seen it in context of the story, but as far as I know and knowing where abouts in the story the song comes in, I believe that it will add so much more to the story.
With all points considered, is it ever possible to finish a musical? I guess it depends on the circumstances. Everyone may have their own opinion about something, and may think that some changes need to be made and that some things should just stay the same. I have read some reviews about the 2018 production of Company where the critics absolutely hate the new character of Bobbie and say that it is an insult to the original production. There is no such thing as a perfect musical, and everything can be improved upon, so I believe that it would depend on the individual production. The World of Theatre is different now to how it has ever been, and that is a good thing, there is so much more diversity and non-traditional casting, so re-imagining characters or adding/taking away songs is great to bring the musical into modern society. However, people will always respect the classics for what they were.
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