The nearly century-old relationship between live musical theater and Hollywood movie musicals is often one involving change and adaptation. Hollywood would often drop a song or two from the stage version and add new ones. Sometimes the script is fundamentally altered. The multiple points-of-view that the camera lens allows can expand the way the audience visually connects with the story. But what of the path that moves the other way? What opportunities are there if creative ideas from the classical Hollywood musical films are brought to the live stage?
We speak with Dennis F. Johnson, the director of the UMD Department of Theatre production of Pippin, a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Roger O. Hirson that originally appeared on Broadway in 1972. Johnson and his creative team "harkened back to those early movie musicals and thought, 'What if we did this like MGM would have in the Forties or Fifties?'"
Pippinopens at the Marshall Performing Arts Center at UMD on April 14, with a total of eight performances through April 24.
