The other day, shortly after I wrote about the possibility of a Green Day movie based on the American Idiot Broadway show, this commercial for it just happened to come on TV (coincidence?).  It’s basically an advertisement for every reason I thought this was a bad idea.  Truth be told, I really like that song.  And yet somehow, that doesn’t make me want to spend $100 on a theater seat next to my grandparents to hear it sung by a bunch of creepy, hyperactive theater kids.

What the hell are they even doing?  Musical theater is so woiuerd. Whoa, what just happened? I was trying to type “weird.” I think I might be coming down with…. JAZZ HANDS! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

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If you’re a comedy dork or even just a regular dork, chances are you have fond memories of 1988′s A Fish Called Wanda, starring Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis, and most of the Monty Python guys.  Well now John Cleese and his daughter Camilla are turning it into a musical. I normally hate musicals, but this one seems like one I might be able to watch without catching “the gay.”

The Python legend is looking to debut the project in San Diego [at the La Jolla Playhouse on the campus of my alma mater, UCSD, I believe...], then move it on to Broadway and London’s West End.
“We’ve just completed the book for the musical of A Fish Called Wanda and I’m pleased that Camilla hasn’t completely stolen all of my dignity in writing so brilliantly. She’s left me a few scraps to hang onto to keep me warm at night.”
‘Soon, we’ll start to work on the songs for the show with Bill Bailey, who, among his many achievements, is an honourary member of the Society of Crematorium Organists. This musical is destined to be a hit amongst funeral directors.’ [Empire]

I like how musical playwrights call their scripts “books.”  I think that’s so they can finish writing a collection of super gay show tunes and be able to tell their parents, “Look, mom and dad, I wrote… um, a book!”

Also: “Camilla Cleese” is the unsexiest porn name I’ve ever heard.

These days, if you want to see people sing and dance and perform, your options are limited to the six or seven singing and dancing shows on TV every night.  Luckily they remade Fame, and now we’ve got a trailer.  Fame follows the kids at New York’s Performing Arts High School, where BY DAY they practice tap dance, concert piano, cello, and opera singing; BY NIGHT they produce rap songs, go to def poetry readings, and join hip hop dance crews; BY 20 they wear aprons, make lattes, and wait tables.  But seriously, every high school should be a performing arts high school.  Let’s be honest, algebra and living in the real world is not going to help you land a reality show or design handbags.
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“Call me in six beers.”
Word on the street, and by street I mean a British newspaper, is that book-turned-movie Bridget Jones’ Diary is coming to the theater.  Do these jazz hands make my ass look fat?

Working Title has confirmed that Helen Fielding is adapting her novel Bridget Jones’s Diary as a stage musical, in the mold of its previous smash hit Billy Elliot. [TimesOnline]

Both the books and the movies are inexplicably popular, so I imagine this will be no different.  I can’t wait.  Women everywhere will say to their husbands and boyfriends, “Hey, wanna come see that new Bridget Jones’ Musical with me?”

And all he’ll hear is:

“Hey, wanna gargle my used tampons?”

^{Web fingaz and jazz hands, together at last. Homophobic Turtle is not pleased (…or is he?).}

I’ve covered this once before, but a Broadway producer named Julie Taymor (The Lion King) is working on a broadway musical about Spider-Man.  Today the NY Post reports the budget is $40 million, the most expensive production in theater history.

Some of the people involved (there are dozens and dozens, with more being added daily) are starting to blanch at the price tag. With straight faces, a few are running around town saying things like: “Well, it’s $40 million now, but we think we can get it down to $35 million.”
If – and it’s a big “if” where Julie The Lion Taymor is concerned – they do bring it in for $35 million, “Spider-Man,” with a weekly running cost of $1 million, will have to run about 8,000 years in a Broadway theater just to break even.
“It’s off the charts,” one source says. “Off the charts.” [Later adding, "Wave of the future.  Wave of the future, Wave of the future...]

Keep in mind this is a musical.  About Spider-Man.  With songs by Bono™.  There will be choreographed dance numbers about Dr. Octopus and the Green Goblin.  I could eat nothing but peyote every day for the rest of my life and still not come up with anything as fantastically stupid as this.