I’m intrigued by these prospects of weird forms of literature being transformed into musicals. The Chemistry textbook opens up possibilities for hits such as Alanis Morisette’s “Ionic” and Wassabbo (my school’s parody teacher boy-band)’s hit single “Covalent Bonds” (we’ll share electrons forever… I wish I remembered the rest of that song). Possibly also that hilarious song from “Peggy Sue Got Married” that talked about the love lives of a bunch of famous scientists. Men At Arms offers not only Carrot’s “Ankh-Morpork: It’s My Kind of Town”, but also Edward D’Eath’s “Happiness Is a Warm Gonne”.

If you put enough thought into it, you can turn anything into a musical. I envision a huge, high-energy musical number about the turtle crossing the road in Grapes of Wrath (possibly in the same vein as “Wells Fargo Wagon” from The Music Man), then a song about Homicide, led by Tom Joad, much in the style of Chicago’s “Cell Block Tango”. Then, it would be time for The Three Musketeers. Ignoring the cheese factor of potential “One For All” numbers, we could instead consist of an intro to the status of the lead characters in the style of the title song from “Rent”, then a rallying of Musketeers with something like “The World Will Know” from Newsies, and a kinder, gentler ending, culminating in a plea from D’Artagnan to Cardinal Richeliu in the “How To Succeed” ripoff, “Brotherhood of Musketeers”. If this is successful, we could open the next theatre season with Hamlet (featuring pop single “to thine own self be true”) and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which has serious “Bohemian Rhapsody” potential.

With that said, who wants to be my producer? Given the success of the Jane Eyre musical, I’m sure they’ll be lining up at the door.