Thursday, June 16, 2016

Topic Of The Day: Plays That Should Be Adapted For The Big Screen

This year's Tonys have set quite a milestone in terms of diversity. All the musical acting winners were people of color and Hamilton, which became a recent phenomenon, pretty much swept the ceremony.

But that had me thinking about how the diversity problem could be fixed in Hollywood. It can be done so by adapting stage plays into film. Although which ones could they adapt? Let's figure it out.


The most obvious one is Hamilton. It's a phenomenon on stage and it would be interesting to see how film audiences would respond. One thing's for sure. People won't have to sell their house or pull money from their 401k to try and buy a ticket.


Another one is Eclipsed which was nominated for about 6 Tonys and is not only a story about African women, but is written and directed by women of color. If they were to do what is being done for the upcoming film adaptation of Fences and have the same team in front of and behind the stage take part in it, that'd be huge.

Recently, it was announced that Steven Spielberg is looking to adapt West Side Story for the big screen. If that were to come fruition, then because it is about two gangs with one of them being Puerto Rican, it'd be a great opportunity to seek out Latino talent waiting to be recognized. Especially for the female lead of Maria which was whitewashed in the 1961 film where the Caucasian Natalie Wood played the lead role.


Now onto some plays that'll allow LGBT representation on screen. There's also the musical Fun Home which is the first Broadway musical to feature a lesbian protagonist, the play Take Me Out about a mixed-race baseball player who comes out to both prejudice and support, and the off-Broadway play The Boys In The Band that first premiered in 1968 and is about a group of gay men from different backgrounds that are revealed in a dinner party.

What do you guys think? Do you agree that these plays should be brought to the big screen and are there any other ones you'd like to add that you think would allow more representation? Please be sure to write your thoughts in the comments section. Thanks for reading!


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