Smash

"Fade in on a girl with a hunger for fame."

Smash suffered from an identity crisis. Theresa Rebeck wanted a drama about the struggles of balancing her personal and creative life. NBC wanted a soap opera about the sex lives of Broadway artists. I wanted a show about the development of a new Broadway musical. It soon became clear that Bombshell, the fictional musical about Marilyn Monroe, was incomprehensible. I gave up on full episodes once Uma Thurman's smoothies became a plot point. I kept watching the songs from Bombshell. Here are some of my favorites:

Let Me Be Your Star
The 20th Century Fox Mambo
Public Relations
They Just Keep Moving the Line
Don't Forget Me

Oh, and I'm Team Ivy all the way.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory & Groundhog Day

And now we have two London to Broadway transfers based on beloved stories about disproportionate retribution.  Groundhog Day's weatherman is trapped in never ending purgatory for his sins. Charlie's naughty peers are brutally killed. They may survive in the book and films but on stage those kids die. Veruca's dismemberment by squirrels is in full Struwwelpeter territory. Is there a commercial audience for that? Time will tell.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Original Music by Marc Shaiman, Lyrics by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. Re-purposed film songs by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. Book by David Greig. 2013 London. 2017 Broadway.

Groundhog Day. Music and Lyrics by Tim Minchin. Book by Danny Rubin. 2016 London. 2017 Broadway.

Falsettos

William Finn wrote three short musicals about the bisexual Marvin and his family (In Trousers, March of the Falsettos, Falsettoland), before combining the latter two into the full length Falsettos. While the AIDS crisis had been addressed on stage Falsettos was the first musical to deal with the topic, two years before Rent.

The Broadway production was nominated for 7 Tony Awards. It won best book and best score but lost best musical to the fizzy Gershwin scored Crazy for You. In Peter Filichia's novel Strippers, Showgirls, and Sharks: A Very Opinionated History of the Broadway Musicals That Did Not Win the Tony Award he suggests that it was the adultery, rather than the homosexuality, that upset the Tony voters. The monogamous gay couple in La Cage Aux Folles won best musical in 1984 but Marvin leaves his wife in Falsettos and nobody is punished. In Crazy For You boy leaves upper class girlfriend for cowgirl but no one felt threatened by that.

Falsettos on the Tony Awards.
Scott Miller's Analysis of March of the Falsettos.
Background reading.