You know... There's a lot of money to be made through staging musical versions of classic movies.

I wonder if Prince has ever been approached to license Purple Rain as a stage musical on Broadway or the West End?

The lyrics to the songs on the album almost sound like they're from a musical anyway. They have a highly narrative structure.

I know that more songs would be needed to pad it out to a two hour musical. Maybe keep the Apollonia 6 songs and The Time's songs, nixing 'Modernaire' and adding '17 Days'.

If John Waters' Hairspray can be a successful mainstream stage musical, why not Purple Rain?

And I know that 'Darling Nikki' is a tad "racy", but Grease is considered to be family-friendly entertainment and 'Greased Lightning' features these immortal lines:

Nah. I doubt it would work, because all Purple Rain was really about was building mythology around Prince.

Even the title: "PRINCE in his first motion picture PURPLE RAIN", seems to indicate that without Prince, no movie. The film isn't as much about "The Kid" as it is about seeing "Prince playing The Kid".

I think it would make as much sense to re-do "Madonna, Truth or Dare" as a musical without Madonna, as it would to make Purple Rain without Prince.

Cravens said:

I disagree. I think these days a musical stringing together the hits from Purple rain, but perhaps removing a few album tracks & replacing with other hits could be a success. Look at Mama Mia. Could be huge!

Shame I can't stand musicals, really...

Erik

erik319 said:

Yeah, but Mama Mia was build on the strength of iconic songs alone (and those songs were never created to feed a concept, that dealt with and sold the writer's personality and ego), whereas the whole cult surrounding Purple Rain is build on the iconic performance Prince did with these songs. Purple Rain is and was just as much about the clothes, the additude, the personality of Prince, as it was about the tunes.

I think "Under the Cherry Moon" would be a much better musical, simply because the story isn't devoted to Prince, and the songs themselves aren't performed in the movie (except you know which) and linked to the experiene of watching a specific individual performing them (like, say, the song "Purple Rain"). One could probably make a killer show, with a more polished and balanced re-write of the story and throwing in songs off- and on-record from the Parade period.

Old Friends 4 Sale I'm sure would be easily transfered to the stage.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

I've no doubt some cretinous industry hack has already thought of this and offers been made/ideas been touted.

NouveauDance said:

Well, I'd watch it!

GirlBrother said:

i love grease .. grease music .. sorry jus had to say ..

They already did something akin to this. Hamlet I think it was, done to include Prince music.

No. Just...no.

I think it would be a great idea. It's the cast that would make it or break it. No one could expect Prince on stage. If an audience could accept that and appreciate the story, it could be successful.

I don't know if a musical would be good,

remember the ballet Billboards...? that one was terrible.