What video game would you turn into a Broadway musical?
Sing It
Last week, Derrick Sanskrit hit up New York Comic Con and returned with a few game-related goodies. The first was a Gameological Questionnaire interview with Antoine Tisdale, one of the designers of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. When asked what a Broadway musical-adaptation of the game would look like, Tisdale dreamed up a frenetic, violent opera. Down in the comments, snazzlenuts piggybacked off that conversation and asked the question that was on everyone’s mind:
What video game would you like to see turned into a Broadway musical? I’m thinking a Max Fischer Rushmore-esque version of Mass Effect would be excellent.
What followed was a fun discussion thread that tapped into the commonalities between video games and theater (a topic that seems to be getting more and more airtime around these parts). CNightwing suggested a cult favorite GameCube adventure, which I’m shocked to find out is making its way to Steam next year:
I’d suggest Tales of Symponia, which already has a strong operatic feeling to it, with each character having their own theme. The focus would be on Lloyd and Colette, with Genus and Raine as principle supporting cast, as they journey to try to save the world. On the way, they discover the fate of Lloyd’s mother, travel to another world, meet a host of strange characters who both hinder and help, and eventual fight their way to “heaven” itself.
And ItsTheShadsy’s answer was just too perfect:
PaRappa The Rapper—not for the music necessarily, but for what they would do with the scenery. The backgrounds in PaRappa all look like cardboard and are constantly in motion, collapsing and rebuilding into new shapes, and that would be amazing to watch.
Roswulf talked through a few options but settled on a tantalizing, untold story from Portal:
I have surprisingly few answers. The obvious RPG/action game answers make superficial sense because they have characters and plots in place, but they are structured around big moments and set pieces that don’t translate well into staged song and dance because the stories were paced around a different structure. It’s the same problem people run into when trying to create a good video game movie—amplified by 10. This gets even more complicated with sci-fi and fantasy games. It would be extremely hard to create a visual style that would make Krogans and Turians look good on stage.
In terms, of meta-commentary on the nature of gaming, I’d love something playing around with Super Mario Bros. 3, which is already about the intersection between theater and games. Or maybe a musical adaptation of Super Mario Maker, playing with ideas of repetition and iteration?