To purchase the DVD of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, click on the image above.
Playbill has news of a musical adaptation of the film Little Miss Sunshine. With a book by James Lapine and a score by William Finn, the initial run of the new show started yesterday in Florida with Craig Bierko, Dick Latessa, Sherie Rene Scott, Martin Moran and Andrew Rannells in the cast.
The film, which I loved, tells of the adventures of the Hoovers, a dysfunctional family who travels from Albuquerque to Southern California for a kid’s beauty pageant in a vintage yellow VW bus. Finn seems like a great match for the material and I hope something great comes out of this.
Musical Cyberspace 
Although I do like Jason Robert Brown, this is statement is pretty accurate. I do think Finn could do a good job with the score though.
Matthew, that also might be why Finn and the material are such a good match. It is, after all, a character-driven piece.
I shall first start by saying that I do not like the movie. I know, hang me if you must, but it didn’t do anything for me. The only part I “liked” was when there was the serious moment of “you’re colorblind”.
Second:
I would like to point out how I find The Last 5 Years to be similar to Merrily We Roll Along. Maybe, what do I know?
And just as a personal preference, I love Disney and I don’t love High School Musical but I can accept/stand it. I just don’t see how it’s like 13 at all. I have just fallen in love with 13 about 2 weeks ago and I would like to see how the two are similar? I’m not trying to sound mean. Sorry if it comes off that way.
Voca, the structure of shows like The Last 5 Years and Merrily We Roll Along is atypical in the context of musical theatre in general, although I suppose one could say that half of The Last 5 Years approximates the structure of Merrily We Roll Along.
As for the High School Musical/13 comparison, I did not say the two were similar: I said that 13 was a simply another spin on the kind of characters one finds in High School Musical: stock types that appear in just about every high school narrative in every possible medium.
Yes, William Finn is the best man for the job, but I wasn’t crazy about the movie and I don’t see any real musical possibilities. I hated the teenage brother who never talked. I didn’t believe for a second that he wanted to be an air force pilot or whatever, and you knew he was going to talk eventually. To have him break out and SING would probably make me wretch.
I loved the film and I thought the silent brother was great. Of course one knew he was going to talk eventually. There is no way of getting around that expectation. It is all about how the moment he speaks is handled. In a stage musical, to have him break out in song could be a wonderful way to make the moment in which he chooses to become vocal something special.
I nearly went crazy when I found this out. It’s William Finn and he’s written some of the best musicals of all time. But the story is a little… well in some parts it needs work. But Finn is just amazing.
Is that not precisely the thing that would make some people agree that Little Miss Sunshine is a good choice for adaptation?
I had this discussion with another friend who loved the film. He said it also said it was inevitable. The point is, it was all set up so obviously and, like I said, I didn’t buy that this guy took a vow of silence to become an air force pilot or whatever the contrived notion behind it was.
What (barely) redeemed the movie for me was the way they stick it to child beauty pageants, which I think are immoral and should be outlawed. I don’t know if anyone else noticed this, but in the scene where they register for the pageant and meet the former Miss U.S.A or whatever, there’s a picture of Joan-Bennet Ramsey on the wall. Now THAT’S my kind of (admittedly sick) humor.
I am really excited for this. Mainly William Finn, he needs more shows in his catalogue. He may very well be my favorite composer in the past two decades. I understand why others wouldn’t want Finn to compose this, probably because his music is too upbeat for the family and story line. Though, through my own opinion, no one else can write Little Miss Sunshine besides William Finn.