Help needed: book that would do as a musical

Hi everybody!
I'm a swedish reader and musician. Now, me and one of my friends feel like we want to break some, to us, new ground and write a musical! Since music is what we're good at, we felt like it would be best to work with an already written story.

So now I'm asking for your help to think about a book that you think would do as a musical!

Some guidelines that might make it easier to think of something:

- We'd prefer a story tht doesn't contain things like submarines, airplanes, pirate ships or simply anything that will be impossible to create on a stage with a tiny budget...
- We'd rather like a short but intense story than one that stretches over 25 years.
- It would be good if it contained not to many people, since we want to give each of the main characters a musical theme. And since we're both pretty young, we know best how to reflect young peoples' thoughts in music.
- Love stories are always nice!

We'd be extremely grateful for your help!

Best wishes!
Linnea

How about "Bluebeard".

For the purposes of procrastinating when I should have been revising during my last set of exams, I composed several highlights for a Richard III: The Musical. It actually works kind of well as one.

Tolstoy's "The Cossacks"?
- You could limit the play to a Cossack hut & village.
- it covers a short intense period of time in the Caucasus
- there are a few, very strong characters.
- the hero spends much of his time with 'secret love' for a Cossack woman, who is also loved by a Cossack hero - a really strong love theme...

Candide by Voltaire , lots of fast moving scenes, strong characters relating their stories, (why not in song?) lots of humour and irony. It really should be a musical.

Candide by Voltaire should be a musical. fast moving, strong characters with stories to tell, full of humour and irony, strong love interest.

Possible song titles-

Simply the best (of all worlds.)
Vulgar Bulgar.
Where has my Cunegonde gone-to
Cacambo Mambo.
What the El Dorodo.
Counting sheep downwards.
Cultivate dont cogitate

and many many more.

I believe Leonard Bernstein has already made a musical of Candide.

Oh no, has he?

great minds think alike:lol:

You could merge the story of "the cossacks" with the music, and some scenes, from Calamity Jane. The story lines have many parallels - a frontier town, rough country, indians (=islamic rebels), "Black Hills", stagecoach/sledge, drunks, two males competing for the same woman, Chicago/Moscow.

You would need to replace Doris Day with a seriously good male tenor, and Howard Keel with a female soprano :) Start with (tenor):

Oh the Circassian Sleigh is a-slidon' on over the steppes
With the covers a flappin' and the driver slappin' the reins
A beautiful sky, a wonderful day
Whip crack-away, whip crack-away, whip crack-away

You would have to lighten the seriousness of Tolstoy a lot of course, think "Abba" and "Waterloo" :)

The Hobbit :D

Oh, do Kafka's Metamorphosis, def ... you wouldn't really even need special effects or heavy make-up, the music could carry it...