The recent Tony wins for the stage version of Once got me thinking again about my old musical TV programming ideas. I chatted about it with a music & movie aficionado J. Bolotsky who also had a bunch of great ideas — some of these could be pretty good as stand-alone stage plays:

Velvet Goldmine: the musical. Substitute some of the derivative works for the real songs by Iggy Pop, New York Dolls, and David Bowie (who are conspicuously missing from the soundtrack). Add more Marc Bolan.

Wonderful Tonight, a new musical based on the memoir by mod scene model Pattie Boyd about her MOST INSANE love triangle as the wife of best friends George Harrison and Eric Clapton, both of whom wrote #1 songs for Pattie. Rights would cost a bazillion dollars.

Chocolat: the musical. Features a gypsy jazz guitarist doing his best Django Reinhardt / Johnny Depp impersonation.

Good Will Hunting: the musical. Featuring the music of Elliot Smith plus new songs by Ashton Allen or Andrew Bird or Joseph Arthur or Damien Rice. New songs include “How Ya Like Them Apples” and “It’s Not Your Fault.”

Mrs Henderson Presents: the musical. A pretty obvious one.

Infinity of Mirrors Bonus:
Revive the play “The Rise and Fall of Little Voice.” This play was turned into a movie called Little Voice. Rather than revive the play, maybe the musical could be based on the tight movie script. So it’d be a musical based on the movie (which was based on the play) (which was inspired by a painting… of a dance… to a song… about architecture).  Either way, a clear vehicle for a nice jukebox musical.

I have other ideas that are best as TV shows and wouldn’t work on stage. Those will remain tucked away in my pocket.