Jose - What Noel wrote in his post was about ideas he felt he had before other people had them, so i wanted to assure him that at least in two of those four cases, no one followed in his footsteps. I quote from Noel's post:
"And, you know, I've long loved Skip and valued his avuncular influence on me when I was a very young musical theatre writer. He was good enough to attend my Area 51 - The Musical eight years ago, a sci-fi spoof with singing aliens and a three-and-a-half star general.
But nobody should think I'm put off when other musical writers follow in my footsteps. Happens constantly. This year alone:
John Kander, Rupert Holmes and the late Fred Ebb and Peter Stone premiered a musical in which a performer gets murdered while performing a show. The detective who arrives is more interested in fixing the show than solving the crime. Murder at the Savoy premiered 26 years ago, and has since had four productions in Britain, including last summer.
Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg's latest was about that rarest of birds, the female pirate, just like my The Pirate Captains which began a long tour in 1994.
Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's new musical is about a troupe of Commedia Dell'Arte Players, as was the show Tony Kushner and I did in 1983, The Heavenly Theatre.
That's just the way it is with musicals: a fast-talking charlatan blows in to town and romances a stand-off-ish spinster. Now, did you think of The Music Man, 110 in the Shade or something else?"
