Stanley Kubrick

Question: I was reading your answer about the play that was based on Dr. Strangelove and that got me to wondering if you know of any other really weird or unlikely movie-to-stage adaptations coming up. Thanks.

Answer: The avant-garde off-off-Broadway theater piece Major Bang, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dirty Bomb, freely adapted from Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), was indeed an odd one. But I have to say, it's at least matched and maybe topped by Grey Gardens, a musical adaptation of the 1975 documentary by Albert Maysles and his brother about an eccentric mother and daughter, both named Edith Bouvier Beale, who lived in abject squalor in a rambling East Hampton mansion. The women, known to friends as "Big Edie" and "Little Edie," were related to Jacqueline B read more

Question: A friend told me he’d heard that there’s going to be a Broadway musical based on a Stanley Kubrick movie but couldn’t remember which one. Is this true, and, if so, which movie is it? I’m guessing 2001.

Answer: Your friend is partly right: A Stanley Kubrick film has been adapted for the stage, though it’s not a musical and it’s not opening on Broadway. If I had to guess which Kubrick movie would work best as a theater piece, my first instinct would be Paths of Glory (1957), because at heart it’s a courtroom drama. But I’d be wrong: It's Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb (1964), which, come to think of it, could make an excellent dark musical à la Stephen Sondheim’s sardonic Sweeney Todd. But that's not exa read more