My Favorite Musicals for Book Lovers

Ranging from direct adaptations, to musicals that are inspired by stories and tales, to musicals that you might love if you're generally a book-ish person, these are my personal favourite musicals for book lovers.

Matilda

I'm a sucker for Roald Dahl, amazingly talented tiny humans, and catchy tunes. Matilda has them all. I especially relate to Matilda as someone who grew up with the book and the movie, and eminently related to her as someone who used books to escape a less-than-optimal home life. I'm not going to say I waited for the day when my telekinetic powers would develop, but I didn't NOT wait for that day either. Tim Minchin was the perfect choice for composer/lyricist for this one. "Revolting Children" gets stuck in my head on the reg, and "Naughty" basically makes me cry every time. "Just because you find that life's not fair, it doesn't mean that you just have to grin and bear it." So good.

Little Women

What I consider one of the most underrated musicals, not least because it starred one of my musical theatre idols, Sutton Foster as the ever-popular Jo March. Based on the book by Louisa May Alcott, this is one of those stories that looms large in the memories of many book-ish women that I know. A friend recently asked a question on Facebook about a piece of music that always makes you cry, and one of my answers is "Some Things are Meant to Be." Every. Time.

The Color Purple

Having just recently passed Banned Books Week, this one is especially poignant. One of the most frequently challenged books, The Color Purple, based on the book by Alice Walker, is about African-American women in the South during the 1930s. Initially adapted into a film, it was then further adapted in the mid-2000s into a stage musical. The musical book was written by Marsha Norman, who also wrote the book for The Secret Garden, and initially starred LaChanze (who I personally recognize from Once on This Island). It was recently revived on Broadway, starring Cynthia Erivo. Basically every song I've ever heard her sing, especially from The Color Purple, has made me cry. So if you're a book lover looking for some cathartic crying, this might be the one for you.

The Secret Garden

I might be a bit biased, working at a theatre that recently presented an updated version of The Secret Garden, with changes from the original writers Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon, but this haunting, beautiful tale about family and hope is a perennial favourite. Though I won't say there aren't any problematic things depicted—both Archie and Neville's fetishization and worship of Lily rubs me entirely the wrong way, not to mention that I'm not sure about the cultural sensitivity of some of the portrayals of Indian characters—those issues are more with Francis Hodgson Burnett's source material than with the musical itself. And it has some of the most beautiful songs.

The Wizard of Oz and The Wiz

L. Frank Baum's stories of Dorothy and Oz seem to be a neverending font of inspiration, both in musicals and in all other media. From the iconic movie starring Judy Garland, to the equally iconic interpretation starring all African-American actors (some of the biggest names in entertainment at the time), to a fractured fairy tale version starring two powerhouses and some Broadway legends (see below), and most recently to a filmed live presentation of The Wiz, I don't know that we'll ever get tired of travels with Dorothy, Glinda, and the rest.

Wicked

This is another one I'm a bit biased about. I was a junior in high school, very lucky to be able to go on an east coast trip with a teacher and some classmates. We saw two shows in New York, one of which was Wicked, in its infancy. It had opened less than six months earlier, nobody had really heard about it yet (which is how we were able to nab tickets, I'm sure), and it still had the original cast. It'll forever be one of the highlights of my life, not least because the songs have stuck with me from the moment I heard them. I have to say, Gregory Maguire's source material was a bit of a shock for a 15-year-old who had seen the fairly-tame-by-comparison musical version, but it definitely spurred a renewed interest in fractured fairy tales in general.

Mary Poppins

Full of stage magic and flying, plus some of the catchy songs that are well-remembered from the Julie Andrews movie adaptation of the P.L. Travers book, Mary Poppins is a new classic. My personal favourite is "Chim Chim Cher-ee" but the whole thing is pretty fantastic.

Big River

When I was in high school, my foreign language was ASL. As an extra credit assignment, I saw a touring production of Big River. It happened to be the Deaf West production, and ended up being one of the most innovative things I've ever seen. This musical adaptation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain has gorgeous and emotion-filled songs that I can go years without hearing, and then stick in my head immediately once I hear them again.

Once on This Island

Based on the novel My Love, My Love, the story mixes elements of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, adds a dash of Romeo and Juliet and transports it to a Caribbean island. During a storm, a young girl is told the story of Ti Moune, who is saved by four gods during another terrible storm. She meets a boy when she saves his life, but their lives are very different, and it's clear from pretty early on that this story can only end in tragedy. But what a beautiful tragedy. The original Broadway production starred LaChanze, and a revival is set for Broadway later this fall. From the pre-production photos they released, and the casting choices, it's going to be a can't-miss musical of the season. I wish I could get over to New York to see it.

Into the Woods

Based on a number of fairy tales, Into the Woods is definitely a darker option for book-ish fans. In many ways, it was one of the first in a recent uptick of "fractured fairy tales." The original Broadway cast is a veritable who's who of powerhouse talent, and it's got some of the Sondheimiest of Sondheim music in it.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Spelling Bee!!! If you love books, chances are you love words. And if you love words, you just might love spelling bees. A group of precocious youngsters, mired in pressure and anxiety, compete in the annual spelling bee. Each of them sings about their motivations, their families, and their personal methods of competition. But only one can be the winner. Portrayed by adults, the original cast of "students" was full of incredible talent. The "I Love You Song" is one of my go-to secret belting songs to sing in the car, and I know a plethora of harmonies to "Pandemonium" from the time we did it during a music revue I was in with friends.

There are SO many other book-ish musicals out there in the world. And that's just thinking about stage musicals—branching out into movie musicals would widen the field even further. What's YOUR favourite?