Journeying Between Musicals and Film: Compromise in the Popular and Fine Arts

The line between the popular and fine arts is becoming much less distinguished, especially in the area of theatre. Plays have become musicals and musicals have begun to incorporate more elaborate dance into them. Soundtracks to Broadway musicals have become bestsellers and other musicals have been adapted to become films. This collaboration of the arts has created a newfound gray area in between the same old black and white.

Platforms have been created for one category of arts to fit into another, and do well in both. In 2004, Wicked: The Musical was nominated for nine Tony Awards and won three of them. The following year, the soundtrack to the musical won Best Musical Show Album at the 47^th Annual Grammy Awards. So while the musical itself was awarded for its above-par live creation, the reproduction of its music was also justly recognized. Throughout this time, it is and has remained one of the top 10 earning musicals in Broadway history.

The recent trend has been Broadway hits successfully being made into feature films, which only further blurs the lines between the arts. According to billboard.com, in 2003, the Chicago soundtrack was the #25 selling album of the year, and in 2005, the soundtrack to The Phantom of the Opera was #72. Both of these soundtracks were from films based off of Broadway musicals. And now there is hype about the upcoming film debut of DreamGirls, originally a musical.

However, this trend does not work only in one direction. Take The Lion King, for instance. Beginning as an animated Disney film, it was ultimately transformed from that to become a Broadway musical for which tickets are nearly impossible to get. These two interchangeable areas of the arts prove that the same story or concept is able to survive in multiple mediums.

One question still remains: has something been compromised in the midst of this switch? There is a big difference between live action (fine arts) and prerecorded action (popular arts). When a particular story exceeds expectations (or in some cases manages to meet them), an interest is formed which allows the story to translate well in multiple areas of the arts.

Are the fine arts thereby cheapened by embracing a concept from a different realm? Are the popular arts enhanced in the same manner? The answer to both of these questions (both yes and no) is not the point. What is important to the arts is the social reaction, which has overwhelmingly shown than no matter the medium, a good story is exactly that.