Broadway's hit musicals, updated

With a little bit of luck:
Broadway classics, updated

ARMEN PANDOLA

Broadway’s greatest hit shows are constantly being updated to appeal to contemporary audiences. Here are a few currently under consideration for a facelift.

My Fair Lady

Original story: Professor Henry Higgins transforms Eliza Doolittle into a lady by forcing her to speak properly. Higgins also changes the life of Eliza’s work-averse father when he recommends him to a millionaire as a worthy recipient of a life pension. Higgins’s transformation of Eliza looks like a success when a poor but upstanding member of the aristocracy, Freddie, falls in love with her and spends his days outside her front door waiting to catch a glimpse of her.

Updated version: Freddie is arrested for stalking Eliza. A restraining order is issued, requiring that he keep at least 100 yards from the street where she lives at all times. Eliza’s father is imprisoned for failing to pay child support when he fails to get to a court hearing on time. Professor Higgins is dismissed from his teaching positions and ostracized by the academic community for spouting racist theories about why people can’t learn to speak good English. He becomes a Fox Network talk show host on a program called “Right Speaking.” Eliza launches an Internet floral business, sells it to 1-800-FLOWERS for millions and retires to a loverly warm room somewhere far away from the cold night air.

West Side Story

Original story: Tony, of Polish-Italian descent, falls in love with Maria, of Puerto Rican descent, and all hell breaks loose. Things end tragically when Tony tries to keep his gang from fighting the Puerto Rican gang and instead ends up killing Maria’s brother. Tony ends up getting killed after he thinks Maria’s been killed— hey, you know the story.

Updated version: When Tony and Maria fall in love, their families go crazy— crazy planning the wedding. Tony’s family wants it at the local VFW– it’s only just down the street— but Maria’s family insists on a full-blown affair at the Ritz-Carlton. Tony tries to keep his cool and explain to Maria’s brother that he would prefer to buy a house rather than throw a big party and end up living in some shithole. “Are you calling where we live a shithole?” Bernardo demands. This encounter leads to a very tense wedding, during which both Tony and Maria wish they were somewhere– anywhere else.

Guys And Dolls

Original story: Nathan Detroit’s been engaged for 14 years to the night club singer Adelaide, who wants him to give up gambling. But Nathan can make a bundle if he can only find a $1,000 so he can rent a place to hold his crap game. He bets Sky Masterson a grand that Sky can’t take a certain doll to Havana for the weekend. Sky claims that no dame is immune to his charms– but it seems that Sister Sarah of the Save A Soul Mission is. The crap game ends up having more riding on it that anyone could have supposed as Sky and Nathan find themselves grooms at the play’s finale.

Updated version: Nathan Detroit is indicted on several counts of illegal gambling while Sky Masterson discovers that luck isn’t a lady as he tries to kick the gambling addiction after he gets arrested for violating the Mann Act– transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes. Adelaide gets a job at Starbucks, where she is finally eligible for medical insurance and gets the operation she always needed to cure her acute sinusitis, while Sister Sarah’s family’s right-wing political connections enable her to wangle President Bush’s appointment as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. At her confirmation hearing she is asked how she’ll determine if a disaster occurs requiring federal action. “I’ll know,” she insists.

Carousel

Original story: Julie marries a big lug, Billy Bigelow, who’s a carousel barker. Things don’t go so well and Billy starts taking out his frustrations on Julie. But when he finds out she’s pregnant, he decides that slapping her around would be bad for his boy Bill. Instead, he decides to slap around some rich guy and rob him. The robbery goes about as well as his marriage. Cut to 15 years later: The dead Billy is granted one last chance to revisit his wife and their daughter, all pink and white. He proudly watches her graduate from high school.

Updated version: Billy and Julie move in together and Julie starts bustin’ out all over. Billy is a small-time crook who has three strikes against him. When he gets arrested for a robbery-murder he didn’t commit, he gets life. Meanwhile, Julie has their baby girl, who grows up determined to save her Dad. Words come in an easy way for her, and she enters law school, where she teams up with a sympathetic professor to prove her father innocent. They get him released just in time to see her graduate from law school. Julie has been waiting for Billy all those years and now they reunite, never again to walk alone.

Gypsy

Original story: Rose, the original mother of all stage mothers, tries to get her talented daughter, June, into show business. When June abandons her, Rose turns to her no-talent daughter, Louise, whom she cajoles into becoming America’s most famous stripper. Along the way, Rose loses the affections of her companion, Herbie.

Updated version: June and Louise are taken from Rose and placed into a foster home after allegations that her live-in lover, Herbie, is a little too fond of the girls. Several people come forward and claim that Herbie has been seen giving candy to little girls in dark theaters all over the country. “Some people” is Rose’s only comment. She spends years trying to find her girls and finally meets up with them when they all audition for the same part in a new production by Mr. Goldstone. Small world, isn’t it?

Pal Joey

Original story: Joey Evans is a small time singer-dancer and a big-time creep. But the girls love him– ain’t that always the way? Lovely Linda falls for him but he treats her badly because what he really wants is his own club. So he bewitches, bothers and bewilders a former stripper, Vera, who married a rich old guy and had the good sense to outlive him. When Joey tries to blackmail Vera, the jilted Linda comes to her rescue and Joey is forced to leave town. In the Sinatra movie, Joey dumps Vera and her millions for true love and goes off with Linda. Right.

Updated version: Joey gets indicted for lying on a loan application. His girlfriend Linda turns to stripping to try and get enough money to get him a decent lawyer. When Joey gets out, he abandons Linda at a small hotel in New Jersey and makes a play for an ex-stripper who married an octogenarian customer and lap-danced him to death. Meanwhile, the rich merry widow gets sued by the family of her dead husband and spends years trying to keep the millions she zipped for. Joey sticks by her, but she ends up dying of an overdose of– hey, wait a second! I know this story!