Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | Introduction to the History of Musical Theater

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I am taking a brief hiatus from working directly with The Lord of the Rings and other texts by J.R.R. Tolkien to talk about another facet of my project: musical theater. Tolkien’s works contain songs in a variety of genres along with implied dance sequences. My hypothetical animated musical will honor these creative choices. The reader may ask, why did Tolkien write in this distinctive style? While he was likely inspired by a myriad of historical European traditions — Celtic bards, Nordic skalds, Greek aoidoi, and other ancient singers — his stylistic choices to include lush descriptions of scenery, contemporary slang, and passages of dialog show similarities with lavish Broadway productions. Tolkien did not have the luxury of living in New York City and seeing the latest hit during its first run, and London’s West End did not support the type of musicals seen across the water, but movie editions allowed British fans to catch a glimpse of this new medium. Interestingly, the books predate the peak of the Golden Age; perhaps the best of the stage took inspiration from the best of fantasy literature.

The Golden Age of Broadway lasted roughly between the opening of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! in 1948 and the closing of Fiddler on the Roof in 1972 and produced a high number of book musicals, also called librettos. The Lord of the Rings was published in 1954-5, right in the middle of the Golden Age. Comic opera preceded the Age, while concept musicals and company productions proceeded the Age. Musicals in all three styles have found critical acclaim and an active fanbase. However, the plot and character driven stories found in book musicals lend them to revivals not only on Broadway but at local theaters and schools across the world.

What is a Book Musical, Anyway?

According to the musical expert, John Kendrick, book musicals tell a story using “popular-style songs”, or instrumentation and melodies similar to pop music. This is a contrast from revue musicals, an earlier style with a weaker storyline focusing on the talents of songwriters and performers. Either type of musical contains elements of older forms of stage performance, including plays, opera, and ballet. Like plays, actors memorize lines and perform stories. Like operas, songs carry the message of the plot. Like ballet, massive dance numbers may involve the entire company, while smaller numbers or solos further develop the character. In the future, I will have posts on the history of these media.

Writing a musical is a collaboration between two or three authors: a lyricist who writes the words to the songs, a composer who writes the notes to the songs, and a book writer who writes the script between the songs. Generally, the lyricist and composer get more recognition than the book writer unless the production goes badly, and the book writer is blamed. If a lyricist and composer work well together, they might write multiple hit musicals and become known by their pair of surnames: Gilbert and Sullivan, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Menken and Ashman.

Book writers take their material from a wide range of sources. Some musicals begin as plays, such as Hello, Dolly! based on the 1954 production of The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder and My Fair Lady from the 1913 play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, itself based on a Greek myth. Others are based on books, like Les Misérables on a much more thematically complex novel by French author Victor Hugo, Fiddler on the Roof on a tonally darker collection of short stories by Sholem Aleichem, Cats (https://www.catsthemusical.com/) from poems by T.S. Eliot, and Godspell based on the Gospel of Matthew. Still other musicals were inspired by historical events: the creation of the state of Oklahoma in a musical by the same name, The Sound of Music on an Austrian family who escaped the Nazi regime to open a ski lodge in Stowe, VT, and Bye Bye Birdie parodying the popularity of rock-and-roll stars like Elvis.

Before the Golden Age

The modern musical appeared some years before the Golden Age of Broadway. In Great Britain, Gilbert and Sullivan provided light hearted comic operas during the late Victorian era. Absurd scenarios and silly songs dominate works like H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance, yet the works never become foolish. The pair invented the patter song, where an older gentleman character rattles through a quick-spoken piece packed with information. Tolkien was evidently familiar with the most famous of the patter songs, “I Am the Very Model of the Modern Major General” from The Pirates of Penzance, as his comic poem “Errantry” and serious poem “Eärendillinwë”, both sung in-universe by Bilbo Baggins, are in the same rhythm. At least one patter song is slated to appear in the hypothetical musical.

In the United States, brothers George and Ira Gershwin acted as a composer and lyricist team creating hit musicals and some flops during the 1920s and 1930s until the premature death of George from a brain tumor in 1937. George took inspiration from classical music along with the new genre of jazz, while Ira provided catchy or thought-provoking words. Ira’s political satire Of Thee I Sing debuted in 1931 and won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama the next year.

Among their best known works was Porgy and Bess, debuting in 1935 and adopted from a play by husband and wife writing team, Dorothy and DuBose Heyward. The story focused on the lives of African Americans living in a slum in South Carolina. While the entire writing team was white, as the Heywards were Anglo-Saxon, while the Gershwins were Jewish, they collaborated with Black actors to ensure a fair and dignified portrayal of the characters. While not a perfect work, and at times stereotypical by modern standards, the musical proved the power of song could convey tough messages and provoke empathy in diverse audiences.

The “Greats” of the Golden Age

One difficulty of reviewing the greatness of the Golden Age of Broadway and the artists who made it great is that the explanation might devolve into a litany of famous works, more of a top twenty list than an academic discussion. I will try to refrain from doing this by dividing the greats into three categories: musicals written by a famous lyricist and composer pairs, those written by a single creator, and famous musicals with less famous writers.

Power Duos

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II became the first “power duo” during the Golden Age of Broadway with their hit Oklahoma! in 1943. Both men were experienced at their craft, as Rodgers was forty-one and Hammerstein was forty-eight during the initial run. They had found success with other writing partners but wrote their best output with each other. Other hits were Carousel in 1945, Pulitzer Prize winning South Pacific in 1949, and The Sound of Music in 1959. Oklahoma!, South Pacific, and The Sound of Music each received films in 1955, 1958, and 1965 respectively. Rodgers would become one of the most decorated dramatic artists in American history as the first person with an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards), the first with a PEGOT (adding a Pulitzer Prize for Drama), and an inaugural Kennedy Center Honoree.

Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe were another power duo with favorites such as Brigadoon (stage 1947, film 1954), My Fair Lady (stage 1956, film 1964), and Camelot (stage 1960, film 1967). The adaptation of the last two books from The Once and Future King by T.H. White struck an unexpected chord with voters supporting John F. Kennedy due to savvy public relations by his widow, Jackie Kennedy. Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim took a different approach, contrasting romanticized life in England with the reality of race-based violence in the inner city with West Side Story (stage 1957, film 1961). Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock penned multiple musicals, but the longest lasting was Fiddler on the Roof (stage 1964, film 1971).

He Who Works Alone

Not all famous musicals were the output of a power duo. Meredith Willson created the book, music, and lyrics for The Music Man (stage 1957, film 1962) about a con artist pretending to sell marching band equipment in Iowa. Jerry Herman created both lyrics and music for Hello, Dolly! (stage 1964, film 1969), featuring a woman who can do it all and aspires to marry a local half-a-millionaire. In a brilliant marketing move, Herman employed American trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong to record a single of the title song, which proved so popular that it rocketed to #1 on the Billboard chart, breaking a fourteen-week streak held by singles produced by The Beatles. Armstrong made a cameo in the movie version of Hello, Dolly! as a big band musician, giving me the greatest shock I have ever received watching a film musical.

Stephen Schwartz found success as a composer and lyricist for the religious Godspell (stage 1971, film 1973), bizarre pseudohistory Pippin (stage 1972) about the son of Charlemagne, and more recently the hit musical Wicked (stage 2003, film 2024) adapted from the book Wicked by Gregory Maguire, which was in turn adapted from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

Other Great Musicals

Not all writers were regularly successful or became household names despite writing great musicals during the Golden Age. Due to its portrayal of teenagers, Bye Bye Birdie (stage 1960, film 1963) is a regular hit with high schools. Only its composer, Charles Strouse, would find success again with Annie (stage 1977, film 1982). While other one-hit wonders were staged during this time, none had the staying power of Birdie.

After the Golden Age

After the Golden Age, the focus of musicals shifted from libretto to concept. Among the best-known musicals, Les Misérables began as a 1980 concept album in French and became a staple of the theater with translations into a plethora of languages. The musical is completely sung through with the complex storyline broken down into a series of melodramatic songs.

Not all musicals went the way of the concept. Clear storylines appeared in corporate-funded musicals reinventing children’s movies, including Disney hits like Mary Poppins by the Sherman Brothers; Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid by Menken and Ashman, who last appeared in my “Introduction to the History of Animation”; and The Lion King with songs by Elton John. Lin Manuel-Miranda’s inventive looks at the American experience, In the Heights and Hamilton (https://hamiltonmusical.com/), still come with a book. Not all concepts are bad, although many come close, like Andrew Lloyd Weber’s perennial popular rock operas Cats about cats and The Starlight Express about trains. On a tangential note, the character “The Persian”, known only by his nationality in The Phantom of the Opera, bears a stereotypical resemblance to the only other Persian character in American musical theater, Ali Hakim from Oklahoma!, and I have logically concluded that this is the same person. He deserves his own musical.

Conclusion

The Lord of the Rings appeared early enough in the Golden Age that even its “revival” in the mid-1960s to early 1970s, as mentioned in Peter S. Beagle’s introduction, was well within the period. Despite its similarities to the book musicals of the time, its length and complexity does not lend itself to a traditional Broadway production. According to Kendrick, these musicals must last under three hours, most typically two acts with a fifteen minute intermission in the middle, due to union regulations and the audience’s inability to sit still. A stage musical of The Lord of the Rings, devoid of almost all its plot and characters, was one of the worst flops in West End history back in 2008 yet was revived in 2023 with even fewer characters and is slated to run in Chicago this year.

For a screen adaptation of The Lord of the Rings to be successful in the eyes of “purists”, the adaptor must respect the source material. Tolkien wrote a book with a large number of songs, prose poetry, and even dance sequences as should appear in the musical. A composer would add instrumentation for most songs. While Tolkien did record some of his songs, he was not a professional singer, and his pitch can be difficult to decipher. The composer should create music respectful of the cultures that inspired the Races of Middle-earth, conveying the sense of a diverse world created by the power of song. Tolkien would be the primary lyricist for songs appearing in the books. A lyricist might create additional songs directly from text appearing in the chapter portions of the books, repurposing the prose poetry found in dialog and internal monologues into songs. A lyricist might also create songs based on material appearing in the Prologue or Appendixes, or use concepts and theories established by Tolkien experts. When crafting these new pieces, the lyricist must use the language of the text, paying attention to Tolkien’s distinct word choices and linguistic patterns.

Creating the musical book based on the original book might prove the most difficult. Kenrick provided tips that contrast the style of Tolkien’s work. The storyline of a musical must be clear. In contrast, Tolkien’s stories tend to be meandering and filled with ambiguity, with words such as “seemed”, “maybe”, and “perhaps” found throughout internal monologues and dialogue. Characters of a musical must be easily understood but not become stereotypes. Tolkien characters are often mysterious or difficult to understand and might appear flat or stereotypical to readers who are not skilled at understanding subtext. The motivation behind Aragorn, whose grim appearance comes from the weight of his destiny to become king of Gondor, contrasts his encouraging and outgoing, if at times arrogant, personality. However, Tolkien will rarely tell the reader exactly how a character should be perceived, instead allowing their actions, internal perspective, or perspectives of other characters to define who they are.

Similarly, character development relies on singing and choreography in musicals, and the same is true for Tolkien characters. Frodo’s song “The Man in the Moon” and associated dance at the Prancing Pony in Bree show his playfulness and natural ability as a performer despite his anxiety with public speaking while demonstrating his recklessness and inability to think through social situations. Sam’s “Troll Song”, improvised while standing under the trolls turned to stone back in The Hobbit, shows not only that he will risk humiliation to make Frodo happy, but also that he is a brilliant lyricist, if with unconventional or inappropriate material.

Situations in musicals create the need for a song. This is consistent with Tolkien’s writing, as characters often sing about their current location, like Gimli’s “Song of Khazad-dûm” while walking through the mine and Legolas’s “Song of Nimrodel” on the bank of the river, or as a form of entertainment, like Bilbo’s “Eärendillinwë” while in the Hall of Fire at Rivendell. Finally, the audience must care about the characters. This is perhaps the easiest of the tips to follow. Tolkien protagonists are distinctive for their intelligence and love of learning, willingness to risk their personal safety to help others, and idiosyncratic dialogue. Even when the personalities of Tolkien characters are heavily modified in most adaptations, they remain compelling enough that people read the original material.

With the history of the medium and these tips in mind, I plan to present a comprehensive adaptation of Tolkien’s original material. I will act as composer, secondary lyricist, and book writer, much like the men who worked alone during the Golden Age of Broadway. In contrast to nearly every other creator appearing in this essay, “I am no man”, and the work will be framed to reflect that perspective.


Read past installments of Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical