Stage to Screen & Screen to Stage: Movie Pairings for This Year's Tony Nominees
Films to watch alongside this season’s Broadway plays and musicals.
The 78th Tony Awards are just two weeks away! Unlike the Oscars, it’s both very expensive1 and very hard2 to be a completionist and see all of the nominees. I go to the theater fairly often and still, I’ve only seen 13 of this season’s 48 productions (and 8 of the 18 nominees in the “Best” categories).
It’s a very poor substitute for live theater, but movies are easier (and cheaper) to see. I’ve put together a list of films (or TV shows) to pair with this year’s Tony nominees, whether it’s the source material for the stage show or a thematic match that would also make for a good double bill. So if you’re looking for a movie similar to Maybe Happy Ending or curious about the various Pirates of Penzance film adaptations, look no further!
Best Musical
Buena Vista Social Club
Screen to stage. This celebration of Cuban folk music is based on the landmark album of the same name, and its recording was documented by Wim Wenders. His film, released in 1999, is also called Buena Vista Social Club, and like the musical, it affirms the vitality of artistic expression under a totalitarian regime. I’ve heard the stage show has a threadbare plot and is really about the musical performances, which can also be said about the documentary.
Dead Outlaw
Thematic pairing. Based on the true tale of a train robber whose mummified corpse became a carnival exhibit, this original musical is apparently one of the best of the season. I can’t wait to see it myself, but a friend who saw Dead Outlaw suggested Weekend at Bernie’s because of the whole thing about using a dead guy as a prop. I was kind of thinking The Ballad of Buster Scruggs could be a good fit, particularly the first segment of the Coen Brothers’ anthology film, in which Tim Blake Nelson sings an infectiously catchy folk ditty before a fatal shootout, but open to suggestions.
Death Becomes Her
Screen to stage. This is an obvious one, and if you want a quasi-musical riff on the original Robert Zemeckis movie, check out the music video for Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste,” which co-stars Jenna Ortega.
Maybe Happy Ending
Stage to screen. Hue Park and Will Aronson’s musical was originally staged in South Korea, where it was successful enough to garner a film adaptation called My Favorite Love Story. It premiered at the Seoul Independent Film Festival in 2023 and more or less disappeared since then, so it’s impossible to watch it. The Broadway version of the musical has made significant changes to the plot, so the film may no longer represent the show as we now know it.
Thematic pairing. For a film that also stars a robot companion who faces obsolescence and abandonment from his family, refer to the beautifully elegiac After Yang. It may be about robots, but just like Maybe Happy Ending, the story is humanist at its core. Both the musical and this movie share a similar antiseptic aesthetic of retro-futurism.
Operation Mincemeat
Stage & screen. Despite sharing a title, this musical comedy has no relation to the 2021 drama Operation Mincemeat, which stars Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen. Both are about the WWII British plot to trick the Nazis into thinking they weren’t going to invade Sicily.
Best Revival of a Musical
Floyd Collins
Thematic pairing. Adam Guettel and Tina Landau’s musical, about a real guy who got trapped in a cave, has been insanely divisive. I’m seeing it in a few weeks so I will judge for myself then, but I get the sense that theatregoers showing up for Jeremy Jordan or Lizzy McAlpine weren’t prepared for Guettel’s operatic style unique to contemporary composers. The real-life Floyd Collins was also an inspiration for Ace in the Hole. Billy Wilder’s excellently acidic picture. It stars Kirk Douglas as an amoral newspaper man who exploits a man’s impending death for his own gain.
Gypsy
Stage to screen. Stephen Sondheim and Jule Styne’s influential musical has twice been adapted by Hollywood. The most famous was the 1962 version starring Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood, but even the musical’s ardent fans will admit that this adaptation is a brutal slog, with Wood very much miscast as Gypsy Rose Lee. (It wasn’t until I saw the current production, which stars Audra McDonald, that I understood the love for this show.) The TV movie from 1993 that stars Bette Midler that’s apparently much better (and features a young Elisabeth Moss). There’s also a proshot of a recent West End production that stars Imelda Staunton.
Pirates! The Penzance Musical
Stage to screen. The Gilbert & Sullivan standard has been made into a couple movies, the most direct adaptation being a 1983 version that starred Kevin Kline and Angela Lansbury. But this new production of The Pirates of Penzance, currently at Roundabout, takes a lot of liberties with the original libretto, moving the setting to New Orleans and altering some songs (footnote: The original opera’s ending, an ode to monarchic fealty, has been transformed into pluralist propaganda about America being a place where we all originally came from somewhere else (even the natives!)). So perhaps a better pairing here is The Pirate Movie, an Australian movie from 1982 that’s both an adaptation and a parody.
Thematic pairing. It would be remiss to omit Mike Leigh’s Topsy-Turvy, in which we see Gilbert & Sullivan write and stage The Mikado, another opera of theirs, which is a delightful picture about putting on a show (so it’s also about making movies).
Sunset Boulevard
Screen to stage. I’ve said this before, but I thoroughly loathed the Jamie Lloyd-directed revival of this musical. (The Act Two-opener, in which video cameras follow actor Tom Francis as he performs while walking down 44th Street, is one of the show’s few highlights. A version from London’s Olivier Awards is on YouTube.) You’re far better off just watching the original Sunset Boulevard. Even after 75 years, the Billy Wilder picture retains its bite, and you’ll find that the best lyrics from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical are cribbed directly from its script.
Further viewing: Sweet Smell of Success and All About Eve.
Best Play
English
Thematic pairing. Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer-winning drama, about a group of Iranian adults studying English, has the shape and feel of an indie movie. Not a word of English is spoken in Universal Language, but it shares with this play a similarly uneasy feeling of dislocation. The opening scene of Matthew Rankin’s film, set in an alternative Winnipeg, is of a group of young Persian students in French class, so that’s another commonality.
I haven’t seen this movie yet, but COVID-era dramedy Language Lessons centers on the friendship that develops between a Spanish teacher and her student, which sounds similar to some plot elements of English.
Also, English references Notting Hill and Moonstruck (the opening credits of the latter are projected in the background of one scene).
The Hills of California
Unfortunately I missed this play, which I heard was very good, so I have no ideas for movie pairings here. (Please tell me if you do!)
Jez Butterworth’s drama was directed by Sam Mendes. While both also have long careers in film, they’re only just now collaborating in that medium, with the playwright announced as one of the screenwriters for Mendes’ forthcoming Beatles biopic quadrilogy.
John Proctor Is the Villain
Stage & screen. This is a feminist/revisionist riff on Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and he got an Oscar nomination for penning the screenplay of a 1996 adaptation that starred Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder. But for a film that’s also a feminist/revisionist riff on a classic play… maybe 10 Things I Hate About You? Which itself is also getting a musical adaptation.
Oh, Mary!
Thematic pairing. Florence Foster Jenkins. Perhaps the most perfect film match in this entire list. A gay icon stars as a wealthy woman who wants to be a famous singer, but is absolutely terrible at it. It’s hilarious but you can’t help but root for Mary Todd Lincoln/Florence Foster Jenkins.
Purpose
Thematic pairing. I really like this Branden Jacobs-Jenkins play, about a family whose patriarch is an influential civil rights leader modeled off of Jesse Jackson. I haven’t seen any of these speculative pairings, but there was a television series called Greenleaf that has a similar premise: it centers on the family that leads a Memphis megachurch and the secrets and lies within. And Purpose has been compared to Tracy Letts’ play August: Osage County, which had an Oscar-nominated adaptation that starred Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts.
Best Revival of a Play
Eureka Day
I missed this play, about parents and school administrators debating vaccination requirements (that was originally produced before COVID), and don’t know enough about it to provide a film pairing. (Let me know if you have ideas.)
Thornton Wilder's Our Town
Stage to screen. This classic American drama got a Hollywood adaptation in 1940, though with an altered ending (presumably due to Hays Code restrictions, though the original playwright approved this change, citing the differing psychological impacts of stage versus film). There are numerous proshots as well, most notably a Masterpiece Theatre version starring Paul Newman as the Stage Manager. And It’s a Wonderful Life could be read as a riff on Our Town.
Romeo + Juliet
Stage to screen. The Gen Z-oriented revival has a lot in common with Baz Luhrmann’s infamous movie version, featuring the new generation’s hot young stars (even if Kit Connor being the next Leo is a stretch) and anachronistic pop music while retaining the original Shakespeare language. Both also use that + symbol in the title.
Yellow Face
You can watch the nominated revival of David Henry Hwang’s comedic play right now, courtesy of PBS!
Thematic pairings. The play centers around the yellowface casting of Jonathan Pryce in the original production of Miss Saigon. (There’s a 25th Anniversary concert recording starring Eva Noblezada and Jon Jon Briones, no racebending required!) And Hwang’s metatextual musings on the place of Asian Americans in popular media has a kindred spirit in Charles Yu’s novel Interior Chinatown, which recently got a TV series adaptation.
Nominated In Other Categories
The synopsis of Boop! The Musical, in which Betty Boop escapes from the black-and-white cartoon world into present-day New York, reminds me quite a bit of the Barbie movie.
Smash is, of course, based on the TV show. I had a lot of fun watching the musical version, which made significant changes to the story, though it missed an opportunity to lean into what made the original such a guilty pleasure. A good thematic pairing for the stage Smash would be the musical version of The Producers; both were directed by Susan Stroman.
And finally, the obvious ones: the George Clooney-starring Good Night, and Good Luck is based on his film of the same name; the Stranger Things play doesn’t require explanation. David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross has a famous film adaptation. Real Women Have Curves was at first a play, which became a popular TV movie, and now a musical. Angela Lansbury stars in a 1945 adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, but unlike Sarah Snook, she doesn’t play every single role.
(Some of the pairings are speculative since I haven’t been able to see everything. If you have any pairing ideas that I missed, I’d love to add them to this list! Leave a comment. I should also acknowledge that Maria Banson put together a watchlist for her own newsletter, Brunello Bombshell, which I used as a springboard for this list.)
The average theater ticket costs $130, and with 18 nominees for the “Best” categories, it would cost you $2,340 to see ‘em all! You can also try your luck on lotteries and rushes for cheaper tickets.
Sometimes the show has already closed by the time nominees are announced (this is especially the case for plays). And of course, you have to be in New York to see these shows.