Broadway to Books: Something Rotten

Broadway to Books is a (possibly) unique feature that I do that I originated as a guest post that was way too involved. I have pared it down so that I could make it a regular thing.

It was just recently announced that Something Rotten is going on tour… 

…oh. I fainted from excitement!! Yes, yall! One of my favorite musicals is going on tour! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!! Thusly and therefore, I changed my mind about doing a Broadway to Books post because I have been obsessively listening to the soundtrack since the announcement. 

I feel like I have to make a confession… I haven’t really seen THAT many musicals. I mean, I’ve probably seen more than the average person because average people don’t seem to understand the magic of musicals, but it’s not like I’m a Broadway critic or anything, who gets into theaters for free. IF you can hook me up with tickets to just about anything, let me know ASAP.

I saw Something Rotten this year on a family trip into the city to see Aladdin, which, TBH, paled in comparison. The musical is about the Bottom brothers, two playwrights who are attempting to come up with The Next Big Thing to compete with that rascally writer, Shakespeare, who has become an overnight playwright sensation. The eldest brother seeks the services of a Seer to predict what the next great play will be and ridiculousness doth ensue. The cast was AMAZING even after there was some technical problem and were super nice after the show. 

 

 

Book Recommendations:

OBVIOUS CHOICE: Shakespeare. Now, much like the main character in Something Rotten, I am not a huge fan of The Bard. However, Shakespeare gave us classic crap and excellent stories if you can wade through all that iambic pentameter. My favorite is probably Midsummer Night’s Dream full of mythical creatures and mishaps; Romeo and Juliet full of what everyone thinks is a beautiful love story but is actually about two dumbass teenagers who should have discovered masturbation before poison; or MacBeth of which I can’t really remember the story but gave us The Weird Sisters reference.

Check out this website that has the plot of all of Shakespeare's plays converted in to 3 panel comic strips. 

LESS OBVIOUS BOOK REC: This is actually pretty tough... for my less obvious book recommendation I'm gonna go with Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld. I loved this book which has two stories running together: the first is about a girl, Lizzie, who slips into the Afterworld when trying to pretend to be dead during a terrorist attack and discovers powers she didn't know she had. At the same time is Darcy, the author of Lizzie's story who is using NaNoWriMo to write and tour. There are great scenes with other authors on tour talking about the writing process as well as some of the behind the scenes stuff related to publishing. Here's a review from Lynette Noni that I liked. Mr. Westerfeld wrote one of my favorite YA series: Uglies, so don't forget to read those, too. 

THE LEAST OBVIOUS OF ALL TIME: Ok. This one seems like a leap, but hear me out. Something Rotten takes the Shakespeare approach and the musical genre and flips them a little on their ear. In The Rest of Us Just Live Here, Patrick Ness does the same for the Chosen One trope. Here we follow a group of kids who are trying to live their teen lives while living in a world where other kids are chosen to save the world. [Here’s my review from when I read it.] It’s a lot of fun to take the things you know and then see them from a new angle. 

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