The Gospel Truth: My Opinion on Hercules the Musical

When I first heard that a stage adaption of Disney's Hercules was in the works I was very excited, but also nervous. Hercules has the potential to be an amazing musical with the potential for wonderful character depth, a beautiful script, some great Disney magic and a killer gospel score by Alan Menkin and David Zippel. I knew there were a million ways this could go right, but also a million

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ways this could go wrong. A little over a year later Playbill made an announcement that Hercules would receive a premier staging at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park from August 31 to September 8 of 2019. This is when my worries shot up. I'm not sure how they plan on doing this show not only outdoors, where they are victim to the elements and not only that they won't have any fly space and are severely limited to what they can do design wise since they are outside. I really only have 3 opinions on how the designs should be done. First and foremost don't add costume changes for the sake of costume changes. (I'm looking at you Frozen) They also should not be Hercules in a muscle suit. All of his muscles should be natural. Putting him in a muscle suit would be super cheesy. They also need to make sure that the special affects such as the Hydra and the final battle between the titans (If they opt to keep those elements) need to be well done. I would recommend getting the puppeteers who designed stuff for King Kong and the special effects people from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child together to design all of this stuff. This is why I'm confused as to why they are doing this in the Delacorte an outdoor theatre with no fly space and no wing space. I should mention that before the Delacorte their is supposed to be a workshop in June or July. I have many concerns for this stage adaption and specifically about how fast Disney is putting it out. I

Hercules and Phil

think they should do a workshop before declaring there will be an out-of-town tryout. What if the workshop needs lots of reworking? Are they planning on doing that that in the month or two before the Delacorte run? However, I have many concerns other than just the pace at which this project is moving. (Considering that Disney will probably try and rush it to Broadway for the 2019-2020 season or they'll go for the 2020-2021 season.) My other concerns are that they need to keep what made the original movie so great. (I.E. It's supporting characters) The movie Hercules was a huge part of my childhood I would watch it on repeat on VHS. (I just dated myself I know.) First and foremost don't overuse the Muses. While the Muses are definitely the best part of Hercules seeing too much of them could get old and grow tiresome. They should stay as narrators and out of world type characters. They should never fully interact with the characters (The closest they should be to the story line is during "I Won't

The Muses

Say I'm In Love" when they are convincing Meg she is indeed in love. However, they shouldn't have physical interaction with her. They should almost be like voice in her head.) In addition to those story elements the Muses not only need to have killer vocals individually, but they need to have killer chemistry and be able to sing as a group. They need to be able to play off of each other without upstaging each other. However, while they shouldn't be made major characters they also shouldn't be doubled up as ensemble members. The other thing is they should not try and feminize the role of Meg. (Voiced perfectly by Broadway veteran Susan Egan in the movie.) They shouldn't try to glamorize Meg either. What made her so great was her natural beauty and great spunk. They shouldn't try and give Meg skin tight clothes or have her wear 20 pounds of makeup. The actress who plays Meg should simply wear as much makeup as they would on a normal day (Just don't forget her dark eye shadow.) They also shouldn't worry about getting that large volume of hair she has in the movie unless the wig looks very good and isn't too heavy for the actress to wear. They also need to make sure that they keep Meg as the dry witted, spunky tom boy she is in the movie. She

Meg and Hades

can be sassy, but no too sassy. I would also love for them to go more into Meg's backstory (As long as it doesn't detract from the overall plot and fits naturally.) I would like to hear more about Meg and her boyfriend and why she made that deal with Hades. Another important thing KEEP MEG AN ALTO!!!!!! (Dream Meg's for me are Jessica Keenan Wynn or Krysta Rodriguez.) The other important character is the role of Hades (Who is played by James Wood and is one of his most favorite roles he's played.) They need to cast this role with someone similar to Meg. They need to have that excellent dry wit and and fantastic comedic timing, but he should also be extremely terrifying. Don't turn him into the campy villain like they did with Ursula in The Little Mermaid (As much as I love that show they did make Ursula more campy.) Anyway, those are my thoughts (So far) on Hercules. I will be on the lookout for more news at it surfaces. Most importantly is the casting of this show. If even one actor is off it could ruin the whole show.