Stories That Never Die
“Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form.”
– Jean Luc Godard, film director, screen writer, film critic
Stories and storytelling have endured the test of time, from predating the act of writing to today’s many mediums and formats. A bestselling novel can be adapted into a movie, or find new life as a stage musical. Even classical works such as music symphonies and theatre plays are not spared from reinvention and re-interpretation to make them relevant to today’s audiences.
Here are five stories, some real, some fictional, that have resonated so much with us they have been granted multiple lives as plays, books, musicals and movies. Many of these titles can be found at library@esplanade, Singapore’s only library for the performing arts. Be sure to also catch the library’s new podcast Moving Art where librarians explore topics and developments relating to the performing arts such as Film, Music, Theatre and Dance.
1. West Side Story
1961’s hit musical film West Side Story is no stranger to most people. Adapted from a 1957 Broadway musical, the film chronicles the ill-fated romance of two lovers from different gangs, one white and one Hispanic, in Upper West Side, New York City. As disagreement over the romance erupts into outright gang war, the body count rises, contributing to the tragedy. If you find the story familiar, that’s because it’s a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It goes to show that some fictional tropes are timeless and continue to be relevant centuries after their creation.
Get the movie here: DVD
Listen to the original Broadway recording here: CD
Read the original play that started it all here: Physical Copy
2. Les Misérables
Considered by some as Victor Hugo’s magnum opus, 1862’s Les Misérables is a gargantuan novel that tells the story of ex-convict Jean Valjean and the plight of commoners in 19th century France. The book’s forbidding length (spanning over 2,000 pages in some editions!) has not deterred other creators from adapting the story for plays, TV shows and movies. Perhaps the most well-known adaptation is the 1985 West End London musical which has been watched by over 70 million people worldwide by 2019. The latest film adaptation in 2012 earned a total of eight Academy Award nominations, winning three.
Get the musical score here: Music Score
Watch the musical performance here: DVD
Read the book that started it all here: Physical Copy, eBook
3. The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music has captured the imagination of generations of movie audiences ever since it was released in 1965. Ask around and most people will be able to hum along to the Do-Re-Mi ditty or sing along to My Favourite Things. But did you know that the movie is actually based on the real-life von Trapp family who escaped Nazi-occupied Austria during World War II? The family’s story was first adapted into two German films before becoming a 1959 Broadway production indelibly defined by the music composed by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein.
Get the movie here: DVD
Listen to the soundtrack here: CD
Listen to the original Broadway cast recording here: CD
Read the autobiography of a member of the real von Trapp family here: eBook
4. Amadeus
Music is an invaluable aid in storytelling, but sometimes, music is also the story itself. Winner of eight Academy Awards, 1984 movie Amadeus is based on composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his music compositions during the final years of his life. The movie is an adaptation of a 1976 Broadway play written by Peter Shaffer who was, in turn, inspired by the idea of a fictional rivalry between Mozart and Antonio Salieri, an Italian composer, popularised by Russian poet Alexander Pushkin in his 1830 play Mozart and Salieri. Talk about a literary onion that keeps on giving!
Find the music score of Mozart’s piano pieces featured in the film here: Music Score
Get the original play here: Physical Copy
5. Billy Elliot
Most of the entries in this list found their breakthrough as musical adaptations which helped pave the way for the stories to be translated to the big screen. Billy Elliot bucks this trend with its origins as a play written by Lee Hall titled Dancer. Hall went on to adapt the play into a movie script, bringing in Stephen Daldry as director. A film about a young boy who defies all odds to become an accomplished ballet dancer, 2000’s Billy Elliot did so well as a movie that it was adapted into a novel in 2001 and a West End musical in 2005.
Get the movie here: DVD
Watch the musical performance here: DVD
If you are looking for more cross-medium titles, you can also check out our lists on book-to-film adaptations or TV series that originally started off as plays.
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Text by
Marissa Heng
National Library Board
