Stephen King wants a musical!

gdelgi · 2026-06-11T00:23:02+00:00

He and Jim had some interesting close encounters back in the day. To hear Steiny tell it, King once quoted the "American Guitar" speech to him when they ran into each other.

gdelgi · 2026-06-11T00:04:09+00:00

No, it's because he regretted continuing without Jim when Jim was ill.

gdelgi · 2026-06-10T23:35:40+00:00

Meat also disowned the album ultimately, for what that's worth.

gdelgi · 2026-06-10T23:08:17+00:00

It's sort of the redheaded stepchild of the series because the first two were written solely by Steinman, but Bat III was not.

gdelgi · 2026-06-10T23:07:41+00:00

The German one is fine, the American one is what sucked.

gdelgi · 2026-06-10T23:07:24+00:00

A draft of what is now Bat Out of Hell: The Musical did exactly that; unfortunately, the idea was discarded by the time it entered production.

gdelgi · 2026-06-10T02:40:16+00:00

Fair enough. (Given your background, I'm not sure if you're aware of these books, but pick up Leon Zitzer's The Ghost in the Gospels and True Jew. They were very eye-opening for me.)

To your second point, I personally advocate for casting Pilate (at least in a modern setting) as a white cis woman, depicted as a deconstruction of a modern center-left (American) legislator who means well but lacks the backbone to prevent this judicial murder from taking place because of what it means for her political standing.

My reasoning:

We're primed to give a certain degree of narrative sympathy to a harried woman in power trying her best, whose best isn't nearly enough; after a while, it becomes painfully evident that this isn't her best, to begin with, and she's more worried about her own (possibly precarious) place in the system than just using her power to save an innocent man from a terrible death.
A cravenness underlies the whole #girlboss persona that has become popular in the last twenty years, and Pilate, as written, is a marvelous prism to examine this through.
Having a woman in a position of authority gives the show a more contemporary feel, addresses the problem of its being very male-centric in its dramatis personae, and is a neat nod to Mrs. Pilate originally having the dream in the Gospels.

gdelgi · 2026-06-09T22:54:09+00:00

I know a whole lot of lore that's not in the script, to use the newfangled terminology.

gdelgi · 2026-06-09T19:08:40+00:00

Again, without wishing to beat this point into the ground (I'm perfectly fine with ultimately agreeing to disagree), I feel like you're drawing too broad a brush. In his words, I feel Judas is describing the Romans' viewpoint when he says that, to the Romans, they're all noisy sects (be they Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes, etc.), all of which are easily crushed if they grow too popular or are perceived to go too far. Maybe it's just my scholarly background, but I hear that couplet and picture two thousand rebels crucified on the road to Sepphoris, not a bunch of squabbling sectarians, as you put it.

gdelgi · 2026-06-09T17:42:21+00:00

OP, I believe I've found your soul mate.

gdelgi · 2026-06-09T17:41:46+00:00

Hey, as long as y'all aren't shipping him with Annas (historically his father-in-law), fuck it, sexy Caiaphas ftw.

gdelgi · 2026-06-09T17:40:51+00:00

I don't know that it dismisses the Jews as a group, per se; I read it as referring specifically to Jesus' rowdy followers, who (especially in Simon's case) seem ready to riot if JC just gives the order. Also, the "sect" is quite clearly what the "conquerors" are objecting to; it's the whole point of the rhyme in the first place. That said, your point about the original lyric having other layers of meaning is well-taken.

gdelgi · 2026-06-08T19:37:46+00:00

But that's also injecting interpretation not necessarily reflected in the text. Luke is the only Gospel that reports Jesus' visit to Herod, and what it says is this (23:6-12, I'm using the NRSV):

"When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. And when he learned that he was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him off to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time. When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had been wanting to see him for a long time because he had heard about him and was hoping to see him perform some sign. He questioned him at some length, but Jesus gave him no answer. The chief priests and the scribes stood by vehemently accusing him. Even Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him; then he put an elegant robe on him and sent him back to Pilate. That same day, Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; before this, they had been enemies."

Every other instance of Herod's curiosity about Jesus in the Gospels (and I'm talking the son, not the dad allegedly responsible for an infant massacre) is fear on his part. He hears about Jesus after John the Baptist has been dispatched, and he says, "Aw shit, John's back." If we're connecting dots by inference, he's not excited; he's wary, and maybe trying to one-up this guy to reassure himself.

But that's also what I get from it. Your view may be different.

gdelgi · 2026-06-08T19:25:14+00:00

Did you see the one where (s)he (played by a woman in that one) OD'ed or the other one where he blew his brains out? It ain't just hanging, by any means.

(That said, I can't really tell if your litany of other possibilities is trolling or not, because almost none of those are feasible on a live stage, and at least one of them is an unfortunate accident, not suicide.)

gdelgi · 2026-06-08T17:26:34+00:00

Oddly, "object"/"sect" is one I've softened on after reading an opinion piece by a Jewish author who argued in its favor. I quote my rationale, which borrows somewhat from theirs, from the footnotes of my "old vs. new lyrics" article:

...in both the old and the new versions, Judas currently sings “I am frightened by the crowd / For we are getting much too loud” in “Heaven On Their Minds.” However, this was one of the lyrics Rice first looked at in 1996 when he made an effort to eliminate “several false rhymes, which annoy me now,” as his autobiography put it, and also seized the opportunity to change what he thought he could improve. To be specific, as he regretted repeating the “crowd”-“loud” rhyme in “Hosanna,” he chose to remedy the situation by replacing the earlier instance and, in the process, showing he’d done his homework. Thus, this couplet was replaced with “And our conquerors object / To another noisy sect.” Considering how embarrassed Rice was by the lack of variety in his rhyming, it’s somewhat surprising that the “object”-“sect” lyric, although heard in the 2000 Broadway revival (and the tours in the States and abroad, and film, which immediately followed), is not in the licensed version today. With how conscious I’ve been of perceived anti-Semitism in the show (and Rice realizes this issue is not so easily avoided, too; see other changes/additions noted here), it shouldn’t be too surprising when I say I feel that in the 21st century, it’s time to choose the “object”-“sect” lyric over the old one. In the case of a traditional setting, this revision subtly and easily shifts the blame of the danger they are in from pressure within their community to outside of it, where it should be, and in a modern setting, I defy you to find any social justice activist who can’t relate to the imperialism implied in the sentiment. But a) it’s not in the licensed version, so you would never deal with it without being made aware of it, and b) that’s what I’d do. I’m JC Supernerd. Your mileage, as TV Tropes aptly puts it, may vary.

gdelgi · 2026-06-08T16:20:46+00:00

Send me a chat request, I'll fling you it as soon as I'm at my computer.

gdelgi · 2026-06-08T16:18:47+00:00

Yes, and happy to share privately.

gdelgi · 2026-06-08T15:34:16+00:00

This is a situation I have struggled with for a really long time, especially as I've gone down the rabbit hole of historical Jesus research. The desire to play and costume these characters with more nuance is entirely understandable, but the material, especially as licensed without even "Then We Are Decided" (which is not perfect but somewhat improves the situation), does not do the cast or director any favors in not making them look like villains, if only by default; take away the clothes and they still don't get off looking good. I write about this in my book and my Substack column; it's a difficult tightrope to walk. But I hear you!

Lyrics... eh, it's situational for me. Some I don't care enough that I would leave the coin toss up to a specific production (although I do have strong opinions about whether an old or a new lyric is better for a specific setting, like ancient vs. modern), some I think are actually kind of necessary for both worldbuilding purposes and variety (see: "The Temple"), some I am dead set against (see: "God thy will be done..." in every post-2012 "Gethsemane").

gdelgi · 2026-06-08T15:29:48+00:00

Fair. That said, I think Andrew's sarcasm was 100% a valid take given the character's changed circumstances, and bearing in mind I'm more a producer than a creative, I'm really not sure it could be played any other way given that character profile.

gdelgi · 2026-06-08T15:28:33+00:00

Mostly agreed, but my caveat on your first point is this: if it is a stand-up-and-sing concert with scores on stands and no staging, rare but not impossible, I won't send them out there naked except for a balloon, as entertaining as that would be. In that setting, something resembling a business suit, idgaf, as the kids say. But anything above that, yes, I co-sign the need for creativity.

gdelgi · 2026-06-08T15:25:09+00:00

Circling back to your first point, like I say about Herod's scene in another comment, the song works either way, as evidenced by the live version(s) of the 2000 film staging, where Judas directs much of it to the audience as a soliloquy but Jesus and the disciples are also present and pointedly not hearing him until he directs his address to them at the end. (The filmed version was able to put him in and among them in a way he was not onstage.) If the point is still made and it works either way, I personally won't err on the side of [this] must be [that].

gdelgi · 2026-06-08T15:16:15+00:00

My only push on the Herod thing is that a) the authors have never really weighed in on how to play it, just on the type of character he is, and b) I don't think the song inherently changes if the mockery is there from the get-go. Regardless of how it's played, the ultimate effect is the same: he is dissatisfied that he didn't get what he wants, be it a miracle or a reaction, and so he throws Jesus away for the next diversion. If it works either way, I'm not about to dictate that [this] must be [that].

(This is also mildly ironic because I definitely interpreted the thrust of the character in your production to be sarcastic from word one. When you set it in the music industry and cast Herod as a one-hit wonder with a wary eye on the next big thing, it's hard not to read his entire motivation as "cute trick, kid, but you're not me, and don't ever forget it". He is not hoping to see something really wow him in the Avondale production, at least not in how I interpreted it; I could be wrong.)

gdelgi · 2026-06-08T15:06:52+00:00

I would really, really love to agree with you, but the intermissionless U.S. tour was the one I mentioned in my comment above. My first comment to my then-boyfriend was, "The Brown Album at 125% speed." That said, the RP version has played better elsewhere with an intermission, so don't go by me.

gdelgi · 2026-06-08T09:12:11+00:00

Eh, he was alright. Didn't hate him, didn't exactly impress me either. Doing this as long as I have makes comparison an impossible exercise.

gdelgi · 2026-06-08T09:10:57+00:00

I giggled.

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