Cinematical

I can't count the number of movies that have been adapted into stage musicals (and in some cases, back into movies again) in the past few years. Some are big Broadway hits, like The Producers and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Some are campy low-budget productions, like Evil Dead: The Musical and Silence! (Silence of the Lambs: The Musical). But I never would have guessed that someone would make a stage musical out of a Paul Verhoeven film, particularly his 1977 Dutch drama Soldier of Orange, which starred Rutger Hauer and Jeroen Krabbe. The film is about Dutch soldiers during WWII, and was based on the memoirs of Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema.

The musical is currently in pre-production in The Netherlands ... and no, it won't be called Soldier of Orange: The Musical or even Soldier! (with an exclamation point, of course). The English-language title will be Rebel and the Queen. What I do not understand from the Hollywood Reporter article is whether the musical will be in English or Dutch -- or perhaps both, like the original film. However, composer Tom Harriman and lyricist Pamela Phillips Oland are both known for English-language projects. In addition, I had not realized that another Verhoeven film, his 1973 romance Turkish Delight (also starring Hauer), was successfully adapted into a stage musical in The Netherlands last year. I can't wait to hear which Verhoeven film will be next for the musical treatment: Total Recall, Robocop ... or best of all, Showgirls: The Musical.