Talk:The Who's Tommy

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Pinball Mid‑importance

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Rock music Low‑importance

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Based on or Version?[edit]

The article says that the musical is "based on" the rock opera, but isn't it just the stage version of the rock opera? -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:27, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have the time to do much research right now (and I finally have lost my access to Lexis-Nexis, so I'm pretty limited), but an article in the New York Times in discussing the musical, says "The changes overseen by Mr. McAnuff are so far-reaching that it feels as if "Tommy" has been reinvented...". Take a look: [1]. It does sound as if "based on" would be more accurate than, say "the stage version of...", just based on this one article. JeanColumbia (talk) 21:48, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but the songs are almost entirely the same -- only one new one was written for the stage. Aside from some lyrical changes, the addition of a couple of reprises, and some minor plot tweaking, the original album and the bway soundtrack are nearly identical. That's not to say that the minor changes didn't have a rather large effect when taken as a whole. The "message" of the stage musical is quite different, but I don't think that's enough to consider them separate works. — Music Maker 5376 21:56, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhere I have a book which discusses everything that went into turning the album into a show, but I think it's in a storage unit about a thousand miles away... Anyway, my understanding is that the album was a concept album built around songs, some of which were previously written and not originally about the character Tommy. The Broadway show required not just choreography and musical adaptation, but needed more of a plot than what the album offered. The additional song, plus art / visuals / special effects, was how a more complete (although still a bit ambiguous in places!) plot was constructed for the Broadway rock opera. The original Broadway stage show was advertised as a rock opera (as well as The Who's music come alive), but I have seen it also labeled as a musical (even though the Broadway production involves near-continuous music and has few spoken/non-sung lines, so arguably more opera than musical). I can't speak to any revivals or amateur productions, though. os (talk) 02:55, 19 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, well done, as usual, Jean. You made this into a respectable article. Happy New Year, both of you. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:00, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i am only 11 and i was 11 year old tommy in a production of it by queen mary's collage, basingstoke. little did i know i would be put in a binn and kicked. pulled on and off stage by my hair and be dropped onto the stage from 2 metre's up. thats taller than me!!

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jedjui (talk • contribs) 18:57, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

DSC_00162.jpg

me after the show

Surely the ====Ephrata, PA, production (2012)==== section is advertising for another amateur production - it doesn't seem to have any specific cultural significance, and in other MT threads, anything other than original productions or major revivals are removed. MorayN (talk) 15:49, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering about that sort of thing, MorayN... Sort of. I have some info about some of the early tours of the show in 1995-1996, including its first large tour in the US and Mexico and the first tour in Brazil. Those might or might not be culturally relevant, IDK? They technically aren't the "original production or major revivals" -- though they may be the first exposure of many audiences in major cities to the show, and they were large-scale production tours put on by a company based out of Manhattan. Tracking down encyclopedia-worthy references might be a bit challenging, but I can do it if it's useful to mention the tours in the article. (If it's just going to get scrapped as "non-notable" then I don't want to go to the trouble!) Thoughts, anyone? os (talk) 02:55, 19 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]