#also i havent rlly paid attention to the musical scene since exiting it in 2018 but. it will always b in my heart

[theriverbeyond]

if you don’t mind, could you please elaborate on your ideas for a tlt stage musical? i too am musical theatre scum and this idea totally took me by surprise- your ideas for it are so fun and creative 😭 i am dying to know more about how you would arrange gideon as a musical (songs, motifs, just general tidbits of any kind) for entirely selfish reasons- it feeds the little worm in the back of my mind that wants to imagine everything as a musical.

thank you!! i did theater lighting for like, 6 years (and regular theater tech for a few more years before that) so i am just envisioning it... it could be so cool especially if they lean into the more rock musical visual style. there was this one specific local community theater production of next to normal I saw once in a theater that could seat maybe 100 people, that just went balls to the ball with ridiculous atmospheric lighting and just.. visceral acting/singing etc and I have been thinking about it ever since. hugely influential on my personal tastes. the broadway next 2 normal wishes it could capture even one shred of the intimate intensity and i have been chasing that specific high ever since.

for a gtn stage musical i have a few scattered ideas, in no particular order:

a "getting ready for canaan house"/gideon's rapier training montage & group song -- specifically, this would feature all the house heirs and specifically the real dulcinea. she would, of course, be played by a different actress for the whole rest of the play, but the audience wouldn't know because after that scene her face is never clearly shown. OR, in the first "getting ready" montage, you only see her back. regardless, the show would pull the ol' switcheroo. also this would be a fun scene where we get a glimpse of all the cav/necro pairs. there would be colored lighting corresponding to house colors

i think act 1 ending with the pool scene would be cool thematically (a shift in the gideon and harrow relationship) and leave the opportunity for an act 1 closing ballad (whose tune is then of course repeated when gideon dies). i don't think there is quite enough post-pool scene material for the acts to then be totally balanced, but, luckily this musical exists in the brain only and therefore i can do whatever i want forever <3 also the big battle scenes could be enough to fill the meat of the 2nd act

I think all the duels should be songs or at least done to music. Specifically i think the marta v. cam duel should be cam & marta dueling in the middle while palamades and judith stand to the side each lit with toplight in their corresponding colors (blue-gray and red). they would sing dueling verses of an "i am" song that reveal their own relationships with their cavalier and personal motives etc. maybe naberius gets his own pompous little verse

The fight against the lab 2 construct should be a song monologue thing and after harrow and gideon win, the tune changes to some kind of little victory thing etc but when they stumble across abigail & mangus' bodies the music just. stops.

I think it would be cool if the musical really leaned into the horror of things that are unseen. Like, gideon (and the audience by proxy) being frozen on stage while palamades confronts camilla. the explosion is either silhouetted on the scrim or done entirely offstage.

Ianthe only ever gets directly lit after she has become a lyctor. She still doesn't really get a song-- she tries to monologue it, but the music doesnt get going for her.

The avulsion trial would be a song sung by Dulcinea, that sounds sweet on first pass and is absolutely sinister when looking back. i am not a songwriter which means I can simply imagine it being awesome

the final gideon and harrow scene would be like. yelling and shouting. great big puppets used as the construct. gideon falls on a rail and then everything goes totally black. silence, or maybe crying. harrow screams gideon’s name. then lights up on gideon standing behind harrow, holding the sword together, under a narrow beam light. they fight cytherea together and say the wedding vows and everyone in the audience bursts into tears. gideon slowly exists the stage and by the end of the fight harrow is standing alone

gideon and harrow should have complimentary instrumental themes. after gideon sacrifices herself, the themes combine into one theme. this could be cool if this theoretical musical had a theoretical htn sequel, bc the same instrumental theme could come back *minus* the gideon part

there should be visually symbolic rails or other sorts of death flags for gideon the entire show.

camilla does a backflip

fog machine

"dulcie's theme" will be a sweet & soft instrumental track that plays when she's on stage that goes to a minor key and becomes dramatic and sinister when cytherea's identity is revealed

lighting would play a big role in symbolizing soul siphoning. I am personally envisioning this musical as having like highly saturated and emotional lighting (bc that is the kinda stuff that was fun for me when i did it lmao)or w/e SO that when soul siphoning happens everything can gray out and desaturate. it would look so cool. also, there should be a "the river" or something theme instrumental that plays whenever siphoning occurs, especially at the end when silas siphons colum vs ianthe.

the gideon v. coronabeth scene (right before everything goes to shit) would be a reprise of the song that happens when gideon duels naberius, and also, it would NOT be included on the official soundtrack

also for a theoretical sequel htn musical, the mattias nonius v. wake battle would start out with just ortus and then harrow takes over and then abigail adds to it, overlapping, and then mattias and wake have like an dueling chorus like the argument in le mis.

when gideon comes back, the harrow actress and gideon actress are both on stage at the same time. the harrow actress does all the body things that gideon-in-harrow does, wheras the gideon body is the one talking/singing. the music in the river bubble is all minor key or otherwise symbolized as wrong. mercymorn gets her own song of course. in the AU river scenes, gideon is there but we never see her face. the gideon actress could play The Body (with a costume change of course), so there is ambiguity on what is going on and who the body is just as in the books. idk i havent thought as much about post-gtn musical ideas but i think it would be very weird and experimental

would absolutely love to hear other people's ideas on this also!!