A Star is Born

The writer and director of Beauty And The Beast, Bill Condon, developed the Broadway adaptation of the Star Is Born movie long before the 2018 movie reboot starring Bradley Cooper and Stefani Germanotta (Lady Gaga). With the lack of an available (and appropriately sized) theatre and many problems with casting, the Broadway project was held up until Condon could get it all together. Condon is an Academy Award for Dreamgirls and Chicago, which are both adaptations of hit Broadway musicals - whereas A Star Is Born tested his skills going in the other direction, adapting a movie script into a play, a feat that many past show producers have failed to achieve well. A Star Is Born represents Condon's attempt to return to stage work, which may be his first love, but has not been too kind to him in terms of critical or box office success. This is the very first time that a Star Is Born has been on Broadway, and while the original movie was first released in 1937 and has since been remade many times, it is not an easy conversion to the boards. In the original 1937 movie, Janet Gaynor and Fredric March played the leads in this classic Shakespearean tragedy of squandered potential and self-loathing. In the 1954 movie version Judy Garland starred with James Mason and this version was so “emotionally charged” that movie audiences were often know to faint in the aisles. The 1973 version saw Barbara Streisand and Kris Kristofferson bring a less-than-stellar performance to the silver screen, while the 2018 version with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, finally found the perfect sweet spot between realism, sentimentality and vulnerability- and garnered the favor of many lauded critics. A Broadway adaptation of any of the movies is a much harder animal to tame and Condon has chosen to change the story significantly, to avoid a potential comparison to the past movies. The Broadway version does bear the closest resemblance to the 1954 movie version in terms of plot and presentation and follows the track of a "fascinating orgy of self-pity and cynicism and myth-making." between the two leads.