The experience of watching a play is significantly - one might even say dramatically - different from watching a movie and not simply because of the fact that a movie is the same at each viewing while a play is, of course, different each time. Movies and plays are also constructed differently, to a different internal rhythm - in part because of the fact that plays have intermissions in them while movies are meant to be sat through in their entirety. The difference between live as opposed to mediated entertainment and a piece that is meant to be viewed without breaks (as opposed to one that is segmented) require any number of small as well as quite often some rather dramatic changes to be made to works that begin life in one genre and are translated to another. This paper examines how the two versions of "Footloose" - stage and screen - vary from each other.
"Footloose" is one of a number of recent works that made the jump from screen to stage (rather than the other way around, which was the more typical route for years). In general either the film or the stage version is significantly more popular - and it tends to be the stage version (http://www.talkinbroadway.com/sound/oct20.html). This stage director suggests why this is:
I think that the audience wants to see these on stage because of the recognition factor and if you are doing a very large scale musical you want something that the audience will connect with quickly." In addition, he adds, "to make it work you have to add something to it that will make it in some way different from the movie (http://www.tribute.ca/tribute/0901/on_stage.htm).
"Footloose" was to some extent an exception, proving to be popular with both moviegoers and stage-goers, in part at least because the stage show depended less on big stage numbers that have a number of other musicals and in part because the film version allowed the main story to be developed in greater depth so that the romantic eleme...