Jukebox musicals have meant big bucks ever since Mamma Mia and We Will Rock You first asked the profitable question “how can we make theatre for people that don’t like theatre?”
And thus it was only a matter of time before someone thought of slapping a bunch of Britney Spears songs together and stringing some sort of a plot around it.
The musical has zero to do with Spears’ life and career, mind. And that’s not entirely unusual – the Seekers’ jukebox musical Georgie Girl was mainly an expansion of the titular song, making up for the fact that the Seekers’ rise and fall was one of the least drama-filled in music history – but Once Upon A One More Time gets bonus points for being ludicrously ambitious.
Because who among us has listened to Brit and not thought “hey, this reminds me of fairytale heroines and also second-wave feminism”?
It centres around a book club held by Snow White, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty, who are handed Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique by a Fairy Godmother. And… um, then Spears ensues, presumably?
In any case, it’s awesomely left of centre take on the material and is set to open in Chicago in December (replacing a slated Michael Jackson jukebox musical which has been deep-sixed for all the reasons you assume) before hitting Broadway.
And it had better come to Australia, dammit. Frankly, we can’t wait to see what we assume is subtitled Oops… I Allowed Male Voices In Authority To Define My Experience As A Female Again.
And you just know that scene with Toxic is going to write itself.
