#or maybe it’s if they’ll adapt it exact to the book’s specificity but they’ve taken so many liberties the fhange and enrich the text

[shelfperson]

i guess some people think they won’t do devil’s minion in the show but that just makes no sense to me??? i’m not even that gung-ho of a DM shipper it just makes sense with where amc’s going with the show.

like they’ve waaaaaaaay boosted daniel’s role in the story, (i for one could totally see him encompassing david’s arc and not just parts of his personality, to keep him in the show) and devil’s minion is like. daniel’s ONE thing in the books. like he interviews louis, devil’s minon happens, and then he just kind of fades into oblivion. that’s obviously not what rolin&co want to do with his story, so why get rid of daniel’s One Thing.

[hermitknut]

Animorphs: The Musical

Okay first off, a disclaimer: I outlined this originally not as a musical that would exist as an adaptation of the books, but as something that is created, maybe ten-fifteen years post-war, within the universe of the books (or more precisely, within my own post-series AU that I roughed out here - TL;DR is that Rachel’s alive and the animorphs as a group aren’t big fans of the spotlight). This affected things in specific ways, but most importantly:

Ax doesn’t want to be focused on - he doesn’t like earth music, and he doesn’t understand this form of storytelling. As such, he plays a smaller role in the show than he might deserve to. 

I can’t imagine them ever telling people on earth certain things (David will be a secret taken to the grave, for example; Aftran/Karen’s involvement may have been kept quiet to protect the (still a tiny child) Karen; and while the role of the Ellimist has been shared with the Andalites it’s not exactly a well-known thing on earth because seriously can you imagine the amount of scepticism)

That said, there’s no reason this version wouldn’t work as an adaptation, it just leaves out certain things that I think we’d all miss if we were watching it IRL. I was thinking more about how the actual Animorphs would feel about their lives going on stage. 

Notes:

1. I’ve used songs from actual musicals as stand-ins, and none of them are exact fits. Mostly they convey the right kind of feel and pace for the moment.

2. Each animorph has a ‘keynote’ through the show; something life-changing that they volunteered. Jake’s and Marco’s were easy; Cassie, Rachel and Tobias elected to keep their real life-changing moments to themselves (Aftran, David, and Elfangor respectively) and so theirs are a little different. Ax asked not to be given one.

3. The morphs are done with puppetry, with little emphasis placed on the transition. For small morphs (bugs and birds), the child actors can operate the puppets themselves; for battle morphs, adult puppeteers form the shape of the animal around them. This means you can see the child actor performing/emoting even within a fight scene. For the style of puppets I’m thinking of, check out the stage adaptation of His Dark Materials that was done a while back by the national theatre (some images here and here). 

4. I’m also working under the assumption that we’re using pretty minimal sets, so big set changes aren’t hugely necessary.

This got SUPER long, so I’ve put it under a cut.

Act 1

The house lights go down. Over the speakers we hear a confused buzz of communication: some thoughtspeech (Marco! On your left! Keep moving!) and some radio communication (military instructions and people panicking). This cuts when the lights slam up, and we’re on the bridge of the Yeerk mothership; everything is frozen; Tobias speaks up, asking how everything came to this? [feel of Mama Who Bore Me from Spring Awakening]

A quick shift takes as back three and a bit years, it’s a busy mall. We see the kids as they are that night: Jake and Tobias bickering over the arcade games; Tobias tagging along; Rachel having dragged Cassie out shopping. There’s a chorus number here to set the mood [feels a little like Hard-Knock Life from Annie, upbeat but work-a-day], interrupted once for each animorph as they explain who they are. Tobias tells us about Jake; Jake tells us about Marco; Marco tells us about Cassie; Cassie tells us about Rachel; Rachel tells us about Tobias. They’re just one-two line descriptions (‘that’s Cassie, who Jake fancies but won’t admit it. Animal nerd.’), just enough to get a feel for who these kids are. The kids meet; decide to walk home together through the construction site.

The whole scene at the construction site has the kids at the front of the stage, looking out into the audience. We never see Elfangor (Andalite diplomatics felt it would be disrespectful to hologram him, so the director worked around this). But Tobias speaks to the audience, narrating the events of the scene (it stays fairly brief, but meaningful) and speaking Elfangor’s words (after all, he’s the one who has the right to). As they flee the scene, Chapman (whose name is changed for the show) is identified as a controller, and Tom with him. 

The next day the kids end up at Cassie’s barn. They’ve all tried morphing, and now it’s time for the debate about what they’re going to do. The song of this argument is reminiscent of My Shot from Hamilton, but less solo and more alternating between the characters. Marco cutting in (like ‘Geniuses, lower your voices’ and later ‘I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory’ in the original) in counterpoint, arguing to protect themselves and their families, Tobias impassioned, Jake mediating, etc. They conclude, of course, that they’ll fight - and Marco will be with them, for now.

The first keynote is Tobias’s, opening when he comes to Jake after their first mission (not seen on stage) and can’t change back from hawk. He sings us through his journey from book #3, describing his first kill and the mall fly-through as the chorus shows us it in freeze-frame behind him [my closest match is with Deep Into The Ground from Billy Elliot, but it needs more fear/climax in it to work].

Montage time! The fighting and spying begins in earnest [Solidarity, from Billy Elliot]. As the music shifts between its two threads, we have quiet moments that continue the story - Ax is rescued in a brief scene, and Eva is revealed as the host of Visser One - but the fight returns and there is no time to stop and recover. Marco’s character shifts towards the end of the song and Cassie remarks on how much more dedicated he is now.

Rachel’s keynote now [imagine something similar to Your Obedient Servant from Hamilton, but sung all by one person swinging between aspects of their personality] consists of some emotional elements of #32 blended with #12; no plot as such, just Rachel trying to establish herself as rightfully furious with the world as it is as her father moves away and her life becomes more violent.

Go straight to Cassie’s keynote, which incorporates parts of #29; her friends are no longer there and she is going to the Yeerk pool alone, cooperating with the Yeerk Peace Movement (her interaction with Ilim standing in, in the show, for the big shift of perspective in #19) and struggling between not wanting to hurt anyone and not wanting to abandon her friends [feels like Burn from Hamilton].

The build of the end of Act 2 is largely instrumental [feels very like Angry Dance from Billy Elliot] - it’s another montage sequence, but this is darker and faster and much more violent. The kids are thrown about, they lose limbs in morph and get back up; the stage is relatively dark with flashes of dracon fire; hologram hork-bajir and taxxons storm across the stage; Jake comes within an inch of having to kill Tom only to be pulled away by Cassie. Human controllers are out in force, trying to hunt them down. Visser Three is heard over the speakers. The final moment of the sequence sees the kids crawl, exhausted, into bed (the beds are a level up, right at the back of the stage), only to jerk awake; their parents call out and ask if something’s wrong; the kids reply together ‘Nothing. I’m fine.’ Lights out. End of Act one.

[interval where the actual animorphs in the audience eat way too much ice cream and cling onto each other a lot]

Act Two

A startlingly bright open [think The Nicest Kids In Town from Hairspray [warning for racial slur in that song], and even some of the lyrics work] - it’s the Sharing, posters and flyers everywhere, full on Disneying it up with upsetting cheerfulness as the Animorphs slip between them at school, battling exhaustion and deadlines. We see Marco forcing himself to grin at the mirror; Cassie pick out a sliver of Hork-Bajir flesh from between her teeth; Jake trying to act normal around Tom; Rachel flipping off someone trying to flirt with her. 

We ease straight into Marco’s keynote as he skips school to get away from all of this stuff, ending up in town where he sees Visser One. Marco’s keynote is then #30, compressed into one song [feels like The Room Where It Happens from Hamilton, with the idea of the ‘bright clean line’ of ruthlessness repeating through the song]. When the song stops we get the ‘Mum’ ‘It’s the boy’ exchange; Eva falls and all the lights cut except a spot on Marco, who tells us that he doesn’t remember how he got down from the mountain. Cut to Marco and Jake in the forest when Marco comes back to himself. They part.

Some indication that time has passed, then we move on to Jake’s keynote - which is, of course, #31. Jake walks in on Tom and his father arguing (Tom: ‘FIVE DAYS?!?!’ Jake, aside: ‘...Five days?’), slips the other animorphs and we have the build to the scene on the docks - use a stage-revolve to show Jake frozen and Tom with the knife behind his back. It ends in chaos, and Jake pulling Tom out of the water; and meeting Marco’s eyes from across the stage, a nod of acknowledgement. [I have And All That Jazz from Chicago as a stand-in for this because of the way it builds, but really I need something with more spirals of desperation and less pizzazz].

We then move quickly through the big reveal - rescuing all the families except Jake’s - and go to living in the Hork-Bajir valley. The kids decide to recruit the auxillary animorphs, and go to the hospital [Right Hand Man from Hamilton]. For logistical reasons, James is the only one you actually see on stage.

We have a moment of peace/tension on the brink of the final mission [Who Wants To Live Forever from We Will Rock You, but probably shorter].

The final fight is shown in glimpses and flickers, until we’re on the bridge of the mothership again where we started. The Blade Ship goes down but Rachel and Tom survive (I’ll write why into an AU one day, but for now I ask you to just go with it). The six kids end up on stage, pulling close together, holding hands, frightened of the world to come [probably an unholy mix of Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story from Hamilton and Stay I Pray You from Anastasia. Everyone is sobbing]; the lights narrow until only they are lit, and they’re asking if they’ve done enough...

Lights down. End of Act Two.

~

So uh. Yeah. That was super long and now I’ve got to dash, but please do let me know what you think XD