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Mickey Jo
Oh my God. Hey, Barbie. Yes, I'm doing it. This is an actual conversation that we are having. So I cannot be the only one who is thinking this. With the Barbie movie having become such a huge success, and I mean globally, I was in Brazil last weekend eating at a pink Burger King, eating a Barbie burger, unable to get into the sold out Barbie Dreamhouse experience. Surely it cannot be too long before we see a Barbie musical on Broadway. Oh my God. Hey. Welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I'm a theatre critic, content creator and pundit living here in the UK and today I'm going to convince you that we need a Barbie musical on Broadway. Also, I've already heard from multiple producers that this is something that is in development. So it's no secret that whenever something makes a ton of money, people then look for other opportunities to capitalize on that money. It's why there's already talk about a bunch of sequels to the Barbie movie. It's why there's already talk of a Polly Pocket movie directed by Lena Dunham. People love to see anything that is successful and say, good. How can I do that in a slightly different way to make more money? To that end, I do think that Mattel is probably going to be in conversations, if they aren't already about a Barbie stage musical. Now, this is not the biggest earner for them. Their priority is obviously going to be more film franchises. But I do think it represents a great opportunity. And in today's video I want to address all of the questions that arise from this. Who would write the Barbie musical? What would it be about? Who would star in the Barbie musical? What might it look like? We're going to have fun answering all of those questions in today's video. If you enjoyed this one, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel for plenty more stagey content coming very soon. More reviews, more features, more interviews, more opinion pieces, all here on my YouTube channel. Now let's talk about the idea of a potential Barbie musical. So I went to see the film the other day and I enjoyed it. But my prevalent thought, especially when Ryan Gosling was singing I'm Just Ken, was that this could really easily be translated to the stage and not even necessarily exactly the same plot. I just think that Barbieland, this location and these characters, all of the Barbies, all of the Kens within the film, not to mention Midge and Alan and weird Barbie. There's enough rich history and lore here that you could make something really fun. I think for me, the best version of a Barbie musical would be one that solely exists within Barbieland. Not least of all because everything on stage looks a little bit fake to begin with. So I don't think you can as easily transport her to the real world as what happens in the film on a stage, because it's all going to look artificial to a certain extent on screen. You can have her go from this pink filtered fantasia to something a lot more realistic, but you can't do that on stage as convincingly. Not unless she walks out of the theater like Jessica Chastain in A Doll's House and you all follow her on a walking tour of Manhattan on group rollerblades. Very immersive, but also very challenging to risk assess. So I think if there's going to be a Barbie musical, it should be set in Barbieland. And you could still talk about the themes from the film. You could still talk about gender roles within Barbie society. I think anything Barbie ought to still be talking about feminism, ought to still be talking about equality and inclusivity. They did a great job of articulating that in the film in a way that felt really nuanced, very up to date. And I don't know if that's a conversation that we've really had in musical theater too extensively. Like Legally Blonde starts to hint at the kind of conversations that were happening in Barbie, but Barbie is a lot further down the road. So simply reviving a Legally Blonde on Broadway isn't going to give us as much progressive dialogue. Right. Not that I would be against Illegally Blonde revival while we're here. I mean, while we're talking about Barbie, it feels like Legally Blonde pretty much is Broadway's answer to that without a Barbie musical yet existing. The reason I'm saying Broadway here and not West End or anywhere else in the world for that matter is because this is Mattel, this is an American company, and I feel like if you're talking about a Barbie musical, Broadway is the obvious place for this. By all means, do an out of town tryout on the west coast, potentially bring it over to Broadway. I'm just, I'm lining all of these details up for you. Someone call me into this brand meeting. Now. I also don't want to sit here and pretend that the Barbie movie that's currently out is the first time Barbie has ever been on screen and singing. Because there have been many, many, many Barbie movies with various princess plots over the years. I haven't seen that many of them, but I Know people who have and who will tell you that they were actually very compelling, had very strong antagonists and a lot of great songs. I'm just like you, you're just like me. It's something anyone can see. So let us not pretend that there have not Barbie musicals and Barbie songs that you could potentially pull from. Although I think that's probably not what's going to happen. I think rather than having Barbie be a character in a fairy tale story, we've had enough fairy tales on Broadway with the likes of Bad Cinderella, with the likes of Once Upon a One More Time. I think we need something more in the Barbieland universe. I think that's more fun to explore and we can have more real conversations that way. Because Barbie and Ken are a great metaphor for gender roles in society. This is what the film achieved really well. And this is what the musical also could do. I think in terms of a plot, you could explore a lot of the same concepts around the film. I Ken having an existential crisis. I couldn't resist that one. It's still a really great plot point. I don't think you have to necessarily bring in the characters from the real world or you could bring someone from the real world in without Barbie going to the real world. I think you could include themes from the film or some of the moments from the film without recreating the plot. Exactly. Look to Mary Poppins is a great example of this. Mary Poppins has all of the hallmarks. The story from the film without following exactly the same plot. There are different characters in the Mary Poppins musical. It has a different structure. Of all of the Disney film to stage adaptations, it's the most distinct in terms of how its narrative was shaped. And I think that was a really good decision. It still looks and feels and sounds like Mary Poppins without being an exact recreation. And that's more interesting to me. I'd rather go see something a little bit more original than just seeing a movie put on stage, but with songs. So let's talk about writing. Who is the right person to write a Barbie musical? I mean, there's so many great book writers who could just have a lot of fun with this. Someone like Robert Horne, I think could give us something campy and cheesy. He recently wrote the Tony Award nominated book of the musical Shucked if you don't know. Alternatively, because we would want a book that is comedic but also deals with important themes within society. Amber Ruffin recently was part of the book writing team for Some Like It Are. I think she'd be a great person to try and give us a Barbie musical book. And there's so many great composers as well. I mean, does this want to have a. A Mean Girls, Legally Blonde, Heather's kind of a sound. Does this want to have more of a six kind of a sound where it's really poppy, where it more closely resembles the kind of the sound that the film's soundtrack has? I'm Just Ken is a great song that really parodies these, like, 80s power ballads, which was put together by Mark Ronson. Do we do another spongebob musical type thing in this? Where is he? There he is. You can see his arm next to Courtney Stapleton. Do we do a spongebob musical thing where we have a bunch of different pop writers contributing a song to the Barbie score? I think that would be fun. I think the film's soundtrack is great. Give us a slightly more theatricalized version of that for the stage, and it could be brilliant. Honestly. There's just a lot of really exciting creatives and writers whose hypothetical work on the Barbie movie is just a lot of fun to think about. Now let's talk about design. I think this is probably one of the most exciting conversations that we could have. There are so many terrific designers who could have so much fun giving us this pink plastic set. Again, it would look very Legally Blonde, but also all of the costuming involved, which the movie did so well in recreating these actual Barbie costume pieces. Again, there is so much history here. I can already tell you that whoever did this costume design would automatically get a Tony Award nomination a la Bob Mackie recreating his beautiful Cher designs for the Cher show. That's what I'm immediately thinking of here. But you could have open plan dream houses. That looks like a theater set anyway. You could have slides coming down, all of the plastic, everything slightly oversized, that already looks like theater props. You could even do something with wires. With flying Barbie down from the top level of her dream house down to the floor. I felt like you'd have to try and drive a car across the stage at one point. But Back to the Future has shown us that that's actually very easily done. Honestly, I'm now thinking of, like, Diana, the musical levels of, like, costume changes and costume reveals. It's just fun. This is just a fun idea, isn't it? I'm not telling you that this is the next Sondheim or Pulitzer Prize winning musical, but it's campy fun, and that's a lot of what Broadway needs right now. I was just watching a great TikTok from Katherine Quinn where she was talking about the appetites of an audience right now at a time where Broadway is struggling financially and that people want fun and uplifting and escapism. And I think Barbie musical perfect. I think that's a big part of why everyone is going to see it in the theater, but also because of the whole Barbenheimer thing. So if we did have a plot where Barbie is coping with this kind of sense of dread and existentialism, it gets lightly touched on in the film. But I think we could go to deeper dark places and musical theatre is very good at doing that, at showing us duality and allowing people to explore their angsty inner narratives. Give us Barbie, where she starts off as Legally Blonde and she ends up going a little bit next to normal. I think that's fun. Maybe I'm twisted. I think it's fun now. This is maybe the best part of the whole conversation. Who would you cast in a Barbie musical? I really enjoyed the fact that in the movie there were so many different Barbies and assortments of different Kensington. If you're looking for like a Margot Robbie esque, like leading Barbie, I think someone like Carrie St. Louis would be great at this. Maybe Laura Bell Bundy. Look to your Glinders, look to your Elle Woods. Taylor Louderman from Mean Girls would be terrific. If you wanted to bring in a screen star to make it really commercial to sell even more tickets. Someone like a Dove Cameron, who we know is super talented as well as being a commercial draw, that would be a great decision. And then there's so many brilliant other supporting performers I'd love to see attached to this show as well. What I loved about the casting of all of the Barbies in the Barbie movie was that it was trans inclusive, was that it was disability inclusive, was that it was body positive, was that it was multiracial. There are so many brilliant performers. I would really enjoy being part of the Barbie universe immediately. I think Ashley park would be a great Barbie. I think Alex Newell would be a great Barbie. I think Ali Stroker would be a great Barbie. I think Marla Mendel would be a great Barbie, kind of akin to the role that Kate McKinnon played in the film. I think all of the recent alumni of Titanique the musical all get the balance of like terrific vocals with high camp comedy comedy. Because Constantine, who left that show, would also be an amazing Ken. Although if we're looking for a Ryan Gosling, kind of a Ken Aaron Tveit, I think Is the answer because he's funny while being able to take himself completely seriously. Look at him in season one of Schmigadoon. I mean, come on. Perfect Kennergy. So much Kennergy and he can give us like the 80s power ballad vocal. Also someone like a Jeremy Jordan who is so, so funny as well. I think Isaac Powell would be a great Ken. Honestly, if you're looking for ensemble performers, look at the entire cast of Bad Cinderella. Lynadi would be a brilliant Barbie, but all of those ensemble performers, you have a bunch of Kens and Barbies right there. If you're looking for some other characters outside of Kens and Barbies to fit in with this plot as well, I just want there to be a way of fitting Bonnie Milligan into this show and Ally Morsey from Kimberly Akimbo. I think they'd both be hysterical. Honestly, we could just get as many ex glindas as possible into this show and I think it would be terrific. Find some kind of a role for Jackie Hoffman. That needs to happen. And because if we want to talk about intersectional feminism in a Barbie, music is the only way I would be interested. Then we have to include trans women in the cast as well. Maybe find a role for L. Morgan Lee. Maybe find a role for MJ Rodriguez. Also, if it does end up being a slight recreation of the plot of the film in a stage musical, I think Lindsay Mendes would be really fun in the America Ferreira role because she can do the like real world thing while still being a little like doe eyed about, oh my gosh, it's my Barbie come to life. And Brooks Ashmanskas would be a terrific person to play the Will Ferrell role. Finally, we need an Alan. I enjoyed Michael Cera as Alan in the film, but I wanted more from Alan and I feel like if we go to a musical theatre place, Alan would get a number. Alice Squidward in the SpongeBob musical. Noah Galvin would be a great Alan. I mean there's so many Evan Hansen's, there's so many box who could just be an Alan. Look to the Spring Awakening alumni. You got a lot of Alan options, but those have been just some brief thoughts about what a Barbie musical would look like as. And when I hear any more details about the version of this that is actually being talked about at the moment, I will be sure to let you know. But in the meantime, comment with all of your thoughts down below. What do you think a Barbie musical should look like, sound like, be about, and who should be in the cast. Thank you for watching today's video. I hope that you have enjoyed. If you did, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel for plenty more stagey content coming very soon. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Micky Jo Theatre. Oh, my God. Hey, thanks for watching have a stagey day subscrib.