Sunset Boulevard (musical)
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Sunset Boulevard is a 1993 musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, adapted from the film. The Broadway premiere starred Glenn Close, and the 1996 Australian premiere in Melbourne showcased a relative unknown named Hugh Jackman, who played Joe Gillis opposite Debra Byrne as Norma Desmond (who, at the time, was ironically Australia's own White Dwarf Starlet). It won the 1995 Tony Award for Best Musical, in a year in which only one other show was even nominated.
Tropes used in Sunset Boulevard include:
- Adaptation Distillation: The musical, while staying extremely true to the film, gives more insight into Norma's character, making her a much more tragic and sympathetic well rounded figure, bordering almost on a Broken Bird.
- All Musicals Are Adaptations: Yep. The plot of the musical is basically identical to the movie, with possibly a few more details tossed in.
- Dark Reprise: At the end, after finally getting her audience, her cameras and the attention she so desperately craved, Norma belts out a powerful reprise of "With One Look," only the extremely dark and creepy orchestrations remind us what is really going on; she just killed a man, went insane and is being taken away by the police as the newsreel cameras record her final descent and humiliation.
- Final Love Duet: Subverted, as it occurs right before the finale and its Twist Ending (which, of course, the male lead does not survive).
- Grief Song: "Surrender".
- "I Am" Song: "With One Look".
- "I Want" Song: "As If We Never Said Goodbye".
- Mythology Gag: During Artie's New Year's Party, one of the girls present sings about her desire to work with Billy Wilder, who of course directed and co-wrote the original film.
- Race Lift: In the original Canadian production, Norma was played by Diahann Carroll, who is African American.
- Some regional productions have cast a black actor as Joe Gillis.
- Shout-Out: Andrew Lloyd Webber based Norma's "mad scene" on a similar scene at the end of Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor.
- Title Drop: "Sunset Boulevard," the Act 2 opener.