Dr. T Onstage 2000

If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, go read my page on the 5000 Fingers of Dr. T movie first! Or don't. I'm not your dad.

First annnounced in 2000 but set to premiere in 2001, the musical adaptaion of The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T went through many different writing and directing teams. They did not intend to use the original score or music, with new music provided by Glen Roven. The show was pushed back to 2002, 2003, delayed again, and again, with the last staged reading reportedly happening March 2004, until radio silence.

The book has gone through many different writers, first announced was Anthony Horowitz, then Karen Hartman in 2004, and recently Maria S. Schlatter is credited by Glen Roven on his website.

I have not yet found a script, but from the songs I can tell the plot is mostly identical. The major additions include a trial scene after Bart is taken to jail, and the addition of Bart's absent father as one of the prisoners. More of the emotional attention is placed on Bart and his mother needing a man in the family again, and the struggles of a single mother.

Listen

Full track list:

  • 01 I Hate Music*
  • 02 Happy Little Fingers*
  • 03 Good For The Boy
  • 04 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T*
  • 05 No Balls Here
  • 06 You Deserve a Prince*
  • 07 Eloise
  • 08 Don't Mind If I Do
  • 09 Pickle Juice
  • 10 Crazy Music*
  • 11 Allegro in T - Part I (Instrumental)
  • 12 Allegro in T - Part 2 (Instrumental)
  • 13 There's A Trial
  • 14 Small*
  • 15 Guilty
  • 16 Exquisite Torture
  • 17 Blind Man Song
  • 18 What Makes Him Tick
  • 19 Lucky Me
  • 20 If You Want To Rule The World*
  • 21 If You Want To Rule The World (reprise)*

The Broadjam link has *8 of the 21 songs in the demo album. Through my ways, I have been able to listen to all 21, and through my own need to torture myself, I am working on transcribing the lyrics to the best of my ability.

My thoughts

I feel like I need to point out the similarites between some of the new songs and the original soundtrack. "Don't Mind If I Do" is "Get Together Weather", "Small" is just "Because We're Kids", "If you Want to Rule the World" is just "Do-Me-Do Duds", "Crazy Music" is the Dungeon Ballet, and they even rewrote the Happy Fingers melody. This seems to me to lean towards my hypothesis that it was a legal issue, not a creative choice, and they would have used some of the original songs if they could.

I sill believe this show would work very well as a stage musical, even more so today, just maybe not in a Broadway setting. Taking cues from Seussical, which had an infamously rocky Broadway run but a very sucessful life in school and community theaters, I think this show should be thought of as one for a smaller company to produce. The anti-authoritarian and pro self-expression themes would ring just as true today. I would, however, base it off of the scrapped director's cut, and include as many of the original songs as possible. Through a mix of puppetry and shadow work, I don't think this show needs to be anywhere as big as they imagined it in order for it to succeed.

As I said, I think it's strange to remove from it's 50's time capsule. While just "current time" when it was made, 1950's setting today automatically calls on themes of the American nuclear family and strict assimilation. The same way it's used in movies like Edward Scissorhands or A Wrinkle in Time. The time period has the opportunity to add to the experience, not just in aesthetic but in the music as well, and I wouldn't want to remove that classic golden age 50's sound from the score to lull audiences into a sense of comfort and nostalgia.

Glen Roven died in 2018, so it is likley that this version of the soundtrack will never make it onstage, unless Encores sees a reason to pick it up.

David Fielding set designs

David Fielding set designs for the scrapped Broadway run. This is pretty much the best part of the show.