Sunday, March 4, 2012

Musical Theatre Characters Who Should Have Gone to Jail

Since I'm currently in rehearsals for a production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, it stands to reason that a subject foremost in my mind is characters in musicals that totally should have been arrested.  As my friend Scotty "Frank Pontipee" Shaffer said, “the most fun you’ll ever have watching a musical about Mass Kidnapping and Stockholm syndrome!”

So I am setting out to create this list of some well known musical theatre characters and what they would have been charged with:

  • Bill Starbuck - 110 in the Shade - Fraud
  • Julian Marsh - 42nd Street - Molestation
  • The Beast - Beauty and the Beast - Kidnapping
  • Gaston - Beauty and the Beast - Aggravated Assault
  • Huckleberry Finn - Big River - Assisting a runway slave
  • Jeff - Brigadoon - 2nd Degree Murder
  • Conrad Birdie - Bye Bye Birdie - Solicitation of a minor
  • Billy Bigelow - Carousel  - Domestic Abuse (even though I maintain that he only hit her the one time.)
  • El Gallo - The Fantasticks - Solicitation of a minor
  • The Baker & Baker's Wife - Into the Woods - Fraud (when they bought Milky White from Jack)
  • Joseph's Brothers - Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - Human trafficking
  • Scar - The Lion King - Murder
  • Sister Julia - Nunsense - 3rd Degree Murder
  • Ali Hakim - Oklahoma! - Selling drugs
  • Jud Fry - Oklahoma! - Aggravated Assault
  • Captain Hook - Peter Pan - Kidnapping
  • The Phantom - Phantom  & The Phantom of the Opera - Murder, Destruction of Property, Kidnapping, Stalking, Menacing
  • Max Bialystock & Leo Bloom - The Producers - Fraud and Racketeering
  • Dr. Craven - The Secret Garden - Domestic Abuse
  • Adam Pontipee - Seven Brides for Seven Brothers - Marrying Milly under false pretenses (I'm sure that's a punishable offense, I just can't think of the official term.  Fraud, maybe?)
  • The Pontipee Brothers - Seven Brides for Seven Brothers - Kidnapping
  • Bloody Mary - South Pacific - Pimping (Hello!  Trying to get Joe Cable to sleep with her 16 year old daughter?!  What else would that be?!)

This is obviously an incomplete list.  I left off characters that DID get arrested (like Mrs. Meers in Thoroughly Modern Millie) or that their crimes were obvious and really part of the plot.  Like Harold Hill in The Music Man.  But I still put the Phantom on there, because his list was long.  Anyway, let me know of any others you think should be on here.

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