Drew Rapp
Staff Writer
On Friday, we shared with you all one of Team StarKid’s upcoming projects, “Twisted”, a New Take on Aladdin:“Twisted” retells the classic story of Aladdin, from the viewpoint of the Royal Vizier, Jafar (remember him?). It was also announce that the live stage show coming to Chicago July 2013. Here’s the teaser again in case you missed it:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhweP0XMz5M]
Today, Eric Kahn Gale tweeted a bit more info about the project since he helped write the scipt. In a response to someone, he wrote, “Matt and Nick wrote the script. AJ Holmes and Kaley McMahon are writing the music and lyrics respectively, more info next week.”
Between the announcement of the date of the show and now Eric’s latest tweet, the speculation wheels have been turning here at PopWrapped, and we have come up with possible ways that Team StarKid can approach this project and possible plot lines they can use.
Before we get to that though, the show’s premiere date does raise our curiosity about something. With the show set to premiere in July, it makes us wonder if those StarKids, the ones involved in this new project, will be able to make it to LeakyCon Portland, which is scheduled around the same time. The StarKids will definitely have a busy summer with all the new projects they have in store for everyone. Hopefully, we will have answer to that soon as both events are a great venue for Team StarKid fans to gather. If we had to guess, we’d guess that only the Starkids currently living in Los Angeles, or outside of the “core group” would attend LeakyCon, while the rest of the cast would rehearse and perform the larger show, although this would undoubtedly severely disappoint people that have already pre-purchased LeakyCon Portland tickets.
Now onto some speculation about what “Twisted” could bring to the table and take us.
Let’s start with casting:
- Who could play Jafar? Jeff Blim, Brian Holden, and Joe Walker would all make for great Jafars in our opinion.
- What other characters would need to be casted? Aladdin, Jasmine (Meredith anyone), Iago the Parrot, The Genie, and the Sultan are all up for grabs.
About the plot:
- Is Jafar to be given a new name?: Perhaps as this production is scheduled to a mashup of Aladdin and Wicked. In a direct comparison to Wicked, Elphaba was given a new name so Jafar might be in for the same treatment.
- Jafar and the Sultan to have a backstory?: We definitely see this coming as in the movie, they mentioned being around each other for quite some time.
- The Genie having a backstory with Jafar?: Another one that would be interesting to be told since Jafar knew about the Cave of Wonders and it holding the Genie in it.
- Will Iago’s story be told?: They can do so much as far as how these two nefarious beings met up and became a great duo of villains.
- Will we even meet Aladdin?: If Twisted goes the Wicked route, we shall definitely see the street rat and meet up with the Genie as well if they do not mention him in the backstory of Jafar.
- Will Jafar be a likeable character?: They made Voldemort, Voldy, a sympathetic character with a sad story. We totally see this happening here as well.
- Will we see Jafar’s downfall and what will his backstory be exactly?:Maybe Jafar was like Aladdin and was plucked off the street by the sultan and rose to power but something happened between them somewhere, or Jafar and the Sultan grew up together. “My most trusted advisor” sounds like they could have been brothers but Jafar got corrupted by the idea of greed/power in our opinion. Maybe they fought over a girl, perhaps the Sultan’s wife/Jasmine’s mom? They could even make Jafar’s mother a maid that worked in the palace so the Sultan and him became friends that way.
About the music:
- A new take on “Friend Like Me”: More like “Enemy Like Me” if this is to be Jafar’s story.
- Musical style?: Perhaps they will ‘borrow’ musical influence from Wicked and Aladdin and add a Middle Eastern flair to it.
Enough of our speculation, time for you StarKids to sound off! What do you think “Twisted” will bring us? Are you all excited as we are to see this production come to life? Bring on July!
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