The third favourite feminist bildungsroman of every teenage girl who grew up in the early 2000s is finally coming to the stage! (Mean Girls obvs comes first, but Princess Diaries is a strong second, imho.)
That’s right, Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants, a book-turned-film series about four female children who take off and put on pants intermittently across a puberty-driven summer apart, is being adapted into a musical for the stage by Blue Spruce Productions, with the project being led by Scott Delman.
The original book series was written by a lady called Ann Brashares. Which I just feel so suss about, like, not just because I don’t generally trust people who spell the name “Anne” without the “e” on the end, but also because like…her last name is literally BRA + SHARES, and she’s written a story about teenage girls sharing skin-tight clothing. Like, what’s her agenda, y’know? What’s her vibe? Is this Illuminati, or nah? I don’t have answers, but for sure this is some shit Tina Fey would never have pulled.
Regardless, this stage show is sure to promise some moderately interesting theatrical moments. The series’ four main characters – played by America Ferrera, Blake Lively, Alexis Bledel, and (by far the Gretchen Wieners of the cast) Amber Tamblyn – largely spend the duration of each film apart, following their own plot lines.
Points of intrigue in the staging of a production like this will include how they’ll choreograph sequences of Bridget’s iconic soccer skills and whether they’ll go full on Spring Awakening for the scene where she loses her virginity.
Then there’s also the fact that the best part of Lena’s storyline was the sweeping vistas of Santorini and the Ionian Sea, captured beautifully on screen, but never really done justice on stage in other Greek-themed productions like Mama Mia! or Xanadu.
And I’m sure the other two characters have shit going on with them as well, but I literally tapped out every time Amber Tamblyn was on screen and missed a lot of America Ferrara stuff as a result. I think Carmen was dealing with a racist stepmom? All I know is that Tibby was a real dour cunt the whole time, so it’ll be interesting to see if she’ll get even one musical number that isn’t some slow ballad bullshit no one will bother learning the words to.
In any case, under the terms of the agreement, even though Blue Spruce have acquired the live theatrical rights from Alcon Entertainment and Alloy Entertainment, the latter two production houses maintain the option to invest in and co-produce the stage show. They’re the companies who brought us the two movies in the first place and they’ve retained approval rights as well, so at the very least the musical will hopefully be as good as the films. Which were…fine.
All I know is, on Wednesdays I definitely wear pink. But in the summer I almost never wear my own pants, let alone someone else’s. So I guess we’ll just see how this pans out.
