After Illinoise: What Will Be the Next 21st Century Album Adapted For the Broadway Stage?

I recently had the pleasure of seeing Justin Peck and Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Tony-winning Broadway show Illinoise, adapted from Sufjan Stevens’s 2005 beloved breakthrough concept album. Deviating from the traditional album-to-musical format (á la Tommy, American Idiot or Hadestown) Illinoise’s musical numbers are performed by an onstage band (one whose singers/instrumentalists serve as a sort of Greek Chorus) and acted out by a non-singing cast of dancers.

The loose arc of the musical revolves around those dancers gathered around a campfire, taking turns telling their stories with the help of the other characters—ensemble members playing zombie-fied historical figures (“They Are Night Zombies”), murder victims (“John Wayne Gacy Jr.”), Supermen (“The Man Of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts”) and more. As the song-cycle progresses, the focus shifts from the disparate stories of the individual characters to the interconnected narratives of the pseudo-protagonist/audience stand-in Henry—and his past lovers and friends—through songs like “Decatur,” “Casimir Pulaski Day” and “The Predatory Wasp Of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us!” (The official Playbill programs included copies of Henry’s journal as companion pieces to the album’s stage musical iteration.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between Illinoise and its source material, how its adaptors managed to transform the pre-existing vignettes that make up Sufjan’s Illinois into a large-scale, ensemble-based structure. Part of why this works so well is because the instrumental and vocal arrangements of the record were already quite grand and theatrical, giving its songs strong potential for further expansion, and its many-pronged concept lends itself to a full cast of characters and interconnected perspectives. Calling Illinoise a “musical” almost feels misleading; it feels more like a narrative dance piece accompanied and inspired by Sufjan Stevens’s Illinois, though this isn’t to its detriment.

Illinois the album turns 20 next year, and seeing it adapted for the stage has got me considering what other 21st century albums deserve their own musical theater adaptations. I’m not talking about Jukebox musicals—in which songs from across an artist’s discography are used to tell a story, the way ABBA’s music is used in Mamma Mia! or Elvis’ in All Shook Up—but a single album re-interpreted for a stage production. While there are plenty of classic 20th century records deserving of the Broadway treatment, for this specific exercise I chose to focus only on albums of the last two decades (i.e. albums that have only been out for about the same amount of time as Illinois or less).

I humbly present—in chronological order of album release year—my proposals for 21st century records that deserve their own stage adaptations.

The Hold Steady: Separation Sunday (2005)

The second album from the Hold Steady follows the story of Hallelujah (aka “Holly”), a drug addict-turned-messiah, narrated by a fictionalized version of Craig Finn himself (fittingly also named Craig). Other characters populating Separation Sunday’s seedy world include Charlemagne (Holly’s pimp/dealer) and Gideon (a skinhead), the unnamed “Little Hoodrat Friend.” It might be difficult to find an actor who can replicate Craig Finn’s distinctive post-punk preacher vocal delivery; an ensemble-oriented adaptation would open up these tracks to new interpretations through various perspectives—especially when backed by a raucous pit band to accompany them from the rousing overture of “Hornets! Hornets!” into “The Cattle And The Creeping Things” all the way to the finale to tell us how a resurrection really feels.

My Chemical Romance: The Black Parade (2007)

Almost any My Chemical Romance record could be adapted into a concept musical for the stage or screen, but The Black Parade is not only their magnum opus but the MCR album with the greatest theatrical potential. We already got a taste of what a stage adaptation of this album could look like with The Black Parade Is Dead!, in which the members of MCR portrayed the marching band guiding The Patient from the realm of the living to whatever lies beyond it. Already billed as a rock opera, The Black Parade is primed for expansion into a Broadway musical that fleshes out the cast of characters that its protagonist—an unnamed terminally ill cancer patient—interacts with during their final days. It’s unlikely that Liza Minelli would reprise her cameo role as Mother War, but we can only hope.

Joanna Newsom: Have One On Me (2010)

The structure of Joanna Newsom’s critically revered double-album is similar in concept to Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois, to the point that Have One On Me could be considered its Californian counterpart (“In California” is her “Chicago”). Newsom’s sprawling baroque epic interweaves history and folklore (much of it pertaining to the Golden State) with an overarching narrative about a romance and subsequent breakup, often portrayed allegorically. Its lush instrumental arrangements and patchwork of history-hopping characters, real and fictional—from spider-dancing Lola Montez to Highwayman Dick Turpin and his faithful equine companion to the murderous Blue Beard—makes it flush with potential for a full-fledged musical adaptation. When it comes to staging, I’d love to see what a Have One On Me musical might look like under Tony winner Rachel Chavkin’s direction.

The Mountain Goats: Beat the Champ (2015)

Like a few other artists on this list with a penchant for concept albums, there are many in the Mountain Goats’ catalog that would make for great musicals. I’d be first in line to buy tickets for an autobiographical rock opera about frontman John Darnielle’s tumultuous adolescence and reckoning with the death of an abusive step-parent. Or a musical about a codependent, mutually-destructive alcoholic couple who escape to a dilapidated house in Florida. Or a coked-out jazz musical about goth bands in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Or a folk song cycle about “seven people, two houses, a motorcycle, and a locked treatment facility for adolescent boys.” I chose the Mountain Goats’ late-career highlight Beat The Champ partly because the songs are great, partly because the already-theatrical nature of professional wrestling would make for some dynamic performances, and partly because I can already picture a production with the stage set up like a wrestling ring. And yes, Beat the Champ is an album about professional wrestling, but it’s really an album about role models, hero worship, competition and the complications of loving something that can’t love you back.

underscores: Wallsocket (2023)

This last one’s a bit of a wildcard, in large part because the album is barely a year old. For her sophomore record as underscores, April Harper Grey didn’t just write and record some songs—she created a world. Wallsocket is a rapidly gentrifying fictional town in Michigan, one that never fully recovered from the decline of its agricultural economy. The album of the same name is a psychological thriller-slash-crime drama-slash-trans coming-of-age dramedy that follows a handful of its residents as they navigate gender identity, spirituality, class struggle and family dynamics. Wallsocket’s musical aesthetics are a bit all over the place, letting folk, punk and heartland rock bleed into glitchy electropop—a sonic palette that’s expanded even further with the recent release of four new bonus tracks. I’m not sure if Broadway audiences are ready for the first hyperpop musical, but producers should start reaching out to Grey just in case—good luck!