Cover of Grease 2

I’m not going to lie to you guys, I wrote a sequel to Guys and Dolls in high school. It will never see the light of day because it’s terrible but I wrote it because I wanted to see more of those characters and see where they ended up after the curtain fell. I guess that was my one and only brush with fan fiction. But it brings up an interesting discussion.

Sequels and prequels are big business at the movies and a series is the secret to success when it comes to books and video games too. So why aren’t there more follow-ups on the stage? Right now, sequels are rare in theatre though rumors that shows like Hairspray and Phantom of the Opera are getting sequels in the near future may mean this trend is about to reverse.

Personally, I’ve always felt like sequels on the stage, at least the ones I’ve been exposed to like Nunsense and Grease, are just a pale imitation of the original, a lazy way for someone to cash in twice on the same idea. (Except for my Guys and Dolls 2, of course, which is pure gold. ;-))

The other thing I could never really get my mind around was how a sequel played to the audience. Say a school performs Grease and then, the following year, does Grease 2. The play itself is a sequel but the production isn’t really because different people will be mounting the second one than the first, even if the only change is that seniors have graduated, the freshman have joined in and different people tried out for the show this year. At the least, you’re looking at a different cast, design and production team, etc.

The situation wouldn’t be that different in community theatre or even Broadway for that matter. Another production is always a completely different production even if the show is written as a sequel. So the audience is seeing a lack of continuity between the original and sequel because the actors/costumes/set design are likely different. And while some members of the audience will have seen the first show (even if it was years earlier), many will see the sequel first. Doesn’t that make for an awkward theatre experience if part of your audience starts out feeling like they missed something?

And won’t some people be unwilling to attend the production because of fear they’ll feel left out for not having seen the original?

Does that mean a sequel is only possible with source material that your audience is already guaranteed to be at least somewhat familiar with, such as a Shakespeare play?

And does comedy lend itself more easily to follow-ups than a serious show?

I think I’m starting to understand why the theatre doesn’t lend itself to additional installments.

Now, I don’t mean a play written in two parts like Angels in America when I talk about sequels. To me, that’s just a single play cut into two parts that was always meant to be that way. And something like Wicked, though technically a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, doesn’t count as a sequel to me either since it’s based on such different (and stand alone) source material. (Ditto the Peter and the Starcatchers/Peter Pan relationship.) I’m also OK with a another standalone play that’s set in the same universe as the first.

That’s all different than a complete play followed years later by another complete play called Same Play Name 2. I see that more like a movie sequel aka the same plot and characters but events unfold slightly differently or the story continues from where it left off.

My definition of sequel may be too narrow, I’ll grant you. And maybe my whole issue with sequels boils down to the tackiness of a 2 tacked on after the title of a play. Do I perhaps have an issue not with sequels but with lazy sequels?

As a writer, it all comes down to: Aren’t you supposed to leave everything on the table the first time? If you had something to say, shouldn’t it have been in the original play in the first place? Is there ever a good reason to write a sequel that isn’t monetary?

What do you think?