The Live from London version of the Hadestown cast album was released Friday and I have maybe listened to it a time or seven.
I have listened to other versions of cast albums before. There are several for Les Miserables. See also Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamboat. To say nothing of Disney staging it's movies, and making movies of its plays. (In fairness, a huge percentage musicals are based on existing properties.)
I also read the first in Kari Lynn Dell's Texas Rodeo series. See, I jumped into the series at book 2 and one of the characters shares a kid with one of the main characters in book 1, and he has some feelings about the events of book 1. And I loved that. That he was just a little mad and bitter about things going well for others when his life has just taken a turn. So I didn't want to read book 1, just yet. So I saved it for last. And of course, now I want to reread everything.
Because what these things have in common is interpretation. The original cats of Hadestown and the London cast have done different things, some subtle, some not. (And yes, I know there's a concept album also.)
And in the Texas Rodeo series, many of the characters all were involved in the same events, but they have different perspectives. Different feelings.
Sometimes folks get worried about their ideas in creating stuff, but in some ways ideas are the easy part. It's the execution where it gets tough. And people love live theater, or even movies, and TV versions of stories they already know because the interpretation can be different each time. And sometimes different Interpretations can reveal aspects you hadn't seen before.
