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Opinion needed: Anime stage plays / musicals.

I personally would recommend Welcome to the NHK.

higegome wrote:

I met with my advisor for this project. He suggested a limited humble cast and the use of a projector for the background.

Limited cast? I may have the perfect solution for you. Do a murder mystery. Most murder mysteries have limited or no scene changes too, because they are usually somehow cut off from the rest of society. The more I think about it, the more perfect it is. Your play will have a clear goal (who dun it?) and anyone can enjoy trying to guess who the killer is. Special effects probably won't be needed at all and there will be a wide range of character archetypes.

As for which series, there are many mystery shows to pick from, but I would suggest just adapting a single arc from one of the following instead of the whole show.

I recommend the classic JC Staff anime, Joshiraku, as a play.

I’ve done theatre work before and the biggest piece of advice I can impart to you is to make sure your production does not exceed three hours. This all depends, of course, on whether or not you actually care if people come see your production. To be honest, the majority of theatre goers are probably going to have very little interest in seeing a play based on an anime, and they will be even more likely to overlook your production if it has a runtime over three hours. Also, I would recommend choosing a title that it going to have the biggest chance of peaking people’s interest in addition to being easily adaptable for the stage.

I personally would recommend Welcome to the NHK.

Welcome to the NHK is not only easily adaptable for the stage, but it also contains an excellent introduction to a Japanese social problem that might help entice potential theatre goers.

Unfortunately, you would have to play around with the script to make it suitable for a runtime of three hours, but I honestly think that it would be well worth it in the end.

I like NHK, but its content is inappropriate for a play being shown in a school setting, unless the "school" here is a college or university.

Well, I'm the old fashioned one and I think the most important factor are idea, inspiration and impulse.

That comes for all kinds of adaptations. Nobody image someone saying he will make movie of the book- it's too vast category to have even a vague idea about what should it be.

Basically, you don't sit down and say that you will make stage adaptation of anime, but see anime or read manga and think that it would be great to have it as a base for other form of art. Then small pieces start to move in right place- what form should it take, who should play who, what about costumes, where should it take place.
As soon as you have that you may start hard work