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''Man on the Moon'' is a 1975 musical written by John Phillips of the Mamas & The Papas, produced by Andy Warhol and directed by Paul Morrissey. The story concerns an American astronaut who leads a mission of interplanetary dignitaries to prevent the destruction of the universe by a bomb that has been placed on the moon by an evil scientist and primed to explode. The original production ran at the Little Theatre in New York for 43 preview performances (beginning December 27, 1974), opened on January 29, 1975 and closed two days later, on February 1, after disastrous opening night reviews. ==Background== Soon after completing work on his debut album ''John, the Wolf King Of L.A.'', John Phillips came up with the idea for a space-themed musical project, inspired by his viewing of the July 1969 TV broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The initial title for the project was simply ''Space''. Phillips worked on a script and wrote songs for ''Space'' over a period of two years with his third wife, Genevieve Waite. Phillips envisioned that the lead role of the astronaut would be played by either Elvis or Ricky Nelson, both of whom he was friendly with. Initial funding for the project came from producer Michael Butler, who had brought the stage musical ''Hair'' to Broadway. Butler hired a young director called Michael Bennett to work on the project, but he and Phillips did not gel and Bennett resigned during dress rehearsals for the production at the Aquarius Theater in Los Angeles. Phillips then attempted to generate interest in a film version of the book with the help of real estate heir Leonard Holzer (a producer on the Stones documentary, ''Gimme Shelter'' and the former husband of Warhol superstar, Baby Jane Holzer). Holzer took the project to Ray Stark, producer of ''Funny Girl'', who brought the script to the attention of Barbra Streisand, while Holzer tried to hook Jack Nicholson for the male lead. In 1972, Phillips also got a copy of the script to director George Lucas through his daughter Mackenzie Phillips, who was one of the stars of Lucas's film ''American Graffiti''. Phillips would later maintain that Lucas got the idea to make ''Star Wars'' from ''Space''.〔As reported in the liner notes for ''Andy Warhol Presents Man On The Moon'' by Chris Campion and Jeffrey A. Greenberg. ()〕 When financing for the film seemed to be going nowhere, Phillips and Waite focused their energy into making the musical happen again. They went to New York to raise money, performing the songs to potential backers as part of their pitch. Waite managed to persuade Andy Warhol to come on board as producer. Warhol's manager and film-making collaborator Paul Morrissey signed on as director of the production, which was then renamed ''Man On The Moon''. Rehearsals took place at Andy Warhol's Factory. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Man on the Moon (musical)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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