Every day, I check my email excited to read my daily Broadwayworld.com newsletter. Lately, I have been mistaking my newsletter as one from E! News. Why this confusion? It is simply because Broadway has gone “Hollywood,” as in producing staged musical adaptations from beloved movies. Similar to how books are constantly turned into movies, Broadway is suffering from a lack of creativity, and it must stop.

It isn’t that musical movies are being turned into shows, like Disney’s The Lion King or Mary Poppins, but movies with no musical score whatsoever are being converted into shows. In the past five years, it seems that Broadway  has experienced more stage adaptations of movies than ever before.

The musical, “The Wedding Singer,” made its Broadway debut on Apr. 27, 2006 . However, this romantic comedy only lasted 285 performances until it closed on Dec. 31 of that year.

A year later, on Apr. 29,2007,The Palace Theater rolled out the pink carpet for the stage adaptation of the chick-flick, “Legally Blonde.” Although the musical was nominated for seven Tony Awards, was filmed and shown on MTV, and had a reality television show to find the next leading-lady, it closed on Oct. 19, 2008, only having 595 performances.

The next blockbuster film to go to the stage was “Shrek the Musical,” which premiered on Nov. 8, 2008. Not only was it turned into a musical, but was turned from an animated film to the stage. However, after 441 performances and seven Tony Nominations, the fairytale ended on Jan. 3, 2010.

Finally, in 2009, the movie “9 to 5” graced the Broadway stage on Apr. 30. Although the movie did feature the title song “9 to 5,” an entire score had to be written for the musical adaptation. The show closed on Sept. 6 of that year after 148 performances.

I am not saying that these shows were bad; most received Tony nominations and “Legally Blonde” is one of my favorite musicals, but these shows ran for a short amount of time because they were well-known, classic movies. The majority of people who go and see the show have also seen the movies and therefore know how it will end.

And even if the musicals are not necessarily direct copies of the movies they are based on, some movies don’t even make sense to turn into musical shows. For example, Disney’s The Little Mermaid was turned into a Broadway show in 2008. Although I have not seen the stage adaptation, I do know that in the movie the main character Ariel loses her voice and cannot sing. In the musical, Ariel loses her voice at the end of the first act, but still sings songs in the second act. How can the musical stay true to the film if key points in the plot get screwed up?

Or take “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” which has been delayed five times because cast members  are constantly getting injured from the intense stunts. The show is suppose to premiere on Mar. 15, 2011, but producers are contemplating pushing it back to Jun. 2011 because actors are still having trouble mastering the stunts. My aunt went to a preview of the show, where “Spider-man”  got tangled in his “web” causing a fifteen minute break in the middle of the show. Having Spider-Man go from a classic comic book and successful movie series, and having it turned into a Broadway show is too much. If things aren’t broken, don’t fix it, literally.

Broadway needs to light the spark of creativity again. Producers, writers, and directors need to find new and refreshing sources of inspiration. Broadway is the epitome of imagination and artistry and producers need to stop being lazy. The beauty of Broadway is that in one theater there is a show about a woman’s jail in Chicago and next door is the magical Land of Oz.

It needs to return to the days of when struggling writers would be up all night making their ideas into reality. Writers like Harold Rome, the writer of “Fanny,” who composed music when he wasn’t working as an architect, or Jonathan Larson who wrote and composed “RENT” while he waited tables during the day; these are the writers Broadway needs to become original again.

I challenge the producers, writers, directors, and composers who make up the Great White Way to take the story of their next-door neighbors or a dream they had and turn it into a great musical. But most importantly, just help keep Broadway from the golden light of Hollywood.