All Broadway musicals don’t necessarily work on film and that – according to Oscar-winning writer and director Bill Condon – hinges on the needs of the medium.

“There are some essential rules about movies…that are not necessarily true on stage, where you can just enjoy for three minutes the art of someone who’s a great singer,” he says.

“The essential thing about movies – that Hitchcock thing – is that they have to move; a character needs to be in a different place at the end of a song than they are at the beginning.”

As a child, Condon was fascinated when a movie musical didn’t include a song that was part of stage musical. “So, when I got invited to the party to write the script of ‘Chicago,’ it just activated something in me.”

Now with “Dreamgirls” and “Beauty and the Beast” on his

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