"Girl power has never sounded so good!"
Emma! A Pop Musical is a Comedy Jukebox Musical released in 2014, with book and concept by Eric Price. It's a modern adaptation of Emma by Jane Austen.
The story follows Emma, a witty and motivated student attending Highbury Preparatory School, as she tries to get her friend, Harriet, a boyfriend. Along the way, she has to work out her own problems with love, too.
Emma! A Pop Musical contains examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: In this version, Jane Fairfax is the daughter of the owner of Fairfax Vending, and after one of their vending machines falls on a family of four, she is forced out of Highbury because she no longer has the money to attend due to the lawsuit. So, Emma throws a party to raise money to pay for her court case and keep her in Highbury.
- Adaptational Job Change: Exaggerated with Frank (referred to as Frankie), who changes from having an ambiguous/no job to a massive pop star.
- Affably Evil: Phillip (Mr. Elton). Justified in that he only keeps up the nice persona for the election.
- Age Lift: The setting is changed to a preparatory high school, and as such, all of the characters are high school age.
- All Elections Are Serious Business: Phillip's election is played up a lot. Eventually, he has a girl following him around and revealing just how micromanaged every word he says is and how everything he does is for the election.
- All Musicals Are Adaptations: An adaptation of Emma for the modern age.
- Artistic License – Law: Suing a vending machine company for one of their machines falling over is highly unrealistic. Vending machines are going to fall over, it's not the company's fault that it did.
- Black Comedy Burst: Bad, Bad Crush is this, as Jane counters Harriet's hatred of Phillip by exploiting the Double Meaning in the title - Harriet's bad, bad crush on Phillip, and the bad, bad crush that the family of four had to endure. This is a departure from the usually light-hearted tone from the rest of the show.Harriet and Jane: Such a bad, bad crush.Harriet: All the pain that I feel—Jane: Yeah, but they felt it worse.
- Bowdlerize: The play has a Junior version that's half an hour shorter in runtime and cuts a few songs.
- Dark Reprise: In Turn The Beat Around / I Wanna Dance With Somebody, Emma reprises Stay as she realizes she's been so focused on matching up people, she hasn't realized her own loneliness.
- Distinction Without a Difference: When Emma is lecturing Harriet about how Martin isn't right for her, he chimes in to correct her.Emma: Harriet, he works in the kitchen and is a member of "I Can't Believe It's Not Gutter".noteMartin: (chimes in) We're thinking of changing it to "Living On A Spare."
- The Ditz: Harriet can sometimes show shades of this trope due to her airheadedness.
- Double Meaning: Exploited in Bad, Bad Crush - Harriet's crush on Phillip, and Jane's problem with the vending machine crushing a family of four.
- Dumb Is Good: Martin, the dishwasher-slash-busboy at Highbury is the first subject of Harriet's attraction. Emma initially doesn't like him because she thinks of him as lesser for not attending Highbury, but Harriet ends up with him at the end.
- Eleven O'Clock Number: Turn The Beat Around / I Wanna Dance With Somebody, the Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number that underscores Phillip's party and is essentially the climax of the show. It also shows Emma finally realizing her own loneliness after matchmaking for so long.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Phillip is hinted as not liking Harriet, but Emma during the party. He pulls away from Harriet immediately after taking the picture and focuses his attention on Emma, complimenting her photography.
- Jukebox Musical: The musical features mostly pop hits from the late 1900s from the likes of Whitney Houston and Sara Bareilles.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- Emma addresses the audience in the beginning during the wedding to give us some exposition.
- Emma also gives us this gem right after:
Emma: Mr Knightley? Sounds like a character from an 1800's English novel. - Love at First Sight: Verges on Parody with Harriet. She sings "Be My Baby" while falling in love, and ends up singing it four times over the course of the musical, most of which are someone she just met.
- Love Hurts: The song Bad, Bad Crush focuses on this, at least for Harriet.
-
Magnificent Bastard: Phillip. The character list on the licensing page describes him as "snobby, arrogant, and a true politician, in the worst sense of the word." - The Matchmaker: Emma is notoriously this. She notes by the end of the musical she was so focused on others' love lives, she forgot to focus on her own.
- Minor Character, Major Song: Ashley steals the show with Turn The Beat Around / I Wanna Dance With Somebody, which is essentially the climax of the show.
- Mondegreen Gag: At the party, while taking pictures, Emma tells Harriet to pose with "serious contemplation". Harriet mishears her as saying "serious constipation", and poses looking uncomfortable, with her hands on her stomach.
- Mood Whiplash:
- The BSoD Song "Stay" immediately goes into Turn The Beat Around / I Wanna Dance With Somebody, an energetic dance number.
- During the aforementioned dance number, Emma suddenly realizes her own neglected love life in a surprisingly poignant moment, then as she sings the last note, it kicks right back into energetic.
- Role Swap Au: In the novel, Jane played the piano and Frankie was the one who had to leave Highbury suddenly. In the show, Frankie is a huge pop star and Jane is forced to leave Highbury on short notice.
- Running Gag: Harriet singing "Be My Baby" while following in love, a gag that happens four times over the course of the musical to emphasize just how much of a hopeless romantic she is.
- Setting Update: The musical is an adaptation of Emma set in modern times and in a high school.
- Skewed Priorities: When Emma is told about the vending machine accident in Fresno, California, she says "Ew... Fresno."
♫ Be my, be my baby... ♪
