hi! im dee ( @walpyipman ) & this blog is dedicated to creating & sharing all kinds of content related to the 2003 Off-Broadway musical Zanna, Don’t! with the goal of increasing its online fandom presence. if you want to support my (futile) cause, follow me & reblog some posts to help spread tha word ! better yet, make your own posts & tag me so i can reblog them! feel free to also submit content directly to this blog.
links & more info below :)
brief summary from wikipedia:
The story is set in a parallel universe where homosexuality is the norm and heterosexuality is a taboo: Zanna is the local matchmaker at Heartsville High, bringing happy couples together in mid-west America, but heterophobia strikes when a pair of [male/female] highschoolers discover their feelings for each other.
why i particularly love the show:
Zanna, Don’t! is, on its surface, an extremely cheesy early 2000’s musical that plays on queer stereotypes & the absurdity of its premise for laughs; but then it’ll hit you with something a little too real or a little too touching and you’re reminded of the reality for lgbt people that this parallel world is meant to shed light on & critique. all while making you laugh & knockin out bop after bop.
the music is really catchy, the characters feel real & lovable, & the writing is hilarious yet emotionally evocative. truly cannot recommend enuff. here are some links if you’d like to listen/watch/learn more!
links:
soundtrack on spotify
soundtrack on youtube
plot synopsis
OOBC boot
australian boot
lyrics
note: while i genuinely love zanna dont, i am also fully aware that it is not a perfect piece of media. while it was pretty progressive for 2003 it is also a product of its time and it has its fair share of flaws, which i would be happy to discuss if anyone has any questions or concerns.
enjoy your stay here at zanna-didnt & feel free to shoot me an ask anytime :)
GREAT NEWS! the days of piecing together the lyrics from shitty inaccurate lyrics sites are behind us. my good friend thomas @concentrated-mug-of-me has sacrificed hours of his life to put the lyrics into genius. look how beautiful it is
Get all the lyrics to songs on Zanna, Don’t! and join the Genius community of music scholars to learn the meaning behind the lyrics.
is this blog still active? I just found zanna don't like a week ago and am actually obsessed with it and this blog seems like such a fun place to talk abt it :)
hey! i havent posted in a long time, but im very much still here & a fan of zd! youre more than welcome to talk abt it here :)
question 2 my followers: what’s the most obscure piece of media you’ve ever developed a fixation with? not obscure as in “at one point had a reasonably thriving fandom that eventually faded” but something you feel you were almost entirely alone in your appreciation for
would you be willing to say more about the 2017 zanna dont reboot? đź‘€ or do you know where one could access a recording of it?
yeah! (I don’t wanna like. 🧍‍♂️dox myself but. my school is putting the show on this semester)
To my knowledge there isn’t a bootleg, but there is the rehearsal demo recording that we have, along with the revised script. I don’t. know if I can share those.
So. What’s different? Where do I even begin. (Read More)
A lot of the songs are new. The songs that survived the chopping room floor are:
I think we got love
Ride Em
Be a Man
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Fast
Whatcha Got
Do You Know What It’s Like?
Blow Winds
Sometime, Do You Think We Could Fall in Love?
But almost all of them have been HEAVILY reworked. Especially Be a Man, Fast, and Do You Know What It’s Like (the latter two both having new contexts). Songs not mentioned here have been AXED.
The rest of the score is comprised of new songs. There are no less than four reprises of a new song called “Think Again” among others. In place of the original opening, we open on Steve’s football game.
Kate and Roberta have been switched. Roberta is now the bull rider. Kate is now a cheerleader with a penchant for quantum physics. Mike and Steve are mostly the same.
Candi and Buck (now named Arvin) are much more openly antagonistic and bully Steve and Kate.Â
Zanna... whoo boy. Zanna is no longer a matchmaker. He still has his wand for unexplained reasons, but he could care less about matchmaking. His bird friend is gone. He is no longer popular. He is now a pangender hall monitor with aspirations to be President. People say he could never be president because he “only has five genders” Yes that is a real line. Yes it is played completely sincere.Â
also for some reason rich white people are an oppressed class now?
anyway. So for putting on the musical about heterophobia Zanna is banished to reform school by Principal Cooper and his wand is confiscated. He is punished by being made to pick up trash on the side of the road. Many months pass and Zanna is wasting away in Reform school.
Kate decides that she isn’t going to be straight anymore. Using her quantum physics knowledge she is going to alter her brain chemistry with a ray gun (A lesbian’s right brain is 1% bigger than the left, whereas a straight woman’s two sides are the same). So she shoots herself in the head, almost kills herself, and she ends up in the hospital (this is where they sing Fast...).
Kate and Steve still kiss at the chess game. Steve is driven to madness and drives his car off a cliff. Luckily Zanna has super strength and he’s able to save Steve by lifting up the car with his bare hands. Zanna breaks into city hall to steal his wand back and do the spell.Â
They shoehorn in a reason for Tank remembering (he is made exempt by Zanna). a detail that the playwright then FORGETS THEY ADDED IN THE NEXT FEW PAGES... Zanna seems to know what his spell will do (at least more than he does in the OG). He doesn’t have a spellbook anymore so goodbye best joke in the original show (”deterioration of taste and style?!”).
Prom time and people are homophobic. Zanna sings a new song that is so bad compared to Someday You Might Love Me called “How Sad You’ll Never Know”.
Zanna starts planning his presidential campaign with Tank when... omg! his wand starts glowing - he has magic again! End of show.
and... that’s it! if you have any other questions let me know!
