Books

I read the book decades ago and absolutely hated it. Just gross and depressing. I never saw the musical but friends tell me it takes basically nothing from the book - just the core idea of telling the story from the perspective of the wicked witch, who was bullied in her youth.

You could ask the question about almost any musical. Hamilton was based off of Chernow's biography of the man. Come From Away was based on events during 9/11. In the entirety of Les Misérables, somehow, someone found a musical in there. And don't even get me started on Shucked or Cats.

People who write and compose musicals get inspiration in the strangest of places. Sometimes they have intention sometimes they read or see something and they must needs to write.

Probably by leaving out the gross stuff and adding more songs

No idea. I actually saw the musical first and the read the book. "Crass" is the perfect word for it. I would have never connected the two outside of it being about the Wicked Witch. I'm glad that it was changed, because the book felt like it was written by an edge lord.

Because people like musicals

Musical theatre is both a genre and an umbrella of multiple genres that loosely obey rules like any genre (cyberpunk wouldn't feel good if the story didn't centre around a crime, a western wouldn't feel good if it took place in a large city and was about people living comfortable rich lives)

You can take practically any (or no) story and fit it to the structure. And people have: The Bible has both Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar, TS Eliots poems were made into Cats, multiple Hans Christian Anderson and Brothers Grim stories are musicals both Disney and not, a handful of chapters of War and Peace became Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.

But that isn't much different from Shakespeare, classical opera etc, who did the same thing.

Out of the loop. Is the wicked witch of the west a lesbian?