In perhaps the most surprising adaptation of a video game story to another medium, there's a BioShock musical, and it's pretty damn good. A high school has put together an interpretation of the story of Rapture as a fully fledged musical performance. You can even watch it if you like, overcome by confusion and amusement as I was at the spectacle.
As spotted by Eurogamer, California's John Burroughs High School Powerhouse choir won the Hart Encore 2022 competition with a BioShock-ing performance. The show the students put on didn't follow the events of the game, but instead told the story of Rapture including the appearances of Andrew Ryan, Brigid Tenenbaum, and Sander Cohen. Kind of like a prequel.
The show was so good, in fact, that the kids won Musicianship, Showmanship and Best Soloist which are reportedly the biggest awards of the competition. I'm sure some of the performers' Big Daddies were proud of them.
The music featured in the performance from John Burroughs High School include spirited renditions of songs like Proud Mary, a song most famously sung by Tina Turner. Lyrics are adapted of course to seem appropriate for the underwater city. Rolling on the river, becomes rolling underwater—simple but genius. When they finished that song you can hear the Rapture-ous applause. I'm proud of that joke, seriously.
If you're interested in watching the full 22 minute video of the performance you can check it out on YouTube. The high school really seems like a powerhouse, so no wonder that their choir's name. Costumes, performances, setting, they have it all. And if you look on the website you can see the results of not only their awards but also that there is an entirely separate award for someone predicting the trophies accurately. American high school is intense.
