CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Bubble Boy (musical)

musical

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ18796706 ↗
Source-derived summary

Bubble Boy is a musical with music and lyrics by Cinco Paul and book by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio, based on the 2001 Touchstone Pictures' film Bubble Boy. Like the movie, it tells the story of Jimmy Livingston, a boy born without immunities who is forced to live in a plastic bubble room. Thematically, the musical explores the idea that we all have our "bubbles" which prevent us from being all we can be, and that we need to break out of them.

The musical's first professional production opened November 6, 2013 at Hamilton Stage in Rahway, New Jersey. An original cast recording was released by Ghostlight Records on July 14, 2017, and the show was subsequently published by Dramatists Play Service and became available for professional and nonprofessional licensed productions.

Background

The original movie Bubble Boy was a commercial and critical failure that didn't turn out the way that Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio wanted it to. They saw turning it into a musical as a way to redeem the story and tell it as they originally intended. The first production was in February 2008 at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza's Scherr Forum and featured a cast of high school students. The musical was subsequently chosen by the Disney ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop, headed by Stephen Schwartz, who became a champion of the show. He has said, "Bubble Boy is one of the cleverest, funniest, and most endearing musicals I've seen in a long time." This led to workshops at Carnegie Mellon University, Penn State University, and several readings in New York City.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Bubble Boy (musical)” as musical. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2001, 2013, 2017, 2008—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Bubble and musical can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as musical. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18796706. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2001, 2013, 2017 and 2008.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Bubble Boy (musical)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bubble Boy (musical) primary sources, Bubble Boy (musical) archive and Bubble research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bubble Boy (musical)”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Bubble Boy (musical)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.