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Friday Fun: Calling all Musical Theater lovers!

Saralie

Hey hey hey and a Happy Friday!

I'm currently listening to a playlist called "theater kid 5 years removed" and it brings back so many memories! (see what I did there?)

giphy

I've been told that I have a flair for the dramatics & I strongly believe my biopic should be a movie musical.

So I have to ask: What are your favorite musicals to watch, jam out in the car to, or even performed in?

Comments

Dave LIAO

@Saralie

I've been listening to La La Land on repeat, it's like smooth candy 🍬

I was lucky enough to see Neil Patrick Harris perform Into the Woods - I've enjoyed that musical since I was a kid!

Monique vdB

I could talk about this all day but I only have 5 minutes. Rude!

Favorite live musical performances: It's a tie between Hamilton with the original Broadway cast (Kim and Kanye were in the audience) and Into the Woods with my brother playing Jack, the first time I ever 1) saw the show or 2) met my brother.

Least favorite musicals: Grease (stage version only), Falsettos, a version of La Cage Aux Folles that was so bad we called it "La Cage Aux Fail"

Favorite movie musicals: Hello Dolly, Cabaret, Tick Tick Boom, Hairspray, Grease 2 lol

Favorite Tony award performances: Brotherhood of Man, Don't Break the Rules, Bosom Buddies, Ring of Keys, Anything Goes, Bigger

Favorite musicals where I love the songs but have issues with the book: Spring Awakening, Dear Evan Hansen, Guys and Dolls, Once on this Island

Favorite performers: Norbert Leo Butz, Aaron Tveit, Audra McDonald, Sutton Foster, Daveed Diggs, Joshua Henry, Jonathan Groff, Annaleigh Ashford, Bea Arthur, Joanna Gleason, Renee Elise Goldsberry

Favorite show overall: Into the Woods

Monique vdB

I was just telling Saralie I bought tickets to Into the Woods for when we'll be in town later this month (see below) and I also saw NPH doing Rent in Los Angeles years ago. He was terrific!

Luke Hostetler

Chicago might be my new favorite, but Les Mis is just impossibly timeless.

After convincing myself that musicals were kind of dumb, I ended up watching the 2012 movie, then read the book, then did each of those things again 🤷‍♂️

That said, Dear Evan Hansen wins the award for best-musical-soundtrack-I-listen-to-but-still-haven't-seen.

Fun Man Andy

I've never been in a musical... I really hate them! 😤
They are the worst.....

Fun Man Andy

HAH!!!!
LIES!!!!!!!
🤪🥸🥳

I've been in more musicals than I can shake a stick at... Hyjack Over hygenia, Grease, Cats, Bugsy Malone, Jason & His Technicoloured Dreamcoat, Guys & Dolls, The Music Man, Sweeney Todd; just a few of my faves I've been in!

The one that always slipped my grasp though was RENT. 😭😪 Never got the oppy to star in that.
I played the Original Broadway Cast CDs so much in the car way back when, I burnt through two sets! Yikes!

If I had scored tickets that day, this next bit might end with Wicked on Broadway, but the best West End / Broadway show I've ever witnessed was MAMMA MIA down in London... original cast. It left me breathless. 😨🙊
Which is simultaneously why i cannot stand, absolutely hate, and totally loathe the Hollywood version. Utter tripe. 🤬

Oh, and here comes some controversy.... BURLESQUE is (almost) the greatest cinematic musical of all time. Totally underrated.
The #1 slot goes of course to the one and only ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW

Dave LIAO

giphy

Dave LIAO

Loved Tick Tick Boom!

Saralie

It always starts out as just one thing you love and then you fall into the rabbit hole!

Saralie

I feel the same way about Dear Even Hansen. I couldn't bear to watch the movie version.

John Funk

It's been years since I have been to a musical in person. But I have been a couple of times on Broadway in New York, and once in Chicago.

But I am very old school - Sound of Music, Wizard of Oz, Holiday Inn

Andy Gladstone

Favorite Musical of All Time: Les Misérables. I took my then girlfriend, and now wife, to a Broadway performance for her 16th birthday. We got all dressed up like adults and hit the city in style - taking in the matinee and then dinner off Broadway. I also bought her the CD box set of the score, and like @Fun Man Andy she burned thorugh (2) sets of CD's. (remember CD's skipping?)

Favorite Musical Adapted from Film: Newsies. We don't own a TV, but occasionally do a family movie night and my pre-teen and early teenage boys absolutley loved it when we showed it a few years back, so much so that for weeks after they were acting out scenes, repeating funny lines and actually singing the songs!

Brant Schroeder

I have always liked the music from Phantom of the Opera.

Elizabeth Barr

This discussion is my jam! Hardcore musical theatre nerd over here... I liked musicals before they were cool

The list of musicals I can't stand is probably shorter than my list of faves, tbh, but let's try to lead with the positive...

Top favorites have gotta be The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Moulin Rouge (the movie, that is—I haven't seen the stage version yet, though I've been saying they needed to make one since 2001), The Scarlet Pimpernel, most things Sondheim (especially Passion), and of course old school hits from Lerner & Loewe and Rodgers & Hammerstein (My Fair Lady, Cinderella, The Sound of Music).

Less well-known musicals that have a special place in my heart are Aspects of Love (one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's few flops), Jane Eyre: The Musical (basically, anything composed by Paul Gordon is fantastic, IMHO), and Carnival (same story as the 1953 film Lili starring Leslie Caron).

I was very serious about musical theatre as a youth™ and seriously considered pursuing it professionally. But I never wanted to end up hating what I loved and I felt like tying my livelihood to my passion would end badly. Also, being a bel canto trained soprano, most 21st century musicals are just not written with my voice type in mind—Broadway loves belters!

Elizabeth Barr

The first time I saw POTO on Broadway, I almost ACCIDENTALLY kicked the actor playing the Phantom (Hugh Panaro) in the face after my dad and I got a backstage tour. Oops?

Monique vdB

@Saralie I was really turned off by Ben Platt's interviews about how only he could play Evan Hansen so who cares if he was 27 in a bad wig playing a high schooler. I loved him before that and love his voice but it was a turnoff.

I probably will watch it eventually. I mean, I saw Cats, so.

Monique vdB

@Luke Hostetler Les Miz was definitely my first love and I have seen some amazing productions of it! I hated the movie because my favorite character is Javert* and Russell Crowe SUCKED. Sorry, not sorry.

*I love emotionally tormented antagonists; Judas is my favorite in Jesus Christ Superstar

Monique vdB

omg Mamma Mia is such a guilty pleasure for me! And of course you would love Rocky Horror, that's a perfect Fun Man Andy musical. 😉

Monique vdB

@John Funk nothing wrong with the classics! (Except Carousel, I hate Carousel. Hahaha.)

Monique vdB

@Elizabeth Barr I heard they had to change up Music Man to fit Sutton Foster's voice because Marian is supposed to be a soprano and she's a genius, but not a soprano! Poor sopranos, missing out on a big role on that one.

Elizabeth Barr

*sobbing* YEAH. Makes me extra sad because Rebecca Luker, who was Marion in the last big Music Man revival, just passed away recently. She was truly an old school soprano in the best way.

Luke Hostetler

@Monique vdB Stars is my favorite song from the whole show, but Russell Crowe is just not much of a singer. On that, we agree 😭

Viktoriya Borisova

I always cry multiple times throughout Les Misérables. Saw the movie with a new friend and COULD NOT hold myself together. It was 100% a bonding experience.

I LOVE Anastasia (saw it twice as a musical and way too many times to count as a movie). The song Stay, I Pray You was a deeply sentimental hit. It's rare to hear a song about the experience of being an immigrant - loving your homeland, but leaving because you want to live in a place with more opportunity for your success. I still get goosebumps when I hear it.

Mamma Mia & The Sound of Music are iconic repeats with my mom.

HAMILTON WAS FANTASTIC.
I saw it live with the original cast and sang along to every👏single👏song👏

Musicals are a magical experience. It feels so wholesome to be exposed to impressive skills and beautiful worlds.

Fun Man Andy

100% a Fun Man Andy musical!!! I love it.

Darryl Lee_2jimne

Does The Great Gatsby count?

Fun Man Andy

Amen to that @Andy Gladstone ! And this is also why Vinyl never died... CDs are temporary; most of my Vinyl (some from my father, and made in the 60s) is still going strong!

Elizabeth Barr

90% of my record collection is musical theatre cast recordings, many of which I already have in digital format, but it's just BETTER on vinyl.

Esther Strom

You may be the only other person I know besides me and my college roommate who has even heard of Scarlet Pimpernel. When I Look at You was one of my repertory pieces sophomore year 😊.

And Rebecca Luker was one of my idols - another one of my rep pieces was Come to my Garden from The Secret Garden. I saw a video she made a few months before she passed away; so sad, but she was so classy and dignified even then.

Esther Strom

I'm a theatre kid from way back. At one time I thought I would make it to Broadway; got my degree in theatre (double major in performance and scene design) and everything. It turns out that although I loved the work, I didn't love the lifestyle. But I still love me some musicals.

Like @Elizabeth Barr ,my list of dislikes is way shorter than the likes. The only one I've seen that I truly can't stand is The Sound of Music. When I was growing up, it used to be played round the clock around the holidays on one of the only TV stations we got, and I just can't hear a single song from it now without wanting to break something 😅.

I like most of the big hits, but I really have a soft spot for the ones that tried to be big and flopped. Starlight Express, Aspects of Love, Jekyll & Hyde. I do think my favorite of all time is South Pacific. I know there are problematic aspects, but the music is gorgeous, and I wish I could play You've Got to be Taught to all of the supremacist groups out there.

Elizabeth Barr

Aspects of Love!!!!! Someone else who knows of it 😍

Elizabeth Barr

UPDATE: I just discovered Galavant this past weekend and I am SO MAD I didn't know of it when it was on (2014 to 2016-ish). Medieval musical comedy with music by Alan Menken!

galavant-gif-8

How did we as a society allow it to be cancelled after only two seasons????

Andy Gladstone

Monty Python-esque?

Elizabeth Barr

Absolutely, @Andy Gladstone !

It's hilarious, heartwarming, tongue-in-cheek, amazingly acted, etc. 10/10 would recommend.

Probably my fave song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLYiyK7uqUE

Esther Strom

Oh, it's amazing, @Andy Gladstone

If you're at all musically inclined, you'll end up with a headful of earworms, but they're all enjoyable. And the episodes are so short that you can watch an entire season in a weekend.

Alex Koxaras -Relational-

A little bit late, but I'll go Jesus Christ Superstar!

What an amazing performance by Ted Neely and Carl Anderson! Still sending shivers down my spine!

Screenshot 2022-09-22 114635.png

Esther Strom

I know this thread is old, but I just saw this article and had to share, @Elizabeth Barr . Not sure what to think of it, but I kind of feel like Michael Ball should find something new and original instead of having this entire show reconfigured so he can play George and still sing Love Changes Everything...

Also, "Ball and Kent are keen to strip it of its more saccharin moments that were fine 30 years ago but would sink it now." Bets on whether the mermaid song gets the axe? 🧜‍♀️🤣

Elizabeth Barr

Oh. My. Gosh. I am slightly terrified.

THEY BETTER NOT TOUCH THE MERMAID SONG. I WILL REVOLT.

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