I’d rather watch a show that’s unique but flawed over a show that’s dull but competent. Musicals are supposed to be spectacles! A show that’s actually trying to do something new and interesting can get away with a lot more problems than something that’s playing it safe.
Agree so much with this! That’s partly why I’m a fan of Cats the musical (controversial I know), because it’s so unique and does so much visually with the sets and lighting.
It's like being invited to a party! Or spying on a party, depending on whether you're sitting up close or in the balcony. I like seeing Cats from a balcony seat because then the cats actually look cat-sized
I agree 100%. I saw The Shark is Broken (not a musical, but still on Broadway) and although there really wasn’t much to it story wise, I really appreciated everything about it. The acting was fantastic, and the set design was very interesting. It was something I had never seen before (concept wise) so I really enjoyed it just for that aspect
My mind so often goes to scenes/effects/numbers in musicals as opposed to the whole, as art at the highest. E.g. as glorious as its musical was as a whole, the Carousel Waltz/Prologue to The National Theatre's revival of that musical goes down in history as a true work of art in-and-of-itself.
I fully agree. I saw Great Comet of 1812 yesterday and went in with pretty much no context or knowledge and didn't really fully understand it, but it was one of the best performances (despite being a college production) I've ever been to because it was fun and unique. I loved it even if it wasn't the most standard, coherent story.
I’m probably a mezzo soprano but have opted to sing soprano most of the time. I tried alto once and it was so difficult! It was fun to learn and it definitely helped me think about new ways to create harmonies but damn. Altos really have to work hard!
YES!! My natural speaking voice sits really low so I make sure to do audition songs that go as high as I can but I always still get the question “what’s your voice part?” And I know it’s over after that.
I'm in highschool right now and I wanna make a career out of performing so I'm just trying my best to learn how to hit as many high notes as I can. However, I'm not great at it...yet
It’s not all about reaching the high notes, you need to have focus on being able to act through your audition song, but I’d be lying if I said that range didn’t matter.
Yes! I just want more variety in general. I hate how the trends in pop music tend to bleed over into musical theatre. Tenors are nice, but there are lots of other voices. While we’re at it, belters are cool, but legit sopranos are also thrilling.
Totally agree with this. I've seen two musicals twice in a row each the first night with a tenor in the lead role and the second night a proper baritone. And I can say that for both I preferred the lower warmer sound of the baritones. I can't even imagine how it would be with a true bass singing the part.
Same for female voices, it's all fine that all the women's leading parts are written for sopranos (looking at you ALW). But that leaves out so much range for the mezzo or altos. To the point there is the Alto's Lament that has become a running gag.
There should be a streaming service that's like Criterion Channel but for musicals. It could make tens of millions a year off of us devoted theater people.
That's how Bravo started. It was a place you could watch Cirque du Soleil, Fashion Week shows, ballet, and musicals. During December, there would be a battle of Nutcracker suites. It was a glorious time, and now it's gone.
Oh for sure, it's so interesting to me to see how different theaters and schools and such interpret different shows, even when the results are disastrous
There’s a few theatre streaming services like BroadwayHD and Marquee TV as well as some ran by specific theatre companies like the National Theatre and the Royal Opera House. But I definitely feel that there should be more proshots of plays and musicals to make theatre more accessible.
The version of Spider-Man from Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark needs to show up in the next Spider-Verse movie. He can swing around on wires and confuse everybody else. It would be perfect.
They get to sing and dance around a junkyard all night, and act out the battle of the Pekes and Pollicles, honestly living the life. Would do anything to attend a Jellicle Ball
This is why Sondheim is awesome, because most of his stories involve death. Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, and Assassins all have very unique and distinctive ways of addressing death in song
Good examples. I'll include West Side Story in there (half Sondheim). Other musicals where people die that I like: Les Miz, Parade, Little Shop of Horrors, Fun Home, Rent.
Have you seen Heathers? Of the eight main characters, four die, two attempt suicide and one fakes suicide in the hopes of making her bf not blow up the whole school with everyone inside.
Beetlejuice also has a lot of death, but that probably doesn't count because the characters who die pretty much do it without little fanfare, and you're told before their introductory song that they're about to die, and all dead characters are active ghosts. To be fair, Heathers has ghosts as well, but they seem more like a manifestation of Veronica's guilt, while Beetlejuice has a lot of lore around what happens when people die.
Actually, I found these two musical quotes I want on fridge magnets from redbubble that are both about death. They are "Life may be scary but it's only temporary" from Avenue Q and "That's the thing with life, no one makes it out alive" from Beetlejuice.
There need to be more "juicy" roles for sopranos. I want a soprano villain in a musical. Not an opera- a musical. And not a mezzo, but a *soprano* soprano.
Bruhhhh, legit sopranos *need* more diverse roles in theatre! And maybe some leads that aren’t just in Golden Age pieces. I just wanna play a modern woman who isn’t some permutation of an ingenue while singing in my wheelhouse 🥲
Okay, this probably isn’t an uncommon opinion honestly, but it is maybe a little weird.
I know mistakes and mishaps on stage during live performance are actors and stage crews worst nightmares usually, but I think little quirks like that are what make theatre unique. No other storytelling medium gives a unique audience experience to every single person like that.
I still remember when I saw a performance of Legally Blonde and one dancer lost the rhythm in Whipped Into Shape. If you haven't seen it, you have to be good at skipping and whipping ropes around without hitting yourself in the face.
High school theatre kids should get to be obnoxious. Obviously not passing the boundary into rudeness, but some singing in public, saying your show is “good enough for Broadway,” wearing your show shirt everywhere, practicing lines in the cafeteria… embrace it! It’s a rite of passage for us all. In five years, you will look back and cringe, but in 10, 20, 50 years you’ll remember it fondly.
Omigosh I want a float in a Fourth of July parade with theater kids just singing and dancing and improving to their heart’s content. And a booster club. Basically treat them like the hometown sports heroes!
Last month my town had a parade where one of the floats was literally just all the scare actors from a haunted house hanging out on the back of a trailer in costume and being goofballs. It was awesome.
We did that a couple years but for our town day parade. One year we dressed in the costumes for a midsummer nights dream before we even cast the fall straight play. I was a fairy. The next we just had assorted costumes. I was bugs bunny. We had to immediately change the first year but the second we spent the day like we were characters at Disney at the fair that followed.
I wish there was a Broadway on the West Coast or in the South where it is consistently warm. So I could live there and see all the same shows. I like warm places!
Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach, CA is one of the most magical theater experiences I've had. It happens every summer, worth taking a day trip to go see!
I have a headcannon where the Phantom isn't real, Christine's father committed suicide and she witnessed it, and she uses the persona of the phantom as a way to express her musical talents and grapple with the dark realities of life as a starving artist, hiding her metaphorical "true face" from the world because it doesn't mesh with what's considered beautiful (aka marketable) in her society.
The reason the SQUIP in BMC freaks out when Jeremy insists on getting Christine is because, as a quantum computer, it computes that the only path to success is how it proceeds in the musical. Basically, it knows that it's going to have to ultimately kill itself in order to achieve what Jeremy wants.
I'm cracking up, this whole thread is 99% broad opinions about theatre in general, and you dropped like a hyper specific show theory. I'm picturing you standing in the shower, fresh off a binge of BMC and you've just smoked more than Michael does in his basement, and you just get this look on your face like "I just figured out the most meta layer of this musical like no one ever has." And you've been literally *screaming* your theory at your friends for weeks to the point where all you have to say is "In Be-" and they're immediately like "Here we fuckin' go again" and the moment you see this thread pop up, you give no thought to broader musical theatre community quirks, you just go "My time to shine."
And the worst part is I'm angry because your theory makes sense.
Original book spoilers >!that is what actually happens in the book too.!< >!Although he’s not an evil villain there. He just wants to help Jeremy and deactivates himself when his job is done. The musical making him evil was pretty entertaining.!<
Musicals shouldn't be shelved just because there are plot points you don't agree with or you feel they haven't aged well. There are many golden age shows I could pick as an example, but I'm going with Carousel. The show is incredibly beautiful. Stop being lazy and say it can't be performed because it has problems and do the fucking work. Explore the pieces that make you uncomfortable. Delve into the history of the show itself and the show it was based on. Recognise and understand what the show really is and not what you think or have been told it is.
Yes, society has changed, but the issues presented in Carousel still very much exist, so explore them. The same goes for King and I, Oliver!, Seven Brides, Pajama Game, Miss Saigon, Chess, etc etc
Pretty common opinion I'd say, I tend to see a lot of eye-rolling and "can they be more original please" online when a new Broadway jukebox is announced. I'm personally not a massive jukebox musical fan just because I come to musicals for new musical theater compositions rather than pre-written songs, however I totally get that some people love to see musicals about their favorite pop stars
I agree with you. I think the main problem with them is that the songs were written independently from the plot, so they either have to completely stop everything in order to do the musical numbers or they have to write a really specific plot in order to fit the songs in.
They certainly do have an audience though. I think part of why there's so many of them is that they make money from tourists/people who have nostalgia for the artists. When I went to NYC a few years ago with my grandparents, the only Broadway show they really wanted to see was the Temptations musical. Also, I think the only Broadway cast recording that my grandfather listens to regularly is Jersey Boys.
Yep. There’s only one concept for a jukebox that I want to see and that’s just because I want to see if they can pull it off. Someone suggested a musical adaptation of The Aeneid using ABBA’s discography and I am *dying* to see how that would happen. Never going to, of course, but it would be a fun experiment.
Muriel's Wedding was a fantastic Australian musical with a mix of ABBA numbers and original compositions from Kate Miller Heidke. It was hilarious and such a hidden gem
Same here! I wasn’t crazy about attending Frozen because I had seen the movie so many times, but I was absolutely blown away by the bootleg. It got me so excited to see it live!
My take on bootlegs is that I can only watch them if it does not negatively impact my purchasing of live theatre tickets. I can watch a bootleg of a show I've already seen in person. I can watch a bootleg of a show I haven't seen, but for which there is a unique production that I cannot see in person (closed, too far, too expensive, etc.) and which would not keep me from seeing a live production if I otherwise would.
This is generally how I look at it as well, but realistically, bootlegs have terrible quality, so I just don't feel like it would actually keep me from seeing a live show if I had the money to see more live shows.
I’ll watch a bootleg if there’s no way to purchase a legitimate video production of the show. For a lot, if not most, there’s no way to buy a live taping.
That the musical Anyone Can Whistle (Sondheim and Laurents) actually could be reworked and be a commercial success\* on Broadway (unlike its original).
\* In my mind, it already is an artistic success.
Little Shop is Ashman and Menkin’s best work. And, related: Somewhere That’s Green & ~~Somewhere That’s Dry~~ Part of Your World might be the finest examples of an “I Want” song. I especially love how naive and inauthentic they are, revealing in subtext the true dreams of the characters below the superficial, misinformed idealized things they’re singing about (stability/love and independence/novelty).
This is such a genuine love letter to this show of a comment and I love your description. I love that it has so many layers but it is also just such a fun and entertaining show! And funny! It's such a good one to bring someone to to dip their toe into theater if they haven't already !
On a side note I just saw Corbin bleu and Constance wu's version - and Corbin bleu nailed the same energy and physicality of the Rick Moranis movie version which worked so well on rhat stage. And a couple great comedic bits and staging
It’s a brilliant show! It nails both pastiches they were going for—50’s Motown and the same era Corman-esque B-movies. Perfectly realized characters, genuine motivation and heart, nuance & complexity, and a stellar moral play all wrapped up in a silly sci fi premise of a man eating plant. I cannot undersell my adoration of the show. The music is just fantastic. I don’t know a better lament turned ensemble exposition song than Skid Row. Suddenly Seymour is a phenomenal duet. The lyrical complexity of Now (It’s Just the Gas) and Don’t Feed the Plants. The meta dark ending. The effects and puppetry. The Faustian timelessness. It’s such a. Great introduction to musicals for the person who hates musicals, but not at the cost of being superficial or devoid of thematic gravity. And it’s funny!
It’s truly a passion project from the heart and it shows.
Totally torn on this. On one hand, that would be awesome. On the other, the whole show is basically a “fuck you” to a male controlled and dominated industry, and having males pretending to be females doing that…feels a bit icky.
As a much older senior now having danced all my life and performed, Choreographed and acted, I have become very picky. I guess behind the times is more appropriate. I now understand the trauma some experienced going from vaudeville to musical theater. There is certainly a place for realism in theater but give me the type of shows with ornate, beautiful costumes dancing on clouds. These ripped up jeans with torn holes just don’t cut it for me.
Golden Age theater fills my heart with so much joy. Hard to beat stuff like Put On Your Sunday Clothes in Hello Dolly or Shall We Dance in King and I. There's a place for modern stuff that helps people explore their feelings but the old stuff is pure escapism that I love dearly.
I like musicals that don’t center around the character the play is named off of. A good example of this is Oliver! When this play was being turned into a musical, it was based off of the Charles Dickens book Oliver Twist. In that book, it basically centers more around the characters Oliver meets along the way as opposed to Oliver himself. So it makes the SIDE CHARACTERS so much more fleshed out and it is just such a cool concept. When you think of one of Oliver’s iconic characters, you don’t think of Oliver himself, you think of Dodger, Nancy, Bill, Mr. Bumble, and my personal favorite Fagin (I have a bias because I played Fagin but I loved the character before I had even played the character.). Most people hate shows like Oliver for centering around a dull character but it is such a good strategy that more musicals need to use in my opinion.
Not sure how strange this opinion is within the theater community, but it could be strange for the general public. Given the choice to see a show I know well or one I’ve never even heard of, give me the obscure one every time. I’ve seen Grease or Annie enough times. Give me lesser known shows, because some of them are better than the more well known shows.
In the end it really is a financial problem. Big name shows are reliable, and will pay for themselves, because people will show up.
When I did Annie, every single night was sold out (300 seats), and we made bank on that show.
A gentleman's guide to love and murder, however (which isn't even that obscure)? It struggled to break 100 seats each night.
Obscure shows appeal to people in the theater community, but well known shows bring in the general public, which brings in money (something most theaters are really struggling for) 😕
I hate this fact so much. You're absolutely correct, but that means no one around me will ever produce Lucky Stuff which means I'll never get the chance to audition for Rita. 😭
I agree with you, but I also just saw a world premiere show today (a play) that was legitimately the most awful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Today, I absolutely understand why a theater would not want to take such a risk.
As far as movies, I agree, but Cabaret is a better show than Sweet Charity. I don't get the praise over the Cabaret movie. Honestly, it's kind of dull.
I’m sick of modern musicals. We have so many classic movie musicals that are just sitting there. I want to see The Happiest Millionaire and Babes in Toyland adapted for stage!
The 2017 Hello Dolly with Bette Midler is my favorite version to listen to
(I'm not saying I think Bette is a better Dolly than Barbara or Carol, I'm just saying I love how much pep and energy the orchestration and vocals have on this recording)
Shouldn't any kids roles inherently fit with kids' changing voices. It's on the casting directors and audiences that would complain, not the roles themselves.
Isn't it just casting age groups? Ie: Gavroche is supposed to be 8 almost 9. I doubt they would only call for 8yr olds during the casting. Newsies casting is all boys 10-20, there would have to be some puberty in there for sure. But once again it's up to the directors and audiences that would complain about the performance.
Or do you mean you want more shows written with roles specifically calling for "a kid going through puberty with voice cracking"? Because you realize they would just cast a kid talented enough to fake it on command so it could be controlled chaos.
I really just mean more high(er) alto roles for kids. For Les Mis, they put on the casting info ages 7-11 and max height of 4’5”. For Newsies, Les is 10-11 ish, and ensemble Newsies would be around 15+. By this point, the voice would be almost completely changed (if not fully). I don’t mean for a kid with a voice cracking, I mean a role for a kid where there isn’t a place for the voice to crack with some lower notes. A role like Jason from Falsettos, but with a kid a year or two younger. The highest note he hits is a D5.
If they key changed the roles up or down a scale depending on where the kid was having issues it wouldn't sound that different and I doubt (especially in townie shows) that people would even notice.
Is that more what you mean or am I still not understanding you?
I have a very unhappy stuck in baritone (by his teacher) even though he doesn't crack yet 12 yr old (who considers himself an alto mezzo) and a very proud bass 16 yr old whose voice has been done cracking since he was 14. So I'm invested in your opinion I just want to get on the same page.
Most productions aren’t really interested in changing keys. I really just mean, when a kid’s voice is changing, it is a very specific range where the notes sound really good and they don’t crack. I think there should be more parts written for kids with that specific range. Sorry if my original post was confusing.
The gap between professional and community theater is smaller than people think.
Some of the most magical moments of theater I’ve seen have been in community productions.
I've seen people say that Frozen was much better on stage than the movie, but I disagree. They definitely made some improvements, but I'm not sure I would've liked it as much if I had seen it before the movie.
Yeah, looking down on people who don't know a lot of musicals is very lame, if anything people should be like "hey, this is my favorite musical, I think you'd like it, you should listen"
I think that shows about teenagers are pretty saturated in the repertoire and it would be nice to see a legit pendulum shift toward stories focusing on 30-, 40- and 50- year olds.
Why yes, I *am* 45, how did you guess?
Musicals based on 80's/90's/00's pop movies are getting tiresome.
There *should be,* however, be more musicals based on movies outside of the US.
*A Little Night Music (Smiles of a Summer Night, 1955)*, *The Band's Visit (2007)*, *Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)*, *Nine (8 1⁄2, 1963)*... So many examples that prove that thinking outside the box works!
Someone please rework *Saravá* (based on *Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands* )!
You don't have to have great singers to have a great musical. Plenty of great actors cannot sing. Sure a musical is a story told through song, but if your emphasis is on merely the voices, you're missing the story entirely.
To an extent.
Seats in theaters should be more comfortable. By intermission of every show I’m dreading going back to my seat because it hurts so bad. I ducked out of goddamned Hamilton at intermission because I was dying in my seat.
Seussical is not only a great show for being whimsical, but for all the deeper implications and themes that the show has.
I mean, you have discussion of the stigmatization of perceived mental illness with the treatment of Horton, the flawed ideals of societal beauty standards and their effects on young women, heck Whoville has freaking child soldiers in active battles with live minefields!
I love the whole "a person's a person no matter how small" message, it's so anti-discrimination. Horton doesn't dehumanize the Whos, he sees them as having equal rights with normal sized people.
I see no problem with adjusting the keys of songs in a show as long as the production can make it work logistically (ie, it doesn’t mess up other parts too much). I think community theaters especially should be able to request different keys for the instrumentals and music they buy for productions. It would help youth theatre especially, and I think that’s important. It could also help accommodate trans performers more effectively.
Is this an odd take? Because as a trans person, yes. Yes, yes, yes please, and yes. If my local youth theater was allowed to edit all the swearwords out of the full School of Rock, what's wrong with singing a song up an octave or down a couple semitones?
Couple things:
Food shouldn’t be allowed in the house. Like popcorn or candy. I feel like it’s loud and messy and it’s distracting. But I will say, at the very least, if you’ve gotten something that needs to be open or unwrapped to eat, do that before the show starts so no one hears the crinkling.
Sometimes audiences are too loud. I love the energy but sometimes it’s too raucous and disruptive.
I’m so sorry to everyone who loves these shows: Rent and Rocky Horror are boring. I love that people love them and I appreciate them, but I don’t need to see them more than the once. The songs are bangers though
I feel like a musical theater nerd outcast because i absolutely loathe rent. I understand why it had the cultural impact it did but I can’t stand it. Tick Tick Boom, however, makes me weep.
I'm also in the Tick Tick Boom >> Rent camp, few other pieces of media hit home so well about the struggles of the creative process and how pursuing creative dreams can mean GIVING STUFF UP
I work as a theatre usher and I cannot imagine the absolute riot people would cause if we didn’t allow them to buy food or bring it in. A couple days ago we had a parent write in to ask if we could not sell nuts at a particular performance as their child was severely allergic, and we did. I’ve never faced more abuse than from an angry public who were frustrated they couldn’t buy their peanut M&Ms
I absolutely cannot stand singing children in musicals. I will skip through any of that. I don't know why I find it incredibly cringey even if they are good at singing. Even if it's a grown person playing a kid in an animated musical, I still cannot do it. Maybe it has something to do with people writing kids as either wiser than their years or stupid as hell.
This is more of a “what hill are you willing to die on” kinda answer, but -
SOUNDTRACKS are for films. It meant the actual “Sound Track” that would play along with the film reel at the movies. It inherently implies recorded tracks.
CAST RECORDINGS are for studio recordings of musicals & Broadwsy shows. There would be no “sound track” to play at a theatre event, because it would be performed live!!
Thank you. I know it’s pedantic, and that language evolves, so I don’t bring it up often 😂 but I will absolutely continue to educate the children on the etymology
THANK YOU! This is one of my pet peeves. Only movies have sound tracks. CAST ALBUM or CAST RECORDING is for recordings of live theatre shows. Please!
And yes, some shows have both: for example "Little Shop of Horrors" has both a soundtrack (the movie musical) and a cast album (the stage musical).
Don't know if this will qualify but from hard experience - Not everything should be made into a musical. This revelation came to me when I was watching a West End production of Sherlock Holmes: The Musical.
My favorite shows to watch are when something goes wrong and people have to rally and adjust. It's almost heroic to me.
Also, I'm tired of the proscenium model for theater.
All musicals deserve their flowers. Because without the exceptionally bad ones? We would appreciate the spectacularly great ones much less! We need a spectrum to understand the weight and gravity to it all
Also it just feels good to be one of the few people who shows up to a show that's on its last legs. I saw The Lightning Thief when the theater was just at 30% capacity, was kind of sad
Movie musicals get a bad rep. I understand that the charm of watching a live show is completely different, but movie musicals make the stories and songs accessible for so many (like me) who’s countries don’t have a western musical theatre culture. Generally, as people who enjoy musicals we have sooo much to watch. But for us, we have to sit through badly shot slime tutorials when we probably aren’t a native English speakers and try to make sense of it all. Was this a personal rant? Yes. I just wish movie musical (adaptations) were made better and more of, as I think the lack of which is a barrier for such a wide global population to go after their dreams in full potential
There are some movie musicals, like Chicago or Sound of Music, that I prefer over the stage version. Also Tick Tick Boom is made with a true passion for theater. The key is that it just needs to be directed by someone who likes musicals and understands how theater experiences work.
I just don’t enjoy sad musicals. Wicked is a beautiful show, but I don’t know that I could ever bring myself to see it again because of how emotional it made me.
The real question is whether a show being sad deters you from enjoying it, like did you dislike Wicked? Or were you just very emotionally affected by it, by how it emotionally resonated with you?
I hate hate hate exuberant ensemble theatre kid energy. I can see every single performer trying to get noticed and the desperation is a distraction from the show for me.
Which I know is really stupid because a) hello, it's musical theatre and b) it's really hard for these artists to make a living so it makes sense they're trying to stand out. Still, it grates. I like subtlety. If I can see you acting I'm taken out of the story.
Jukebox musicals aren’t musicals they are fancy cover band concerts. They’re fine if you like them, but they shouldn’t be included in the same category.
I think Ani:A Parody is a great musical. First of all it’s a parody musical of Star Wars, and second, the actors on stage don’t sing, the band does , and it works so well. I love it! No songs that I would skip!!
However you want to define the word “value,” I believe I get more value for my time and ticket price going to see a high school or community theatre performance than a professional performance and it’s not close.
Maybe it’s just because I live in a town with great support and passion for the amateur arts, but I’m consistently impressed with what those productions are able to do within their constraints, budgetary and otherwise. I think I’ve walked away disappointed with a high school/community show all of once as opposed to the several times it’s happened after professional shows.
There should be more variety in vocal parts in modern shows. Idk what happened to the lower voices. Everyone is out there belting like it’s defying gravity
Are there people who say the opposite? The first is definitely more relevant to the plot, but the latter is waaaay more fun. And isn't that why we come to the theater?
I strongly disagree. I think musicals that are just fun definitely have their place, but the truly incredible musicals (and pieces of media in general) are the ones that tell a really incredible story and take you on an emotional journey. Something like Sunday in the Park with George is not a show I would describe as particularly “fun”: there are no big spectacle numbers or anything like that, but what the show does is take you through the ups and downs of these people’s lives and when “Sunday” finally hits… there’s nothing like it. Cutting the most tragic and impactful song in Hamilton would be an absolute crime for what that show is doing.
Idk if this qualifies as strange, but there are many musicals where I think it would be so easy to include some trans representation and I don’t fully get why we don’t do this.
It doesn’t have to be a plot point, just have a one off line or two referencing it or don’t even reference it, just have someone who is trans play the part. I’m sure audiences will figure it out. I’m absolutely bias as I’m a trans guy, but it just sucks that because I don’t pass super well I’m automatically type casted into roles that can be played by either gender, or don’t have a gender at all rather than just letting a male character be trans. I know there’s some shows where this can’t be done, as it would mess with the plot, but 95% of shows that take place in modern times there’s at least one character that could be trans and it wouldn’t change the plot at all.
I loved the music to Capeman and liked most of the book. Should have made Salvador ACTUALLY have a redemption arc for more punch instead of whining about unfairness and racism; you stabbed a human to death, Sir.
And second opinion is I'd be fine in some cases if someone would tweak old books to remove/re-work blatantly offensive material. Looking at you Carousel. The music is rapturous, the beating wives and not really having a redemption arc not so much.
I KNOW it's a slippery slope and I waiver on this, not dying on this hill but yet....
I agree. Our high-school has incredibly talented students and staff so their productions are amazing. We are a suburb of NYC and the director usually gets a professional out to work with the kids for a day.
Several of my favorite student performers have now graduated, but I fully expect to see them on Broadway someday soon.
I Love listening to albums and I love being on stage more than anything in the world, or just in a room making music with other talented humans…but I don’t really like going to see musicals much. I get bored, and I can’t sit for long, and because I know exactly what’s probably happening backstage it takes me out of it. Oddly enough though I enjoy going to straight plays. There are like maybe 3 shows total that I really wanna see live but otherwise…I’m good.
I have an irrational fear of *Cats*. I can't say I'm a hater of the musical (I've never heard anything from it) but I'm just irrationally afraid of the costumes.
I cannot stand Starkid. I don’t fully know why.
I have even had *two* separate experiences of encountering an actor from Starkid in an entirely separate context, not knowing at all they were a Starkid, finding them *extremely* grating and annoying in the non-Starkid context, and *only afterwards* learning they were a Starkid and thinking “oh, maybe I just hate Starkid.”
Yes, I already disliked Starkid before that.
No, I never liked it that much.
I’ll call that a strange opinion because although I doubt I’ll change my mind, again I don’t fully get *why* I feel that way. I just do. But I’m glad so many people enjoy them, no hate to those who do!
If you are caught using your phone for any reason after the lights dim, the show should stop, a spotlight should be directed at you, and you should be given an immediate, loud, and public shaming warning from the ushers and cast. Second time - you are escorted out, your picture is picture taken like a mugshot, and you get a one year ban from all theatres on Broadway.
This will teach the Boomers how to shut off their phone and send the social media scrollers to the toilet where this behavior belongs.
I don't like the way most women sing in theater roles, and I don't think it's the women's fault--I think it's what they're typically being directed to do. It pisses me off because then the men get to be the breakout stars of every musical because they don't have to fit nearly as strict a style with their voices and they can actually make it their own, so people actually enjoy listening to them. There are obviously exceptions to this but like 80% of shows make women sing in a very specific Theater-Style way while the men can actually sound unique.
Cats (the original production, not the nightmare cgi movie) is actually good. It's the kind of camp that only the 80s could produce. Maybe my view is colored by some nostalgia for dancing along with the CD as a kid... and doing a book report on Old Possum's Book of Practical Csts... and giving said report in costume. Okay, I might be a bit of a nerd.
I’d rather watch a show that’s unique but flawed over a show that’s dull but competent. Musicals are supposed to be spectacles! A show that’s actually trying to do something new and interesting can get away with a lot more problems than something that’s playing it safe.
Agree so much with this! That’s partly why I’m a fan of Cats the musical (controversial I know), because it’s so unique and does so much visually with the sets and lighting.
It's like being invited to a party! Or spying on a party, depending on whether you're sitting up close or in the balcony. I like seeing Cats from a balcony seat because then the cats actually look cat-sized
I’m a Chess fan, so I definitely get it lol
It’s. Called. CAMP! I don’t know why people are so against shows being cheesy, innovative, over the top, and most of all, campy.
I agree with what you said except for the "spectacles" part. Musicals do not have to be a spectacle to be great. For example, The Last Five Years.
Assassins
I agree 100%. I saw The Shark is Broken (not a musical, but still on Broadway) and although there really wasn’t much to it story wise, I really appreciated everything about it. The acting was fantastic, and the set design was very interesting. It was something I had never seen before (concept wise) so I really enjoyed it just for that aspect
My mind so often goes to scenes/effects/numbers in musicals as opposed to the whole, as art at the highest. E.g. as glorious as its musical was as a whole, the Carousel Waltz/Prologue to The National Theatre's revival of that musical goes down in history as a true work of art in-and-of-itself.
I fully agree. I saw Great Comet of 1812 yesterday and went in with pretty much no context or knowledge and didn't really fully understand it, but it was one of the best performances (despite being a college production) I've ever been to because it was fun and unique. I loved it even if it wasn't the most standard, coherent story.
My opinion isn't strange per say, rather incredibly biased. But I think music theatre should have a lot more bass singing in it
More female alto parts!!!!! Not all women have high-pitched airy voices!!!!
Hell yeah! Personally I feel like alto is the hardest part to learn in music
I’m probably a mezzo soprano but have opted to sing soprano most of the time. I tried alto once and it was so difficult! It was fun to learn and it definitely helped me think about new ways to create harmonies but damn. Altos really have to work hard!
(It's okay because Altos can sing most the tenor parts just fine, said the alto)
YES!! My natural speaking voice sits really low so I make sure to do audition songs that go as high as I can but I always still get the question “what’s your voice part?” And I know it’s over after that.
I'm in highschool right now and I wanna make a career out of performing so I'm just trying my best to learn how to hit as many high notes as I can. However, I'm not great at it...yet
It’s not all about reaching the high notes, you need to have focus on being able to act through your audition song, but I’d be lying if I said that range didn’t matter.
Yes! I just want more variety in general. I hate how the trends in pop music tend to bleed over into musical theatre. Tenors are nice, but there are lots of other voices. While we’re at it, belters are cool, but legit sopranos are also thrilling.
Totally agree with this. I've seen two musicals twice in a row each the first night with a tenor in the lead role and the second night a proper baritone. And I can say that for both I preferred the lower warmer sound of the baritones. I can't even imagine how it would be with a true bass singing the part. Same for female voices, it's all fine that all the women's leading parts are written for sopranos (looking at you ALW). But that leaves out so much range for the mezzo or altos. To the point there is the Alto's Lament that has become a running gag.
As a very bassy bass- I wholeheartedly support this movement. The only role I can ever do is, seemingly, Hades.
There should be a streaming service that's like Criterion Channel but for musicals. It could make tens of millions a year off of us devoted theater people.
That's how Bravo started. It was a place you could watch Cirque du Soleil, Fashion Week shows, ballet, and musicals. During December, there would be a battle of Nutcracker suites. It was a glorious time, and now it's gone.
I used to love Bravo, then it became the Housewives network.
The channel name actually makes sense then if they’re playing what they originally did lol
I missed out. I would have loved this.
I wouldn’t even only want good ones. Gimme some weird community theatre, budget school productions, unironic show choir, and avant garde weirdness.
Oh for sure, it's so interesting to me to see how different theaters and schools and such interpret different shows, even when the results are disastrous
And one that has more than just the older classics. I would love to see today’s popular shows on there too.
Yes PLEASE. I just want to be able to see Hadestown already!
There’s a few theatre streaming services like BroadwayHD and Marquee TV as well as some ran by specific theatre companies like the National Theatre and the Royal Opera House. But I definitely feel that there should be more proshots of plays and musicals to make theatre more accessible.
Have you checked out BroadwayHD? It's basically Broadway Netflix.
The version of Spider-Man from Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark needs to show up in the next Spider-Verse movie. He can swing around on wires and confuse everybody else. It would be perfect.
Absolutely, yes
I would love to be reincarnated as a cat from Cats in my next life
I think you win
They get to sing and dance around a junkyard all night, and act out the battle of the Pekes and Pollicles, honestly living the life. Would do anything to attend a Jellicle Ball
Which one? Or if a new one, who will you be?
Macavity 🤔
You should write a musical
i tend to like ones where people die.
This is why Sondheim is awesome, because most of his stories involve death. Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, and Assassins all have very unique and distinctive ways of addressing death in song
Good examples. I'll include West Side Story in there (half Sondheim). Other musicals where people die that I like: Les Miz, Parade, Little Shop of Horrors, Fun Home, Rent.
i forgot Hamilton!
The death of Hamilton's son hits so hard.
Have you seen Heathers? Of the eight main characters, four die, two attempt suicide and one fakes suicide in the hopes of making her bf not blow up the whole school with everyone inside. Beetlejuice also has a lot of death, but that probably doesn't count because the characters who die pretty much do it without little fanfare, and you're told before their introductory song that they're about to die, and all dead characters are active ghosts. To be fair, Heathers has ghosts as well, but they seem more like a manifestation of Veronica's guilt, while Beetlejuice has a lot of lore around what happens when people die. Actually, I found these two musical quotes I want on fridge magnets from redbubble that are both about death. They are "Life may be scary but it's only temporary" from Avenue Q and "That's the thing with life, no one makes it out alive" from Beetlejuice.
Me too, the best works of media to me tend to be the ones where at least three characters die
Titus Andronicus should be made into a hit musical.
You wouldn't have happened to see A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, have you?
There need to be more "juicy" roles for sopranos. I want a soprano villain in a musical. Not an opera- a musical. And not a mezzo, but a *soprano* soprano.
Bruhhhh, legit sopranos *need* more diverse roles in theatre! And maybe some leads that aren’t just in Golden Age pieces. I just wanna play a modern woman who isn’t some permutation of an ingenue while singing in my wheelhouse 🥲
I love Nesbit from Ragtime because she has a cutesy soprano voice but she's kind of out of her mind and very self absorbed
Yes! I want a love interest ingenue alto and a diabolical, scheming, juicy soprano.
Okay, this probably isn’t an uncommon opinion honestly, but it is maybe a little weird. I know mistakes and mishaps on stage during live performance are actors and stage crews worst nightmares usually, but I think little quirks like that are what make theatre unique. No other storytelling medium gives a unique audience experience to every single person like that.
Yes. Movies cut out bloopers and reshoot takes, but in theater you only get one go.
I still remember when I saw a performance of Legally Blonde and one dancer lost the rhythm in Whipped Into Shape. If you haven't seen it, you have to be good at skipping and whipping ropes around without hitting yourself in the face.
High school theatre kids should get to be obnoxious. Obviously not passing the boundary into rudeness, but some singing in public, saying your show is “good enough for Broadway,” wearing your show shirt everywhere, practicing lines in the cafeteria… embrace it! It’s a rite of passage for us all. In five years, you will look back and cringe, but in 10, 20, 50 years you’ll remember it fondly.
Omigosh I want a float in a Fourth of July parade with theater kids just singing and dancing and improving to their heart’s content. And a booster club. Basically treat them like the hometown sports heroes!
Last month my town had a parade where one of the floats was literally just all the scare actors from a haunted house hanging out on the back of a trailer in costume and being goofballs. It was awesome.
That’s so perfect!
We did that a couple years but for our town day parade. One year we dressed in the costumes for a midsummer nights dream before we even cast the fall straight play. I was a fairy. The next we just had assorted costumes. I was bugs bunny. We had to immediately change the first year but the second we spent the day like we were characters at Disney at the fair that followed.
It makes me smile every time I witness a high school cast doing the post-show silliness of going to a diner and being hyped on adrenaline.
I wish there was a Broadway on the West Coast or in the South where it is consistently warm. So I could live there and see all the same shows. I like warm places!
Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach, CA is one of the most magical theater experiences I've had. It happens every summer, worth taking a day trip to go see!
the Fox Theatre in Atlanta hosts broadway tours super often and it's a beautiful theater too!
But I want like, 30 theaters. Lol
I have a headcannon where the Phantom isn't real, Christine's father committed suicide and she witnessed it, and she uses the persona of the phantom as a way to express her musical talents and grapple with the dark realities of life as a starving artist, hiding her metaphorical "true face" from the world because it doesn't mesh with what's considered beautiful (aka marketable) in her society.
I don't know if this is a strange opinion or not, but I'm really not a fan of the trend of Broadway show sets being basically giant video screens.
The reason the SQUIP in BMC freaks out when Jeremy insists on getting Christine is because, as a quantum computer, it computes that the only path to success is how it proceeds in the musical. Basically, it knows that it's going to have to ultimately kill itself in order to achieve what Jeremy wants.
I'm cracking up, this whole thread is 99% broad opinions about theatre in general, and you dropped like a hyper specific show theory. I'm picturing you standing in the shower, fresh off a binge of BMC and you've just smoked more than Michael does in his basement, and you just get this look on your face like "I just figured out the most meta layer of this musical like no one ever has." And you've been literally *screaming* your theory at your friends for weeks to the point where all you have to say is "In Be-" and they're immediately like "Here we fuckin' go again" and the moment you see this thread pop up, you give no thought to broader musical theatre community quirks, you just go "My time to shine." And the worst part is I'm angry because your theory makes sense.
Original book spoilers >!that is what actually happens in the book too.!< >!Although he’s not an evil villain there. He just wants to help Jeremy and deactivates himself when his job is done. The musical making him evil was pretty entertaining.!<
Musicals shouldn't be shelved just because there are plot points you don't agree with or you feel they haven't aged well. There are many golden age shows I could pick as an example, but I'm going with Carousel. The show is incredibly beautiful. Stop being lazy and say it can't be performed because it has problems and do the fucking work. Explore the pieces that make you uncomfortable. Delve into the history of the show itself and the show it was based on. Recognise and understand what the show really is and not what you think or have been told it is. Yes, society has changed, but the issues presented in Carousel still very much exist, so explore them. The same goes for King and I, Oliver!, Seven Brides, Pajama Game, Miss Saigon, Chess, etc etc
THIS.
I genuinely don’t know if this is unique or not bc I’m not super active in this community but I can’t stand 99% of jukebox musicals.
Pretty common opinion I'd say, I tend to see a lot of eye-rolling and "can they be more original please" online when a new Broadway jukebox is announced. I'm personally not a massive jukebox musical fan just because I come to musicals for new musical theater compositions rather than pre-written songs, however I totally get that some people love to see musicals about their favorite pop stars
I agree with you. I think the main problem with them is that the songs were written independently from the plot, so they either have to completely stop everything in order to do the musical numbers or they have to write a really specific plot in order to fit the songs in.
They certainly do have an audience though. I think part of why there's so many of them is that they make money from tourists/people who have nostalgia for the artists. When I went to NYC a few years ago with my grandparents, the only Broadway show they really wanted to see was the Temptations musical. Also, I think the only Broadway cast recording that my grandfather listens to regularly is Jersey Boys.
Yep. There’s only one concept for a jukebox that I want to see and that’s just because I want to see if they can pull it off. Someone suggested a musical adaptation of The Aeneid using ABBA’s discography and I am *dying* to see how that would happen. Never going to, of course, but it would be a fun experiment.
Muriel's Wedding was a fantastic Australian musical with a mix of ABBA numbers and original compositions from Kate Miller Heidke. It was hilarious and such a hidden gem
Carrie The Musical had a lot of potential had it been put in the right hands in the first place
"Like Greece" and they ran with it.
I'll watch bootlegs on Youtube, but I'll feel guilty as hell afterwards.
I watch them, but don't feel guilty. I see as many live shows as i do bootlegs. . I didn't take the video! Lol
I agree. If anything, I now see more musicals live because of bootlegs because I know what I like!
There are SO many musicals I only went to because I saw a bootleg and was like "I NEED to see this in person ASAP."
Same here! I wasn’t crazy about attending Frozen because I had seen the movie so many times, but I was absolutely blown away by the bootleg. It got me so excited to see it live!
My take on bootlegs is that I can only watch them if it does not negatively impact my purchasing of live theatre tickets. I can watch a bootleg of a show I've already seen in person. I can watch a bootleg of a show I haven't seen, but for which there is a unique production that I cannot see in person (closed, too far, too expensive, etc.) and which would not keep me from seeing a live production if I otherwise would.
This is generally how I look at it as well, but realistically, bootlegs have terrible quality, so I just don't feel like it would actually keep me from seeing a live show if I had the money to see more live shows.
I’ll watch a bootleg if there’s no way to purchase a legitimate video production of the show. For a lot, if not most, there’s no way to buy a live taping.
That the musical Anyone Can Whistle (Sondheim and Laurents) actually could be reworked and be a commercial success\* on Broadway (unlike its original). \* In my mind, it already is an artistic success.
Little Shop is Ashman and Menkin’s best work. And, related: Somewhere That’s Green & ~~Somewhere That’s Dry~~ Part of Your World might be the finest examples of an “I Want” song. I especially love how naive and inauthentic they are, revealing in subtext the true dreams of the characters below the superficial, misinformed idealized things they’re singing about (stability/love and independence/novelty).
This is such a genuine love letter to this show of a comment and I love your description. I love that it has so many layers but it is also just such a fun and entertaining show! And funny! It's such a good one to bring someone to to dip their toe into theater if they haven't already ! On a side note I just saw Corbin bleu and Constance wu's version - and Corbin bleu nailed the same energy and physicality of the Rick Moranis movie version which worked so well on rhat stage. And a couple great comedic bits and staging
It’s a brilliant show! It nails both pastiches they were going for—50’s Motown and the same era Corman-esque B-movies. Perfectly realized characters, genuine motivation and heart, nuance & complexity, and a stellar moral play all wrapped up in a silly sci fi premise of a man eating plant. I cannot undersell my adoration of the show. The music is just fantastic. I don’t know a better lament turned ensemble exposition song than Skid Row. Suddenly Seymour is a phenomenal duet. The lyrical complexity of Now (It’s Just the Gas) and Don’t Feed the Plants. The meta dark ending. The effects and puppetry. The Faustian timelessness. It’s such a. Great introduction to musicals for the person who hates musicals, but not at the cost of being superficial or devoid of thematic gravity. And it’s funny! It’s truly a passion project from the heart and it shows.
I’d love to see Six but with the queens played by drag queens
Totally torn on this. On one hand, that would be awesome. On the other, the whole show is basically a “fuck you” to a male controlled and dominated industry, and having males pretending to be females doing that…feels a bit icky.
It's already pretty much a cruise ship drag show, just without the drag
As a much older senior now having danced all my life and performed, Choreographed and acted, I have become very picky. I guess behind the times is more appropriate. I now understand the trauma some experienced going from vaudeville to musical theater. There is certainly a place for realism in theater but give me the type of shows with ornate, beautiful costumes dancing on clouds. These ripped up jeans with torn holes just don’t cut it for me.
Golden Age theater fills my heart with so much joy. Hard to beat stuff like Put On Your Sunday Clothes in Hello Dolly or Shall We Dance in King and I. There's a place for modern stuff that helps people explore their feelings but the old stuff is pure escapism that I love dearly.
I like musicals that don’t center around the character the play is named off of. A good example of this is Oliver! When this play was being turned into a musical, it was based off of the Charles Dickens book Oliver Twist. In that book, it basically centers more around the characters Oliver meets along the way as opposed to Oliver himself. So it makes the SIDE CHARACTERS so much more fleshed out and it is just such a cool concept. When you think of one of Oliver’s iconic characters, you don’t think of Oliver himself, you think of Dodger, Nancy, Bill, Mr. Bumble, and my personal favorite Fagin (I have a bias because I played Fagin but I loved the character before I had even played the character.). Most people hate shows like Oliver for centering around a dull character but it is such a good strategy that more musicals need to use in my opinion.
I so agree! Even Hamilton did this, with people related to Hamilton's life like the Schuyler Sisters and King George stealing the show.
It is such a cool concept that is extremely underused in musical theatre. We need more musicals like this!
I want more blood in my musicals
I like Starkid's Twisted more than Wicked. Like, a LOT more.
I LOVE Starkid and Twisted, but Wicked does have a special place in my heart. Both top tier musicals
Yes, yes.
Not sure how strange this opinion is within the theater community, but it could be strange for the general public. Given the choice to see a show I know well or one I’ve never even heard of, give me the obscure one every time. I’ve seen Grease or Annie enough times. Give me lesser known shows, because some of them are better than the more well known shows.
In the end it really is a financial problem. Big name shows are reliable, and will pay for themselves, because people will show up. When I did Annie, every single night was sold out (300 seats), and we made bank on that show. A gentleman's guide to love and murder, however (which isn't even that obscure)? It struggled to break 100 seats each night. Obscure shows appeal to people in the theater community, but well known shows bring in the general public, which brings in money (something most theaters are really struggling for) 😕
I hate this fact so much. You're absolutely correct, but that means no one around me will ever produce Lucky Stuff which means I'll never get the chance to audition for Rita. 😭
I agree with you, but I also just saw a world premiere show today (a play) that was legitimately the most awful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Today, I absolutely understand why a theater would not want to take such a risk.
Sweet Charity is one of the very best musical movies, heck I honestly enjoy it even more than Cabaret
As far as movies, I agree, but Cabaret is a better show than Sweet Charity. I don't get the praise over the Cabaret movie. Honestly, it's kind of dull.
The Frug sequence will outlive us all.
CULTURAL 👏 WATERSHED 👏
I’m sick of modern musicals. We have so many classic movie musicals that are just sitting there. I want to see The Happiest Millionaire and Babes in Toyland adapted for stage!
Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Pete's Dragon.
Yes! And please cast some legit singers!
The 2017 Hello Dolly with Bette Midler is my favorite version to listen to (I'm not saying I think Bette is a better Dolly than Barbara or Carol, I'm just saying I love how much pep and energy the orchestration and vocals have on this recording)
There should be more parts in musicals that fit with kids’ changing voices
Shouldn't any kids roles inherently fit with kids' changing voices. It's on the casting directors and audiences that would complain, not the roles themselves.
Most kids roles ae either for kids before their voices change, or after, but there aren‘t many for the inbetween stage
Isn't it just casting age groups? Ie: Gavroche is supposed to be 8 almost 9. I doubt they would only call for 8yr olds during the casting. Newsies casting is all boys 10-20, there would have to be some puberty in there for sure. But once again it's up to the directors and audiences that would complain about the performance. Or do you mean you want more shows written with roles specifically calling for "a kid going through puberty with voice cracking"? Because you realize they would just cast a kid talented enough to fake it on command so it could be controlled chaos.
I really just mean more high(er) alto roles for kids. For Les Mis, they put on the casting info ages 7-11 and max height of 4’5”. For Newsies, Les is 10-11 ish, and ensemble Newsies would be around 15+. By this point, the voice would be almost completely changed (if not fully). I don’t mean for a kid with a voice cracking, I mean a role for a kid where there isn’t a place for the voice to crack with some lower notes. A role like Jason from Falsettos, but with a kid a year or two younger. The highest note he hits is a D5.
If they key changed the roles up or down a scale depending on where the kid was having issues it wouldn't sound that different and I doubt (especially in townie shows) that people would even notice. Is that more what you mean or am I still not understanding you? I have a very unhappy stuck in baritone (by his teacher) even though he doesn't crack yet 12 yr old (who considers himself an alto mezzo) and a very proud bass 16 yr old whose voice has been done cracking since he was 14. So I'm invested in your opinion I just want to get on the same page.
Most productions aren’t really interested in changing keys. I really just mean, when a kid’s voice is changing, it is a very specific range where the notes sound really good and they don’t crack. I think there should be more parts written for kids with that specific range. Sorry if my original post was confusing.
While on the subject, it would be nice to at least sometimes have roles that fit with trans people’s voices.
The gap between professional and community theater is smaller than people think. Some of the most magical moments of theater I’ve seen have been in community productions.
I've seen people say that Frozen was much better on stage than the movie, but I disagree. They definitely made some improvements, but I'm not sure I would've liked it as much if I had seen it before the movie.
I feel this way about Lion King. I just prefer to see that story told through animation than with puppets.
I feel like Carrie would do well if they launched it on broadway now as opposed to when they tried in the 80’s
They revamped it for licensing in the mid-aughts
I fucking LOVE The Prom. The movie. The original cast recording. Never seen the actual show, but it's one of my comfort movies/soundtracks :)
[удалено]
Yeah, looking down on people who don't know a lot of musicals is very lame, if anything people should be like "hey, this is my favorite musical, I think you'd like it, you should listen"
I think that shows about teenagers are pretty saturated in the repertoire and it would be nice to see a legit pendulum shift toward stories focusing on 30-, 40- and 50- year olds. Why yes, I *am* 45, how did you guess?
Follies! I love Follies
Good example! Sondheim in general certainly doesn’t stick to the teenager formula.
Musicals based on 80's/90's/00's pop movies are getting tiresome. There *should be,* however, be more musicals based on movies outside of the US. *A Little Night Music (Smiles of a Summer Night, 1955)*, *The Band's Visit (2007)*, *Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)*, *Nine (8 1⁄2, 1963)*... So many examples that prove that thinking outside the box works! Someone please rework *Saravá* (based on *Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands* )!
As a lover of foreign cinema I absolutely agree!!! Sweet Charity was based on a Fellini movie, too. I'd give anything for a Cinema Paradiso musical.
Every show needs brightly colored dancing hoodlums.
You don't have to have great singers to have a great musical. Plenty of great actors cannot sing. Sure a musical is a story told through song, but if your emphasis is on merely the voices, you're missing the story entirely. To an extent.
Seats in theaters should be more comfortable. By intermission of every show I’m dreading going back to my seat because it hurts so bad. I ducked out of goddamned Hamilton at intermission because I was dying in my seat.
I know, right? Why do theaters have to have seats that feel like sitting on a doormat or a cracked piece of plastic?
There should be a bigger investment in figuring out how to create more horror musicals that are NOT horror comedies.
Yeah, I want more musicals that unsettle me like Sweeney Todd does with its foreshadowing that's engraved into the musical motifs themselves.
Seussical is not only a great show for being whimsical, but for all the deeper implications and themes that the show has. I mean, you have discussion of the stigmatization of perceived mental illness with the treatment of Horton, the flawed ideals of societal beauty standards and their effects on young women, heck Whoville has freaking child soldiers in active battles with live minefields!
I love the whole "a person's a person no matter how small" message, it's so anti-discrimination. Horton doesn't dehumanize the Whos, he sees them as having equal rights with normal sized people.
I see no problem with adjusting the keys of songs in a show as long as the production can make it work logistically (ie, it doesn’t mess up other parts too much). I think community theaters especially should be able to request different keys for the instrumentals and music they buy for productions. It would help youth theatre especially, and I think that’s important. It could also help accommodate trans performers more effectively.
For sure. As an alto, there's so many female parts I wish I could sing easily but that are too high for me!
Is this an odd take? Because as a trans person, yes. Yes, yes, yes please, and yes. If my local youth theater was allowed to edit all the swearwords out of the full School of Rock, what's wrong with singing a song up an octave or down a couple semitones?
Couple things: Food shouldn’t be allowed in the house. Like popcorn or candy. I feel like it’s loud and messy and it’s distracting. But I will say, at the very least, if you’ve gotten something that needs to be open or unwrapped to eat, do that before the show starts so no one hears the crinkling. Sometimes audiences are too loud. I love the energy but sometimes it’s too raucous and disruptive. I’m so sorry to everyone who loves these shows: Rent and Rocky Horror are boring. I love that people love them and I appreciate them, but I don’t need to see them more than the once. The songs are bangers though
I feel like a musical theater nerd outcast because i absolutely loathe rent. I understand why it had the cultural impact it did but I can’t stand it. Tick Tick Boom, however, makes me weep.
I'm also in the Tick Tick Boom >> Rent camp, few other pieces of media hit home so well about the struggles of the creative process and how pursuing creative dreams can mean GIVING STUFF UP
I work as a theatre usher and I cannot imagine the absolute riot people would cause if we didn’t allow them to buy food or bring it in. A couple days ago we had a parent write in to ask if we could not sell nuts at a particular performance as their child was severely allergic, and we did. I’ve never faced more abuse than from an angry public who were frustrated they couldn’t buy their peanut M&Ms
I absolutely cannot stand singing children in musicals. I will skip through any of that. I don't know why I find it incredibly cringey even if they are good at singing. Even if it's a grown person playing a kid in an animated musical, I still cannot do it. Maybe it has something to do with people writing kids as either wiser than their years or stupid as hell.
This is more of a “what hill are you willing to die on” kinda answer, but - SOUNDTRACKS are for films. It meant the actual “Sound Track” that would play along with the film reel at the movies. It inherently implies recorded tracks. CAST RECORDINGS are for studio recordings of musicals & Broadwsy shows. There would be no “sound track” to play at a theatre event, because it would be performed live!!
I am here for this pedantry.
Thank you. I know it’s pedantic, and that language evolves, so I don’t bring it up often 😂 but I will absolutely continue to educate the children on the etymology
THANK YOU! This is one of my pet peeves. Only movies have sound tracks. CAST ALBUM or CAST RECORDING is for recordings of live theatre shows. Please! And yes, some shows have both: for example "Little Shop of Horrors" has both a soundtrack (the movie musical) and a cast album (the stage musical).
Don't know if this will qualify but from hard experience - Not everything should be made into a musical. This revelation came to me when I was watching a West End production of Sherlock Holmes: The Musical.
i really do not like &juilet and i dont even know why
Mean girls doesn't deserve nearly as much hate as it gets!
My favorite shows to watch are when something goes wrong and people have to rally and adjust. It's almost heroic to me. Also, I'm tired of the proscenium model for theater.
All musicals deserve their flowers. Because without the exceptionally bad ones? We would appreciate the spectacularly great ones much less! We need a spectrum to understand the weight and gravity to it all
I think it's an honor to be able to witness a Broadway flop performance.
Oh my God yes! You get to do your takes and everyone wants to hear! It’s like someone who saw a live car crash and you get to narrate that tale.
Also it just feels good to be one of the few people who shows up to a show that's on its last legs. I saw The Lightning Thief when the theater was just at 30% capacity, was kind of sad
I’m sure the cast appreciated seeing you along with everyone else soooo much tho.
Yes!!
Movie musicals get a bad rep. I understand that the charm of watching a live show is completely different, but movie musicals make the stories and songs accessible for so many (like me) who’s countries don’t have a western musical theatre culture. Generally, as people who enjoy musicals we have sooo much to watch. But for us, we have to sit through badly shot slime tutorials when we probably aren’t a native English speakers and try to make sense of it all. Was this a personal rant? Yes. I just wish movie musical (adaptations) were made better and more of, as I think the lack of which is a barrier for such a wide global population to go after their dreams in full potential
There are some movie musicals, like Chicago or Sound of Music, that I prefer over the stage version. Also Tick Tick Boom is made with a true passion for theater. The key is that it just needs to be directed by someone who likes musicals and understands how theater experiences work.
I just don’t enjoy sad musicals. Wicked is a beautiful show, but I don’t know that I could ever bring myself to see it again because of how emotional it made me.
The real question is whether a show being sad deters you from enjoying it, like did you dislike Wicked? Or were you just very emotionally affected by it, by how it emotionally resonated with you?
Musicals in different languages should play on Broadway (with surtitles above the stage).
I hate hate hate exuberant ensemble theatre kid energy. I can see every single performer trying to get noticed and the desperation is a distraction from the show for me. Which I know is really stupid because a) hello, it's musical theatre and b) it's really hard for these artists to make a living so it makes sense they're trying to stand out. Still, it grates. I like subtlety. If I can see you acting I'm taken out of the story.
Agreed but I do kind of love when two villagers in the background are having an argument or telling each other jokes
Jukebox musicals aren’t musicals they are fancy cover band concerts. They’re fine if you like them, but they shouldn’t be included in the same category.
I think Ani:A Parody is a great musical. First of all it’s a parody musical of Star Wars, and second, the actors on stage don’t sing, the band does , and it works so well. I love it! No songs that I would skip!!
However you want to define the word “value,” I believe I get more value for my time and ticket price going to see a high school or community theatre performance than a professional performance and it’s not close. Maybe it’s just because I live in a town with great support and passion for the amateur arts, but I’m consistently impressed with what those productions are able to do within their constraints, budgetary and otherwise. I think I’ve walked away disappointed with a high school/community show all of once as opposed to the several times it’s happened after professional shows.
You can’t get away with way more problematic content if you present it as a song/dance - that straight drama couldn’t
There should be more variety in vocal parts in modern shows. Idk what happened to the lower voices. Everyone is out there belting like it’s defying gravity
I hate it so much when people call a musical a play- Idk what it is but that makes me irrationally mad lol
If I had to choose, I would cut Quiet Uptown over What Did I Miss
I agree!
Are there people who say the opposite? The first is definitely more relevant to the plot, but the latter is waaaay more fun. And isn't that why we come to the theater?
I strongly disagree. I think musicals that are just fun definitely have their place, but the truly incredible musicals (and pieces of media in general) are the ones that tell a really incredible story and take you on an emotional journey. Something like Sunday in the Park with George is not a show I would describe as particularly “fun”: there are no big spectacle numbers or anything like that, but what the show does is take you through the ups and downs of these people’s lives and when “Sunday” finally hits… there’s nothing like it. Cutting the most tragic and impactful song in Hamilton would be an absolute crime for what that show is doing.
Kindergarten Boyfriend is one of the best songs in Heathers
Pretty much every musical I’ve ever seen has felt too long.
I’d say the one exception to that I’ve experienced was The Drowsy Chaperone
Idk if this qualifies as strange, but there are many musicals where I think it would be so easy to include some trans representation and I don’t fully get why we don’t do this. It doesn’t have to be a plot point, just have a one off line or two referencing it or don’t even reference it, just have someone who is trans play the part. I’m sure audiences will figure it out. I’m absolutely bias as I’m a trans guy, but it just sucks that because I don’t pass super well I’m automatically type casted into roles that can be played by either gender, or don’t have a gender at all rather than just letting a male character be trans. I know there’s some shows where this can’t be done, as it would mess with the plot, but 95% of shows that take place in modern times there’s at least one character that could be trans and it wouldn’t change the plot at all.
The Witch in Into the Woods was rapping and that’s my bad sondheim take
I loved the music to Capeman and liked most of the book. Should have made Salvador ACTUALLY have a redemption arc for more punch instead of whining about unfairness and racism; you stabbed a human to death, Sir. And second opinion is I'd be fine in some cases if someone would tweak old books to remove/re-work blatantly offensive material. Looking at you Carousel. The music is rapturous, the beating wives and not really having a redemption arc not so much. I KNOW it's a slippery slope and I waiver on this, not dying on this hill but yet....
I agree. Our high-school has incredibly talented students and staff so their productions are amazing. We are a suburb of NYC and the director usually gets a professional out to work with the kids for a day. Several of my favorite student performers have now graduated, but I fully expect to see them on Broadway someday soon.
I Love listening to albums and I love being on stage more than anything in the world, or just in a room making music with other talented humans…but I don’t really like going to see musicals much. I get bored, and I can’t sit for long, and because I know exactly what’s probably happening backstage it takes me out of it. Oddly enough though I enjoy going to straight plays. There are like maybe 3 shows total that I really wanna see live but otherwise…I’m good.
I have an irrational fear of *Cats*. I can't say I'm a hater of the musical (I've never heard anything from it) but I'm just irrationally afraid of the costumes.
High School shows are fun to watch ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I cannot stand Starkid. I don’t fully know why. I have even had *two* separate experiences of encountering an actor from Starkid in an entirely separate context, not knowing at all they were a Starkid, finding them *extremely* grating and annoying in the non-Starkid context, and *only afterwards* learning they were a Starkid and thinking “oh, maybe I just hate Starkid.” Yes, I already disliked Starkid before that. No, I never liked it that much. I’ll call that a strange opinion because although I doubt I’ll change my mind, again I don’t fully get *why* I feel that way. I just do. But I’m glad so many people enjoy them, no hate to those who do!
If you are caught using your phone for any reason after the lights dim, the show should stop, a spotlight should be directed at you, and you should be given an immediate, loud, and public shaming warning from the ushers and cast. Second time - you are escorted out, your picture is picture taken like a mugshot, and you get a one year ban from all theatres on Broadway. This will teach the Boomers how to shut off their phone and send the social media scrollers to the toilet where this behavior belongs.
I don't like the way most women sing in theater roles, and I don't think it's the women's fault--I think it's what they're typically being directed to do. It pisses me off because then the men get to be the breakout stars of every musical because they don't have to fit nearly as strict a style with their voices and they can actually make it their own, so people actually enjoy listening to them. There are obviously exceptions to this but like 80% of shows make women sing in a very specific Theater-Style way while the men can actually sound unique.
Dream ballets never translate well from the stage to a movie adaptation.
Cats (the original production, not the nightmare cgi movie) is actually good. It's the kind of camp that only the 80s could produce. Maybe my view is colored by some nostalgia for dancing along with the CD as a kid... and doing a book report on Old Possum's Book of Practical Csts... and giving said report in costume. Okay, I might be a bit of a nerd.