Search And Destroy: Musicals

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Allow me to add my Half A Sixpence's worth...

If you have even the vaguest interest in the art of writing songs that use the English language to its fullest, you have to investigate Sondheim, the lyricist's lyricist. Simple as that.

DESTROY: Ticket prices. Thirty quid plus for a decent seat? Not exactly music for the masses, is it? Cheaper to get the original cast CD to pore over repeatedly in the comfort of your own cave.

SEARCH: Sunday In The Park With George (truly beautiful), Assassins (truly tap dancing Lee Harvey Oswald plus love song to Charles Manson), Follies (includes "Losing My Mind" as covered by Pet Shop Boys/Liza Minnelli, Company, A Little Night Music (includes "Send In The Clowns"), West Side Story (Sondheim & Bernstein). Also any Sondheim revue CDs that mop up his best songs, eg Side By Side By Sondheim.

AVOID (until you've developed a taste for him): Sweeney Todd, Into The Woods, Pacific Overtures, Merrily We Roll Along.

NON-SONDHEIM:

SEARCH: Cabaret - wonderful film, peerless tunes, essential soundtrack. Barbra Striesand's "Broadway Album". Man Of La Mancha. Pirates Of Penzance & The Mikado... light operas being the forerunners of the musical. That 80s pop film of "Pirates" with Angela Lansbury, Kevin Kline, and Linda Rondstadt is a riot. Also: any musical by Cole Porter, especially High Society, and anything by Rogers and Hart, especially Pal Joey.

DESTROY: "Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire" - early 80s film musical featuring a singing Phil Daniels, Dracula, and, um, snooker. I'm sure it looked good at the planning stage.

Have you heard Liza Minnelli's 70s version of "Dancing In The Moonlight"? As in the Toploader song. You should.

Regarding a musical of The Breakfast Club, I would like to point out that I have Molly Ringwald's dance moves down to a "t", and am available at very short notice for understudy duties.

I have to go, I'm late for the "half"...

― Dickon Edwards, Thursday, 24 May 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I knew it was a band called King Harvest (who I really should have put in the "worst band name" thread an eternity ago), but *Liza Minnelli*?

Phew, Dickon. This is quite a concept to swallow. But intriguing.

― Robin Carmody, Thursday, 24 May 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

On behalf of my mom (who for some reason keeps calling me and emailing me things she wants me to tell "the online people", as if the idiot can't do it herself):

The Terror of Tiny Town is quite possibly the best musical of all time. Click on the link and you can watch the film - ALL OF IT. Including the Marlene Dietrich whore midget. Apparently, this is the film she is watching right now on television; Arizona, you know?

― Ally, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

2 months pass...

Search: The Phantom of The Opera, Carousel, The Producers, Kiss Me Kate, I love most musicals

DESTROY: HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING - I just finished an excruitiatingly long month run of that show and I now despise it with everything that I have. If I had to sing "A Secretary is Not a Toy", cha-cha to "Coffee Break", or listen to the ever-so-annoying song "Old Ivy" again I think I would have died.

― Rachael, Tuesday, 14 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

4 months pass...

Search:High society, The Threepenny Opera, My Fair Lady Destroy: South Pacific. With extreme prejudice. I painted the scenery for my pyscho-slut ex girlfriend's school stage production (she was the art teacher, not a pupil)in a desperate attempt to salvage our relationship, and badly rendered palm trees are forever linked in my mind to the sure and certain knowledge that I am being cuckolded. Grrrr. Incidentally, my mother first hooked up with the man that would be my father because she thought he looked like Robert Morse, the male lead from 'How to Succeed in Business...' so I have laways had a certain affection for that show.

― gavin, Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I think "Badly rendered palm trees are forever linked in my mind to the sure and certain knowledge that I am being cuckolded" could be the best opening line to a novel.... EVAH!

― Edna Welthorpe, Mrs, Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Search: the Gospel at Colonus. And hold onto it once you've found it. The VHS is nearly impossible to come by and is simply phenomenal. Destroy: oh, I dunno - South Pacific?

― John Darnielle, Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I'll agree with those people who said that South Pacific should be destroyed. I thought the proper version of it done by professional actors/singers was bad enough but in 1995-ish I was unlucky enough to be in the audience for a truly horrednous youth theatre production of it. It was just so limp and weak and tedious GOD the BOREDOM!

Me and my mum were there - we watched the first half, and then at the interval when we came out for drinks I decided I couldn't bring myself to go back in, and just walked out of the theatre. My mum ran after me, and then when she was outside she seemed to realise it was best if we slip away. So we walked out of the place, back to the car park, into our car, and drove all the way back home without saying a word to each other.

― Chris Lyons, Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Probably I already said West Side Story upthread. Impossible, in fact, that I didn't. (Hey, this prose is turning into Alan Bennett.)

I'll say it again just to stir up controversy and encourage youths to fight in playgrounds.

― the pinefox, Saturday, 5 January 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Personally I really enjoyed "Topsy-Turvy," the Mike Leigh movie about Gilbert & Sullivan and "The Mikado." and search: Marianne & Ferdinand randomly singing goofy songs in "Pierrot le fou." too much fun.

Isn't "Jesus Christ Superstar" supposed to be ridiculous? I mean.. er.. I had this notion it wasn't meant to be taken seriously, is that not the case?

― daria gray, Saturday, 5 January 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Search: The musicals I grew up with, my parents really loved them and listened to them all the time - they seem so familliar: The Music Man, The Wiz, Grease, All that Jazz, Cabaret, and Chicago. (my parents let me observe Fosse stuff even though it was racy! I never even noticed the sexual content until I was older) My sister and I especially loved The Wiz!!! We acted out the parts for our parents - She was the eating trash cans and the Lion (singing the song "Mean old Lion" in her pajamas ) and I was Dorothy and the Scarecrow (gotta love Michael Jackson)

Destroy: Please gey rid of Cats, Les Mis. and Miss Saigon! In college in London all my friends would sing those deppressing songs - I wanted to slit my wrists!

― Chrissy, Thursday, 10 January 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

all musicals are insipid crap. sorry.

― g, Thursday, 10 January 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

maddie's evita is gorgeous, as is dancer in the dark.

― geoff, Thursday, 10 January 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

4 months pass...

What Jimmy said, search Everyone Says I Love You.

― Josh, Sunday, 19 May 2002 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

"The Nightmare Before Christmas" is a great film, with suitably brilliant music.

― Nick, Sunday, 19 May 2002 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

my high school english and chorus teachers wrote their own musical once. it was called "tianenman" or, more precisely, "tianenman!" and it was about exactly what you think it's about. the execution was some sort of ungodly hybrid of les mis and miss saigon (except instead of a helicopter, there was a tank which was really a golf cart covered in cardboard). and the lyrics!:"sometimes the masses won't get off their asses"; "this man will teach you how// to heed the words of mao". in the performance i saw, not all the exploding pellets from an action scene had fully burst and actors kept on stepping on the leftovers for the rest of the show.

so yeah, search that: it's classic!

― dave k, Sunday, 19 May 2002 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

1 year passes...

White Christmas is better than I used to imagine.

But how does it match up against Holiday Inn?

― the snowfox, Wednesday, 24 December 2003 17:01 (9 years ago) Permalink

3 years pass...

You people hate Sondheim?

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYEROOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

― roxymuzak, Friday, 23 November 2007 10:22 (5 years ago) Permalink

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2qNJupQTW8I
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0kHYzt9UbB0&feature=related

― poortheatre, Friday, 23 November 2007 12:25 (5 years ago) Permalink

I recently saw "Spamalot" in London and that one is to be searched for certain. If not necessarily mainly for the music, that is.....

― Geir Hongro, Friday, 23 November 2007 12:31 (5 years ago) Permalink

What, a non-musical post?

Yeah, I saw Spamalot in January. It was alright I suppose.

― Mark G, Friday, 23 November 2007 12:32 (5 years ago) Permalink

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055572/

― the pinefox, Friday, 23 November 2007 18:55 (5 years ago) Permalink

Thank you for posting that Elaine Stritch thing, poortheatre! That's incredible!

― roxymuzak, Friday, 23 November 2007 21:23 (5 years ago) Permalink

I will comment only on Broadway musicals, not movie musicals.

Search: Sweeney Todd--Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Assassins, Company, Spring Awakening, A Chorus Line, Into the Woods (sorry I'm throwing so much Sondheim in here), Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Ragtime, Kiss Me Kate, Chicago....too many to list

Destroy: Wedding Singer (one of the worst musicals I ever saw--broadway, not movie), Pajama Game, Babes in Arms, ehh...

― Bo Jackson Overdrive, Sunday, 25 November 2007 14:36 (5 years ago) Permalink

2 years pass...

People are too serious when commenting on musicals. Why does everyone hate Andrew Lloyd Webber so much? By the way, I despise "Grease".

― Lawn Cheney (u s steel), Thursday, 21 January 2010 11:41 (3 years ago) Permalink

I love "Jesus Christ Superstar" and that is Andrew Lloyd Webber! But I think the hatred probably comes from getting "Phantom of the Opera" songs stuck in your head all the time as a teenager because it was the only musical anyone knew and people liked singing it WAY too much. He really writes earworms.

― Maria, Thursday, 21 January 2010 14:34 (3 years ago) Permalink

4 months pass...

Just saw the London production of 'Hair' (with the Broadway cast) - http://hairthemusical.co.uk.

Really liked it - especially the good singing voices - and the real surprise was that the plot kind of made sense this time. I saw the Old Vic production back in 1993 and they made a bit of a mess of it.

Also thanks England team - cheapest seats upgraded to really good ones at no extra charge last night.

Will probably go again before this production ends.

― Bob Six, Saturday, 19 June 2010 12:20 (2 years ago) Permalink

5 months pass...

Generally I'm not into musicals but there are a couple that I love to death.

― ˙❤‿❤˙˙❤‿❤˙ (ENBB), Wednesday, 8 December 2010 20:07 (2 years ago) Permalink

oh man I just teared watching this one - ilu Jerry!

― ˙❤‿❤˙˙❤‿❤˙ (ENBB), Wednesday, 8 December 2010 20:09 (2 years ago) Permalink

3 weeks pass...

saw Bernadette & Elaine in A Little Night Music tonight, worth at least $50 of the $70 I paid.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Friday, 31 December 2010 08:52 (2 years ago) Permalink

Search: Cabaret
Destroy: Any musicals involving children, especially orphans/urchins.

― thirdalternative, Friday, 31 December 2010 18:20 (2 years ago) Permalink

love this thread, as my daughter needs to watch a half-dozen musicals for forth-grade (dvd's count). she's devoured some children's fare, and now actually wants to watch les miserables (we'll see how that goes; it's a dark, intense work for a near 10-year old).

― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 31 December 2010 18:22 (2 years ago) Permalink

1 year passes...

are there any "musicals" centered around really weird abstract non-anthemic non-singsong music?

― crüt, Sunday, 6 May 2012 08:58 (1 year ago) Permalink

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