You dumdums haven't polled the delight cast recording of Hamilton yet; let me help

My partner is a high school teacher, and had to accompany a class trip to see Jersey Boys. I made her a bet that there'd be a line in the show "A lot was changing in the '60s...and the Four Seasons had to change, too." I won the bet.

(thought, to be fair, she didn't strenuously disagree about the possibility of such a line)

Avenue q, which is imo garbage as a whole, has the "everyone's a little bit racist" song that seemed to have a life outside of the show, so I'd count that as a non-broadway impact

Taking a trip to Chicago specifically sto see Hamilton for my wife's birthday this weekend, it's pretty exciting. Never seen a lavish musical in anything even close to the "early" part of its run, just seen, like, national touring companies in Tempe Arizona. I'm assuming this will be better!

Get dinner at Revival, around the corner!!! http://revivalfoodhall.com

I think this level of cultural footprint is Les Miserables, Rent, and Hamilton, and that's it. Cats, probably yes, Phantom of the Opera, probably no.

And "Wicked."

^^Yeah, "Defying Gravity" has become a standard in the theater kids world.

Les Miserables, Rent, and Hamilton

bodes well

Theater kids world, gah. I did enough HS theater stuff to be intimately familiar with this type, even though I had and have my reservations about full participation in all the folkways.

If you ever ran through the halls of your high school singing something from "Hair" or "Rent" I have intensely mixed feelings about you. If you had a jean jacket with a glow-in-the-dark Phantom logo I probably hate you a little bit, but you were also pretty much the only people who didn't stuff me in a locker or beat me up for fun.

So you were basically my tribe by default. There is a chart somewhere of fandom snobbery (Trekkies regard themselves as less geeky than furries; furries regard themselves as less geeky than people who write Star Trek fanfiction in which all the characters are furries, and so on and so forth). I think about this sometimes: in my high school the theater kids were called drama queers or DQs; band fags were overlapping but slightly lower on the food chain. The only way to go lower was to ride the short bus.

Our local middle school has a huge and hugely lauded theater program that keeps winning various national awards. I've seen several of their productions, which have been excellent, not just by middle school standards but full stop 100 people choreographed and singing and dancing excellent. Just great stuff. Damn if they aren't all such total theatre kids, but nothing compared to this national wannabe "Up With People" crew I just saw there (who did, among other things, selections from Hamilton, not too long after their selection of great songs - John Denver, Billy Joel, James Taylor, "American Pie" and other shit that no kids want to hear):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9CW6HJ7W_s

the weird thing for me is I have always dug/got along with theater people on a personal level, their eagerness for art projects/crafty stuff, good design sense, ability to improvise solutions to things, partying, sense of humor/drama, etc. but when it comes to like actual Broadway theater I'm like gtfo. I do enjoy small theater productions, have fond memories of seeing friends put on goofy zombie musicals, fake game shows.

Maybe things have changed since 1985 - hard for me to imagine Biff Tannen-style jocks stuffing Lin-Manuel Miranda into a locker. But what do I know, I'm like a thousand years old.

I'm willing to bet jocks are still assholes, and that teenagers are assholes is general

I was obviously not a theater kid (and I didn't go full-band kid, quit after one year) I was more of a garden-variety nerd/outcast

I know a lot of people went to Jersey Boys, Avenue Q, etc., but I have never heard anyone mention these except in the literal context of "I was in New York so I went to xxxxx." I think this level of cultural footprint is Les Miserables, Rent, and Hamilton, and that's it. Cats, probably yes, Phantom of the Opera, probably no.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, September 29, 2016 2:08 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

shows that have come to my city, sometimes multiple times, and sold out at the very least the weekend evenings:

- Phantom of the Opera (three times maybe?)
- Cats (fucking ALW)
- Book of Mormon (twice?)
- Avenue Q
- Les Miserables
- Rent
- Wicked

There are a handful of others that are big w/original music but these are the ones that I either heard about repeatedly or was dragged to by family/friends. Even the musical true believer friends hate crap like "Mamma Mia!" and the other "let's create a musical out of a handful of pop songs" crap. There's some Beatles tribute thing coming through, too.

Oh yeah, Jersey Boys falls somewhere in there, too. I know people who have made the "I was in NY so I went to.." claim but all the stuff I listed played really well in Des Moines (literally)

people are hyped as fuck for Hamilton

I got dragged to Book of Mormon and I'm probably done with musicals for another few years

Huh, I thought Book of Mormon was great.

jeez louise you musical haters need your own thread lol

my australian sister in law came to visit for a weekend a while back & i successfuly got her hooked on hamilton in a mere TWO days
#gooblegobbleoneofus

I thought it was fine, I just don't really like musicals! And I have too much familiarity with too many of them!

One of the characters straight-up being Cartman was some lazy scripting

i'm in-and-out of theater-world: i work at one so often do tech work for this or that; i rly love doing shakespeare (as documented in a shakespeare thread) and last christmas was a slacker seven-year-old (named "herb" -- much backstage mirth) in a kids' show; there are musicals i would try out for; but all the friends i've made through this stuff do it much more consistently than i do.

and yeah they like way more musicals than i do.

like shakey tho i share their values.

musicals are gr8 for many reasons. i highly recommend d.a. miller's place for us as an exploration of one of the dimensions of why.

i am not a theater kid, really. too prudish, too judgmental, but i do love the american musical.

I like musicals, but I'm always creeped out by the tacit breaking of the 4th wall, when they perform with that dead-eyed focus at the back of the house or when they freeze and stare after each number, waiting for the applause.

jeez louise you musical haters need your own thread lol

we really need a poll about whether or not ILXors like musicals because it's a very interesting topic

then I'd like to hear everyone's opinions on contemporary poetry

I had two coworkers spontaneously perform a duet from RENT at a work retreat thing once. the horror.

SIDDOWN JOHN! YOU! FAT! MOTHERF-!

okay, i mean, rent is terrible. i'm talking about the good ones.

breaking of the fourth wall is part of what's interesting about broadway musicals, when they're interesting!

I am really into earnestness and aspiration and emotion & musicals deliver all of that to me in songs that I can loudly & tearfully in my car or when I'm doing the dishes <3

tbh it's why I love Springsteen & Meatloaf too lol

*loudly & tearfully sing in my car

VG otm; Springsteen is basically a one-man Broadway musical

Just was talking to a really smart guy I know asking his opinion of Springsteen and he just can't get past the themes and presumably the earnestness. I was going to try to make the case that he is more of an "earnest formalist" but then I decided not to bother.

Anyway, came to post that one time I saw Lin-Manuel Miranda in Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along and he was awesome.

VG otm; Springsteen is basically a one-man Broadway musical

huh maybe that explains why I don't like Springsteen either

Born to Run, the album, sometimes sounds like West Side Story to me tbrr

Easy, Action!

earnestness really bugs ppl apparently

imo these ppl also hate fun :D

Bat Out of Hell is one-third as long and at least three times better than 99% of musicals

you are both otm and not otm

Ok, so, yeah, this was some sort of virtuoso masterpiece. Good for you, "Hamilton."

Born to Run, the album, sometimes sounds like West Side Story to me tbrr

John Sinclair said the same thing in 1975, at least in part to get a dig in at his former protege Dave Marsh. But all it said to me was that John Sinclair must've never heard anything produced by Phil Spector.

Yeah, that seems sort of a lazy reduction of the album. In the making-of doc Bruce makes a point that the opening fanfare of each of the songs was supposed to set the stage like a movie score more than a musical. And it really only sticks around for that one album, too. Before that he was all hyper-lyrical Dylan, after that he transforms into the Bruce he's more or less remained since. Simpler, tougher, more working man stuff than dramatic backstreets mythology.

(Incidentally, I sometimes think of "Darkness" as emo-bruce. Years ago my friends and I almost recorded a cover of "Streets of Fire" as Rites of Springsteen.)

lol

okay, i mean, rent is terrible. i'm talking about the good ones.

― horseshoe, Friday, September 30, 2016 9:17 AM (four weeks ago)

same but I will still sing seasons of love at any time

the PBS special was v good & i cried like a dumb baby at the end

I cried like a baby when that dude called LMM the greatest voice of the people since Shakespeare.