Search And Destroy: Musicals

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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!

so yeah, search that: it's classic!

But how does it match up against Holiday Inn?

You people hate Sondheim?

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYEROOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

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

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

What, a non-musical post?

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

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

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

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...

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

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.

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.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmR6ozpksGY&feature=related

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEW1F9kZ-UE&feature=related

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

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

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).

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

The Off-Broadway stage production itself sounds horrible, but I'm really, really, really loving the soundtrack to "Revolution in the Elbow of Ragnar Agnarsson Furniture Painter." Straddles the line between indie-rock and musical very nicely, and a lot of the songs are very strong. Some power-pop, some glam-rock. Took me very much by surprise. Opening track (less rock than some)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy13Oj8rHRQ

It's on Spotify. Check "I'll Save The Day" for more perspective.

Adding one more, more along the lines of New Pornographers. The actual show has dire reviews, but kind of surprised the soundtrack hasn't made at least a teeny bit more noise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsHYXK3btjw

seeing Chicago tomorrow as it happens

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/theater/review-in-hamilton-lin-manuel-miranda-forges-democracy-through-rap.html?hpw&rref=arts&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

I'd like to see this

excerpt:

During the first half of the 20th century, the American songbook was often dictated by Broadway tunesmiths. But by the late 1950s, songs from musicals had become a quaint breed apart from the songs that America danced to and sang in the shower. And though many major talents have tried to close that gap (including Mr. Miranda in his amiable but less thoroughly realized Broadway hit “In the Heights”), Spotify-friendly tunes have tended to show up only in those cumbersome recycling centers known as jukebox musicals.

But, lo and behold, there are songs throughout “Hamilton” that could be performed more or less as they are by Drake or Beyoncé or Kanye. And there’s none of the distancing archness found in those recent (and excellent) history musicals at the Public, “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” and “Here Lies Love.” “Hamilton” isn’t cool; it’s utterly sincere, but without being judgmental or pious. And its numbers come across as natural and inevitable expressions of people living in late-18th-century America.

Acknowledging no disconnect between its sound and its setting, “Hamilton” bypasses the self-consciousness of anachronism. What’s more, it convinces us that hip-hop and its generic cousins embody the cocky, restless spirit of self-determination that birthed the American independence movement. Like the early gangsta rap stars, the founding fathers forge rhyme, reason and a sovereign identity out of tumultuous lives.

It also feels appropriate that the ultimate dead white men of American history should be portrayed here by men who are not white. The United States was created, exclusively and of necessity, by people who came from other places or their immediate descendants.

Washington Post theatre reviewer goes to NY and loves it too. His contemporary musical reference: Tupac...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/history-as-youve-never-heard-it-before/2015/02/17/e803502e-b6e4-11e4-bc30-a4e75503948a_story.html

The handiwork here is also proof positive of the reassuring resilience of the American musical and how marvelously adaptable, in capable hands, the form remains. Drawing on such varied influences as rap, pop, jazz and Broadway standards — and the vocabularies of ­Tupac Shakur, the Beatles and Gilbert and Sullivan — “Hamilton” is as smart about music as it is about the American Revolution. Along with “Wicked,” the all-time tweener sensation, and the perfectly irreverent “The Book of Mormon,” “Hamilton” will be talked about in years to come as a benchmark experience, one that opened the eyes of other theater-makers to new possibilities.

all tix been gone for current run for awhile, I assume it moving uptown is assured.

Its gotten so much acclaim. There was also a big profile of Miranda in the NY Times a little while back. I wonder if any music critics who are currently reviewing rap and r'n'b, have weighed in? Would like to see a non-theatre person appraisal.

interesting! btw i'd say that the marginalization of "show tunes" is part and parcel of the general marginalization of the live theater that begins as soon as the movies come in.

Not really getting that; the birth of song-driven musical plays in the way we think of them starts with either Show Boat in the late '20s or Oklahoma! in '43, so movies have already come in. Musical theatre can't be over before it gets started.

that's true. so maybe we'd have to date the marginalization of theater to a later date, but i definitely think the trend is broader than just a decline of show-tunes' ubiquity.

(though some have argued that the development of the modern "musical theater" is itself a kind of response to the rise of film; but that's a pretty oblique argument)

During the first half of the 20th century, the American songbook was often dictated by Broadway tunesmiths. But by the late 1950s, songs from musicals had become a quaint breed apart from the songs that America danced to and sang in the shower. And though many major talents have tried to close that gap (including Mr. Miranda in his amiable but less thoroughly realized Broadway hit “In the Heights”), Spotify-friendly tunes have tended to show up only in those cumbersome recycling centers known as jukebox musicals.

The Disney animation renaissance of the early 90s was built on animated musicals, which included the following songs that cracked the US top 10:

"Beauty and the Beast" - Celine Dion & Peabo Bryson
"A Whole New World" - Peabo Bryson & Regina Bell
"Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" - Elton John
"Colors of the Wind" - Vanessa Williams

In addition, "Circle of Life" (Lion King), "Someday" (Hunchback) and "You'll Be In My Heart" (Tarzan) all charted on the US top 40.

So, while it's fair to say that stage musicals didn't dominate the charts aside from some oddball one-offs for several decades (though I guess Chess is really a back-door effort because I think the album came first?), some of the biggest songs from the 90s have strong musical lineage to them; I don't think coming from movie musicals should count against them.

when is someone gonna stage Prince Among Thieves

btw there is a new book getting plenty of ink that posits that the USA was so traumatized by their experience of WW2 it facilitated the movement away from sophisticated prewar pop (Cole Porter, the Gershwins, H Arlen et al) to the brainlessness of '46-50s (novelties, Perry Como, easy listening Mitch Miller-disseminated pap).

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/01/the-great-american-songbook-isnt-dead/384764/

those kind of arguments are pretty much always wrong -- but they are also relatively impossible to prove wrong, which partly explains their continued appeal.

ah yes bebop, so brainless

I hate these kinds of arguments, they tend to be p ahistorical and more axe-grinding

46-50s pop is brainless? gtfo with that

the USA was so traumatized by their experience of WW2 it facilitated the movement away from sophisticated prewar pop

that Atlantic piece does not mention this theory/argument, which seems p ridiculous on its face