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^ By me and my SS *squiggle hugs*

LES MISERABLES.

*cough cough*

Anywho, Les Mis is doing a 25th anniversary show in Chicago in February and my friend gets to go. I'm so envious. I love that show.

Buuuut, I love musicals in general. I'm not sure if I should even try listing them. Howard Keel.....

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going on a journey through my old claims

I actually just got back from a production of Urinetown. And if that is not one of the best written modern musicals, I don't know what is.

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Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!

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^ By me and my SS *squiggle hugs*

I love:

White Christmas
Holiday Inn
The Court Jester
Oklahoma
Seven Brides For Seven Brothers
The Phantom of the Opera
Fiddler on the Roof
Singing in the Rain

[this is all thanks to my sister who loves to watch thses]

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[curse my computer for losing my original post ]

MUSICALS MUSICALS MUSICALS!!!

WIN.

Thanks for starting this thread. It has been far too long since I've totally geeked out about theatre.

@Tar: I was planning on seeing "Urinetown" last summer, but was denied. BAH. ONE DAY.

Favourite musical for all-time and forever and ever?

"Sweeney Todd"

Hands down.



I saw it performed about 5 years before it was ever made into a movie (which I loved by the way - way too perfect a choice for Tim Burton XD). I knew by the time they got to "A Little Priest" that this was going to be MY musical, forever and always. I was laughing so hard, I was crying. I disturbed the rest of my drama troupe though by doing so, though. XD They go to intermission after that song, and I turned around to the rest of my troupe and they were looking at me like I'd lost my mind. And THEN by the end, I was literally on the edge of my seat, bawling my eyes out.

Part of the reason I think my troupe thought I was nuts, was because we saw "Ragtime" earlier in the week, and while I thought it was an amazing show, I was the only one out of my group that was NOT crying at the end.

Yes, I'm a disturbed, morbid individual.

Other favourites:

"Phantom Of The Opera" - DUH. I can listen to the soundtrack of this over and over and over and never get tired of it. This is definately a show worth seeing, and ONE DAY I WIIIIIILL.

"Les Mis" - Ummm, I think it's obvious. My senior year of high school, got to work on a production of this. Best musical to work on because it has the best songs to be imprinted on your brain for a 3 week run. XD Another one I NEEEEEED to see - while not working on it.

"Evita"
"Damn Yankees" - another one I worked on. Absolutely hysterical.
"Bat Boy" - a strange one to be a favourite, but it is so obnoxiously ridiculously funny that it just has to be.
"Singing In The Rain"
"My Fair Lady"

Ummm ... I'm starting to draw blanks.

ALL DISNEY MUSICALS.

"Beauty & The Beast" - SO MUCH FUN when it's performed.

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"So what? So plenty!"


Sig: Teh Nurr

I've met Eru & Eä & Ellie & teh Arweb & Naur & Elenya & POTR!

POLKA WILL NEVER DIE!

♥

^Oh my, speaking of. The Lion King is absolutely epic onstage. It's so gorgeous and the set up and everything.....so beautiful.

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going on a journey through my old claims

THIS.



Sweeney Todd is also my favorite musical/film, though I have never actually seen it performed on a stage before (though a local high school around here did it last year for a school play and I was so angry that I didn't know about it earlier ) So you can imagine how jealous I am of you I agree that the movie was perfect for Tim Burton - I don't think I would have trusted anyone else to turn it into a film.

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^ By me and my SS *squiggle hugs*

I know it sounds ridiculous, but Urinetown is by far one of my favorite musicals. It's a dark comedy, and it's so good if you have the right people singing it. Oh man.

Anyway, I'll keep it to a minimum on favorites, because I could just rave. As a rule, I'm a theatre snob, so I'm not going to talk about any movies, because I think that's just cheating.


Cabaret - I love dark/depressing musicals. I think the happy ending musicals are so cliche. I love the Emcee, and I love "If You Could See Her." Especially watching audiences that have never seen the show before, because everyone's laughing at the man in the gorilla suit, and then there's the final line of the song "If you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn't look Jewish at all", and a complete hush in the audience. If that's not pure brilliance, I dunno what is.

West Side Story - I think Maria is possibly the ultimate love song. I cry EVERY time I hear it. And I mean, it's Romeo and Juliet. How could you not like it?

Urinetown - I don't know if this is true of all productions, but the show I saw had like, four different references to musicals. The finale of act 1 was the famous pyramid choreography of Les Mis, there was a song that was done in the style of West Side Story, etc. I busted a gut. And some of the songs, such as "Don't Be The Bunny" and "Tell Her I Love Her" are just gut-busting. It blends drama and comedy fantastically. And dear god, the lead in this particular show can just sing his heart out. Most of the reactions to him as soon as he starts singing are people just going "...wow." That's whats up. That's how you do it.

Next to Normal - again with the depressing. I'm sorry. But the score is just so gorgeous.

Gypsy -This show is often overlooked because it's so long and central-character based, but don't tell me you don't like "Rose's Turn (reprise)" because it is simply impossible to. I do agree with most that there's a LOT more dialogue than strictly necessary. But if the show is done right, holy moly.

Wicked - You can't NOT like Wicked. I show it at West End, and DEAR GOD. I think this is the only semi-happy musical I've named. Weird.

Rent - I haven't seen a live performance of this, unfortunately, but I did see a taping of the Broadway performance, and I bawled my eyes out at "I'll Cover You." Dear god. Also, I just love the way the subject matter is handled. It's beautiful, and funny, and heartbreaking. It's always been a goal of mine to be in this show so I can be a part of La Vie Boheme.

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Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!

@teh Nurr: I would LOVE to see the "Lion King" on stage. In high school, every year we'd take a "field trip" to Spokane, Washington to see a performance at the opera house. And the year after I graduated, The Lion King was performed there. OH well. One day!

I totally forgot about "Cabaret"! Great one.

AND I forgot, "Rocky Horror Picture Show"!!!

HOW did I forget THAT one?! Classic. No other way to describe it. I haven't had a chance to these couple of years to see it performed at the university around Halloween. Midnight performances are the best.

Ooooh, I also forgot about "Moulin Rouge!" Such epic amazingness. But depressing. But beautiful and awesome and no one can deny it.

More Disney movie musicalness.

"The Little Mermaid"

Best song from that is "Poor, Unfortunate Souls". Ursula ftw.

OH! "ALADDIN"!!

AND "MARY POPPINS"!! Who on Earth could forget freaking Mary Poppins?! Obviously me. "Chim-Chiminey" or however you spell that is my favourite. I'm desperate to teach my little baby cousin (who's a boy) the words to that song. Why? Because he LOVES brooms. I'm dead serious. If he finds one, he does NOT let go and wanders around trying to sweep. XD

Just as a side note, Disney movie musical villans ALWAYS have the best songs. Yes.

_________________
"So what? So plenty!"


Sig: Teh Nurr

I've met Eru & Eä & Ellie & teh Arweb & Naur & Elenya & POTR!

POLKA WILL NEVER DIE!

♥

Lion King onstage is just so beautifully done.

Full off-Broadway shows I've seen are:
Lion King
Les Miserables
Wicked
Spamalot

all of which are brilliant. And I love them.

Other musicals I love:
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Calamity Jane
My Fair Lady
My Sister Eileen [if only for THE DANCE]
Kiss Me Kate
The Music Man
Fiddler on the Roof
Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Phantom of the Opera
Godspell
Evita
Newsies

The last few more for the music than the rest, but yeah.



SO true. I love Disney musicals. So I'm not going to list them all. But their songs are just so fantastic. Also, Anastasia.

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going on a journey through my old claims

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^ By me and my SS *squiggle hugs*

I love musicals. I don't have time to list them all, but on the movie side, pretty much anything with Gene Kelly or Fred and Ginger. I have to say, I'm not so fond of the huge musicals by Busby Berkeley and such that have those big, elaborate numbers that go on and on and on and that are supposed to be taking place on a stage even though that would be obviously impossible. Also not a big Judy Garland fan, which is a bit strange, I think, for someone who likes musicals.

On the theater side, it's lots of Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber (of course). Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, most of Sunday in the Park with George, and Cats, to name a few. (Cats was really where it began for me. I can remember singing and dancing around to it since I was very little.) I also really like Light in the Piazza by Adam Guettel, which is less well known, and the original Broadway production of My Fair Lady. (Since buying the soundtrack, I can't stand the movie very much anymore. Julie Andrews is just too terrific as Eliza, and Audrey Hepburn doesn't do very much for me.) There's Rogers and Hammerstein, too, which I can't say I absolutely love, but I do get the feeling the world would be just a little bit sadder without The Sound of Music in it.


Oh, and have I mentioned The Phantom of the Opera?
I recommend not getting me started on how much I adore that musical. I'm so excited, too, because I'm going to see it on Broadway in a little over a month! I'm afraid I'm going to have shell out the big bucks for a premium ticket, but I think it'll be worth it! (I'm slightly aggravated, though, because I could get even better tickets for the regular price on a better day, but due to conflicting schedules, I won't be able to make that performance. [/mini-rant]) But it's still Phantom and it should be really spectacular, to say the very least!

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^ By me and my SS *squiggle hugs*

I'm afraid I rather agree with your brother. Every time I watch those, I always think, "Pfft! There's no way this is really happening on a stage... why are they pretending it is?!" and it kind of bugs me. Occasionally, I find some that some aren't all bad, like the one in "The Great Ziegfeld" but then there are the ones in "42nd Street" and the Gold Diggers movies that are too big and unimaginative. They just seem to be endless footage of girls drifting past and staring into the camera. It's true what you said, though, about how the audience back in the '30s had never seen anything like that before, and I guess that was kind of the goal with those huge numbers. In other words, to create huge spectacles that were impossible on the stage but that they could do now that they have films.

Oh, I love, love, love "Sunday," but you're right, there's something weird about it the show. I think for one thing it starts off on the wrong foot. The first song is "Sunday in the Park with George" which is kind of obnoxious in spite of the clever lyrics. I mean, I think it's supposed to be because she's annoyed and uncomfortable, but it's still the first thing you hear AND it's also the title song so it doesn't give you a good impression of the whole show. Then after that is "No Life" which is snarky and ugly, and you kind of have to get over both of those before you realize how great the rest of the first act is. THEN you have to figure out what the heck the second act means. My brother tells me it's about what it's like to be an artist in the present day, and the whole show is about the contrast between being an artist back then and being an artist now. I guess that's a fine and dandy message for the musical, but it's still a little bit of a let down to go from gorgeous, 19th century France to America in the 1980s!

I was exactly the same way. When I was little, I used to pick certain cat's parts to play and dance along with them all through the movie. (And I got quite good at it, if I do say so myself, especially considering I was in no way, shape, or form a natural dancer. ) I've seen it on stage, also, once when I was probably about eight, and then again last December, actually. A touring company came to my town, which is rather unusual... normally, we have to drive to the state capital to see things like that. But it was actually a very good production, and it was funny because afterward my mom and my brother kept asking me questions like "What was that cat's name? And that one? And what did they say there?" And I could answer them all no problem, even though I hadn't seen the show in years. Just goes to show how much these things stay with you!

Really?! No Julie Andrews or Rex Harrison for you?! I really couldn't imagine anyone else playing Henry Higgins, and I think Julie Andrews is such a great singer, and she can do a convincing cockney accent! The dubbing is really one of my biggest problems with Audrey Hepburn in the movie, because I think it was done rather badly. Although I thought Audrey acted the role really well, she never gives me the impression that she's actually singing the songs, and Marni Nixon doesn't sound like her at all so it's really obvious that she's dubbed. Part of the problem may be that Audrey has a very distinctive voice in the first place and Marni Nixon couldn't accommodate for that, but I also think that she (Audrey) just doesn't look like she's singing. I mean, compare her to Jeremy Brett (because I have to bring him into this somehow ). He was (unfairly, it's said) dubbed too, but if you watch him, you can tell he's actually singing. He's breathing correctly, reaching up a little for the high notes and down a little for the low notes, all very naturally. But in a lot of her songs Audrey just looks like she's mouthing along. Now, I heard that she worked really hard to learn to sing for the role only to be dubbed in the end because she just didn't have the vocal range, and I commend her for that, but it doesn't come across to me in her performance.

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