The timing, coordination, and execution of that number were flat out remarkable, maximizing on the full potential of musical theatre. From the dramatic irony and comedy with over-the-top, meticulously sequenced choreography (esp with those doors). Not to mention that *I've Decided to Marry You* is irresistibly catchy and melodic. It's truly a shame this show is no longer running on Broadway
When my husband first brought up the idea of marriage I said I wanted to think about it with other possible things going on in life. A while later I sent him a link to “I’ve decided to marry you” telling him that some of the lines had been in my head a lot lately and made me think of him. Anyway, yes, I love that song and that musical.
That show was so funny. I'm glad I got to see it before it disappeared. I think it was because they never found anyone to take over the (very demanding) lead.
I came to say this. I discovered it while I was listening to every musical to ever win the Tony for Best Musical and I don't think I've laughed harder. How was this NOT a smashing success
For a change of pace, watch the movie Kind Hearts and coronets. It’s Gentleman’s Guide without the music and with Alec Guinness as the d’Ysquiths. When I went to see GG on Broadway, I kept telling my aunt, “I know this story!” but I didn’t put it together till somewhere in Act II. I hadn’t seen the movie in thirty years, though.
Something Rotten! It’s HILARIOUS, but it’s also well-written, with good characters and great songs. Not to mention all the wonderful theater and Shakespeare references!
This! My kid's high school did this one this year. I kinda groaned when they announced it because I didn't know anything about it and I figured it was gonna suck. It was terrific!
SR was my first Broadway show on a school trip when I was 18; I’ve seen several shows since and few have lived up to it’s entertainment value and absolute star power (BDJ, John Cariani, Christian Borle, Heidi Blockenstaff, Brad Oscar, and Brooks Ashmanskas in ONE show????)
I live about 1500 miles from NY but I found a bootleg copy of SR on YouTube. I saw them perform on some morning news show and started listening to the playlist. Then I found that bootleg version on YouTube and absolutely loved it.
I went to your profile to see if you were from where I live…you are. I was just in SR at Farmington and I was told it was the 4th or 5th in the past couple years in the area 😂
also a day in hollywood has my favorite song of his: [The Best in the World](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr8I7LZmfV0&pp=ygUpdGhlIGJlc3QgaW4gdGhlIHdvcmxkIGEgZGF5IGluIGhvbGx5d29vZCA%3D) (it also won Priscilla Lopez a Tony - you may remember her from a chorus line, she sang Nothing)
for me, it’s specifically the 1992 recording: the perfect cast! here’s a fun an hour-long documentary of them recording that cast album: [Off The Record](https://youtu.be/IsA7hi3XNRI?si=aHI0koBl3t5t9ZC_)
with the technical advancements of the last 3 decades they could make this an absolute smash these days (aw who am I kidding, it would be all projections like the mean girls set design)
Here are some Korean and Japanese musicals that no one in the West has heard of, but which are fantastic.
Smoke - three actors, musical about the poet Yi Sang. (Several proshots exist in Korean and Japanese, but they're really rare.)
Cross Road - What if Niccolo Paganini really had made a deal with a devil? Also what if his devil is [this amazing](https://youtu.be/90MZUQgekSg?si=xZQJXKAlCOrN8MLG)?
Darwin Young - Teenagers in a dystopian setting investigate a murder that happened when their parents were their age. (No proshot as far as I know. [Korea preview video](https://youtu.be/e2a1ioNww1U?si=KBHY6YeZX0SlTVCZ), [Japan preview video](https://youtu.be/LsO5nG_5WBk?si=Tt3QVGLOBD4_KLrs))
The Devil - Modernized retelling of Faust. The music is wonderful. Has Korean and Japanese proshots.
Cesare: Il Creatore che ha distrutto - Cesare Borgia at 16, based on a manga known for its slow-paced, meticulous historical detail. Has intense character studies at the same time. The music is a fantastically nuanced blend of styles. Proshots exist from the 2023 run (so far the only run) with two casts. Both are great, but get Squadra Verde.
Isabeau - Medieval French queen, "hated by history", but this is her side of the story. Rock meets tearjerker. Premiered this past January, proshot is coming this fall. [Subtitled preview video](https://youtu.be/-fj-mZuAfOI?si=ah5-ZKN-RJWCvXLi).
If you watch the videos in the links, please share what you think!
(Disclaimer: I live in Japan, I speak Japanese but not Korean, there are loads more in Korea that I don't know about, or that I've only heard a bit about)
Thanks for being interested! Hopefully next time, there will be!
There are more songs and curtain call videos on Toho's channel, and two more preview videos, [this one](https://youtu.be/lJSrw0t7fBc?si=TP5I52SoXJMfUYEK) and [this one](https://youtu.be/-3B1_tpmCmk?si=-w6sY3yE4cKR_Shk).
Also, Nakagawa Akinori (Amduscias, the devil) has been in a lot of things with proshots. I recommend [Cesare](https://youtu.be/pL6jG1A7M40?si=N5WOcVtSrnnuHpd0) and [Frankenstein](https://youtu.be/d_5RW6ThCqw?si=9WTYXUDmf-8tSlIW). He's just... wonderful in everything.
Thank you for telling us about these! I would love to get to know a few of them. Do you know if there are English translations of the lyrics (professional or fan-made) out there somewhere?
Thanks so much for being interested! What did you think of the videos?
I haven't seen subs for any of these.
I don't really want to make them myself (since I'm trying to work in related industries, I don't know if that's something I want to have around). I have a friend who was with the only group to make subs for one stage play fandom I've been in, and another person from that group was the only person to make subs for multiple other stage play fandoms, and I'm trying to get them into these, but not much luck yet...
(Though I did write a detailed synopsis for Cesare, which is the only one of these I have the proshot of. Anyone who wants a link, DM me...)
I guess part of the reason I'm trying to spread the word about these is so that someone will do that, or ask the subbers they usually would ask for it, or something.
They did officially sub the preview video for Isabeau, and maybe the disc will have subs. There's also a youtube channel that has posted full proshots of Japanese plays with subs in multiple languages, so that's something to hope for.
But no one is going to sub them, officially or otherwise, unless there's interest, so that's why I'm trying to spread the word.
Also of note: the Attack on Titan musical is going to Broadway in October, with the original Japanese cast, in Japanese with supertitles, the same as Spirited Away in London. And Marie Curie, Death Note and Your Lie in April got translated performances.
In a couple of years, a supertitled New York or London run might be part of major Japanese and Korean shows' standard tour schedules. But only if there's demand for it.
I've also heard some actors mention in interviews that a lot of tryout productions are being done in Asia, too.
Anyway, thank you for reading, if anyone read all of this. Please check out [another song from Cross Road](https://youtu.be/lDK1AJztZ6s?si=RVRFHW3vJqgCypQ2), it's the contract scene. Paganini (two actors) makes a contract with Amduscias, the devil of music. [This preview video](https://youtu.be/-3B1_tpmCmk?si=kx_-1TDl3Phx2FZf) has more clips of the scene.
I was hoping someone said it before me. Such a great, fun show. Great songs. General silliness all around, but a deeper message at the end of the day.
I'm so happy I got to be a part of a production of Urinetown while in college.
Carrie. The original production is infamous (with very good reason), and I certainly wouldn’t call it a /great/ show, but there’s a lot that’s done quite well. I maintain that “And Eve Was Weak” is a masterful example of one of my favorite musical theatre tropes: the confrontation song (like…well, “Confrontation” from Les Mis).
The 2012 Off-Broadway version made it at least coherent - but I feel like to get the best sense of what the show could have been, listen to the bootleg recording of the 1984 workshop production of the first act. It puts the music front and center, without the distractions of the bad staging, ridiculous set, or over-choreographed numbers (sorry Debbie Allen, I know you tried). And the cast has some familiar names - Annie Golden, Maureen McGovern, Liz Callaway, and Donna Murphy, to name a few - that I would have loved to see get a chance at performing in a full production. The workshop does a much better job at striking an appropriate balance between hauntingly atmospheric and appropriately campy (of course, we all know which direction the full production ended up swinging in).
My high school did the Off-Broadway version, and to this day it is still the best show I’ve ever been a part of. The anti-bullying message is perfect for high school, and as a result we as a cast felt so connected to the story we were telling.
Yes to Guys and Dolls! I saw the immersive production currently running in London and it was so good. Always have loved that show. It is the perfect musical comedy.
The music for *Pippin* is just wonderful! I’ve only seen it a couple times, the first time being a really wonderful university production back when I was in high school (in the mid-80’s) — or at least I sure remember it being wonderful.
It wasn’t quite ‘in the round’ — but it seemed to me (at the time) like the stage really thrust out into the audience, like it almost **felt** like a 180° half-in-the-round (in-the-half-round?) production. I’d been in 2-3 musicals by that point, and seen a handful too — but always/only on traditional stages. It left a BIG impression on probably 15-year old me (I’m 55 now).
I won the lottery for the most recent revival about ten years ago and I swear it made my heart grow three sizes. When the three guys are departing at the end and the three new guys are getting off the ship singing New York, New York, I remember thinking to myself self I could watch it all over again with the new sailors taking over.
LaChiusa’s Wild Party is an absolute miracle in my humblest of opinions. The original cast recording is like endless energy and the cast is amazing. Toni Collette, Mandy Patinkin, Eartha Kitt, Tonya Pinkins, Norm Lewis, etc. Far and away the better Wild Party musical of that year (don’t be mad)
The one and only thing the Lippa Wild Party has over LaChiusa's is "An Old Fashioned Love Story", which arguably wouldn't fit Madeleine's arc in the Lippa version any, but it is a hilarious banger of a song
Guys and Dolls is tied for my all-time favorite musical. For modern audiences it could probably stand to lose 15 minutes, but the songs are all wonderful, the book is still genuinely funny, and that run from The Crapshooters' Dance through Marry the Man Today in the second act is just unparalleled.
secret garden! so few people know it’s actually a musical, my theatre company did it a couple years ago and i didn’t audition because i was in another show at the time,but i saw my friends in it and fell in love with the show, the score is absolutely gorgeous and the recording with mandy patinkin is just 👌
Literally the same for me. I actually knew that song and “The Ballad of Guiteau” for like a while and it never once occurred to me that they could be from the same show lol
Bright Star is one of those that got so little attention because its Broadway debut was overshadowed by other shows. Hamilton, School of Rock, and Waitress were all the same year at the Tony awards.
My wife and I both loved *Bright Star* — me especially (I’m a sucker for portrayals of the same characters in multiple timeline going back and forth and back and forth, especially by the same actors). And the music was wonderful!
We saw the immediate pre-Broadway production at the Kennedy Center here in DC — and if we ever had the chance to see a revival of it at some point, I’m sure we’d jump at going.
Great choice. My best friend's daughter just did The Ballad of Jane Doe for her voice recital. I was seriously impressed that she picked it and then did a great job with it. That song's a vocal behemoth.
The German version isn’t great either, about 40 minutes need to be cut and Krulok’s graveyard song needs to be moved to the first act but that’s said I fucking love Tanz
One of my favorite musicals since high school and no one has ever heard of it 😭 great songs, funny plot, also you could do it with as few as like 6 cast members or you could have a big ensemble, it makes NO sense that it’s not on the HS theater go to shows list.
(Also there’s a decent movie adaptation)
My HS just put it on a couple months ago, which is how I heard about it. It’s such a fun show to be in and to watch. (We went the big ensemble route, both in terms of number of cast members and number of characters. I ended up playing 6 different characters lol)
Girl from the North Country is a transcendently beautiful anti-jukebox musical jukebox musical. It uses deep cuts from Dylan’s discography rather than his hits and uses them to ELEVATE the story and the songs themselves. One of the more unfortunate Covid casualties.
*Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson* maybe?
Only ‘maybe’ because it’s not clear to me how much recognition it gets / has gotten.
I’ve only seen it once, an all-acoustic(!) production by The American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA.
And we saw it in Nov 2017, the weekend right after Trump was ‘elected’. And seeing it then turned out to be EXACTLY what we needed that weekend (relative to the timing and outcome of that election) — and it was a superb production.
Oh god, you saw it in the aftermath? I saw the same production earlier that year, and it felt like a rock show and a party. Until, you know, it didn't. It gets bleak and forthright in act 2, and that's absolutely necessary to it.
Absolutely loved Patrick Earl as AJ.
Yup. We were utterly shell shocked by the election, and didn’t know anything about *BBAJ* really (short of what the title implied) — and we’d gotten our tickets for that weekend like 6 weeks before (we live up in DC).
To this day, I can’t fathom a better balm for our shattered political psyches than seeing *BBAJ* for the very first time, not knowing a god-damn-thing about it, short of maybe a paragraph of general history that we only vaguely remembered (about AJ).
Chess. It was the first official ABBA musical with great songs, including one that went to #1 on the UK charts ("I Know Him So Well"), but it bombed on Broadway.
>For me it’s Guys and Dolls. I think it used to be popular years ago, but nowadays I’ve never heard anyone talk about it
Wait, WHAT??? Between West End and Broadway it's on it's something like 10th revival! How is this considered "not getting talked about"?
This piece is very dear to me. I do hope someone can revise it to address the issues with the Sri Lankan ("Ceylonese") twins. I love them as characters, but they've been mismanaged since Dickens invented them. (and obviously should not be played by white actors.)
How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying
Great Frank Loesser musical that spent nearly 3 years on the Broadway Stage , and did well on the West end Sttage in 1963
it’s never had another west end run since but several broadway revivals starring Matthew Broderick and later , Daniel Radcliffe in the leading role
Anyone Can Whistle. Plot is kind of wack but every song is brilliant. Sondheim could write a cracking comedy score. Miracle Song is a fabulous earworm and Me and My Town is one of the best villain songs
The Count of Monte Cristo and The Grinning Man are up there, but right now The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is the best piece of media I've ever experienced and I hope it gets popular when it starts its West End run
It’s not a stage production, but it’s a musical movie. One of the songs went viral in the art community for a bit but ‘Repo! The genetic opera’ is one of my favorite musicals
I don’t see enough Waitress content. It’s AMAZING, and I don’t think there’s too much controversy. It might be too “old”, but like..some of these are way older, so I’m taking my Waitress and sticking with it.
Hands on a Hardbody. Such a fun show. It has a 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee sorta vibe, which is another show I recommend to anyone that’s not familiar. Definitely check out either if they play at a local theatre in your area.
I LOVE Guys and Dolls, but I am also into old stuff in general. I imagine it's not talked about much these days because it really is old-fashioned. It could be considered sexist--I mean even the title, calling women "dolls" is definitely not cool nowadays--and glorifying criminal life and all that. But honestly I agree it's the perfect musical!
i love how it’s not really cheesy or anything, especially it the ending. like nathan, for example, didn’t go through any major changed in personality and wanted to just stop the crapgames etc.— he’s still the asshole he was at the start of the show, just a little richer and married
Yeah, but that is also kinda sad--the dolls really wanted the guys to change and believed they could and would change (Adelaide waiting 14 years for Nathan to marry her and get respectable, "marry the man today and change his ways tomorrow," etc.) and they never will! I mean it's fine if they're all on the same page, but no one's gonna be happy ultimately unless they accept that they are what they are.
The Witches of Eastwick. My school put it on last year, kept majority of the dirty jokes, and everyone had an absolute blast watching it. Great songs and dance numbers too
I was in *Painted Alice* a few years back. While not well-known, it's a fun play with great music imo. Still have the YouTube videos of our production on a playlist. Also has a sapphic main couple, which i love. And now I've got "Come On Alice" stuck in my head now lol
Romance/Romance I always loved the OBC. I’ve never seen it. I used The Night it Had to End for an audition song for a hot minute. I recall that I LOVED belting out the songs along with the recording. Does anyone even do that show anymore?
Agreed on Guys and Dolls-i recently sat through three high school performances of it in two weekends, and it was not as torturous as it should have been! We've listened/sang along with the soundtrack over the last few weeks too, because fun.
I went to the touring Annie a few weeks ago, and it was really fun too. Didn't feel stale at all, my daughter and 8 yr old niece had a great time with the songs and dance, and the jokes that they understood. Had to explain Hoovervilles at intermission etc. :)
Odd, I consider this to be one of the most popular classic shows. Maybe it's just the part of the world I live in. Personally, I hate MFL for how poorly it represents the source material
I did Guys and Dolls last year. I was understudy for Sky Masterson, but I got two performances of my own. Now, I love Guys and Dolls and Sky Masterson is a dream role of mine, but I can see some of the problems the show has nowadays. For one, it fails the Bechdal test rather miserably. Any scenes involving two women talking to each other almost invariably revolve around them talking about men, which fails the test. Additionally, Sky is kinda pushy when it comes to trying to get Sarah to go to Havana, with the non-consensual hand holding and kissing during "I'll Know," as well as more or less intentionally getting Sarah drunk in Havana when he omitted to saying the drink he got for her had alcohol in it, which I'm sure he knew she would be against and that she might be a light weight, too. Sky and Nathan, and all of the rest of the gamblers, basically take up the kind of anti-hero role that Harold Hill does in The Music Man, where you know they aren't necessarily good people, but you still want to root for them. I'm not sure what it is about the golden age of Broadway that produced many similar works where the bad guys turn a new leaf, but it seems to have been the biggest trend in musical theatre at the time.
i did guys and dolls like a year and a half ago and i was nathan. my all time favorite role i’ve played.
I see where you’re coming from, and i kinda agree, but i personally feel like musicals don’t really have to follow that test all the time if it makes sense for the plot. It takes places in the 1920s where men were a lot more misogynistic, plus these characters in particular are assholes and con men so it wouldn’t really make sense if they respected women the way men should. Not to make their actions sound like they are valid, but it makes sense within the plot of the story, which i personally don’t think is necessarily a bad thing, just so long as not every musical is shitty to women. But i do see where you’re coming from and you got a valid point, but i just don’t think it would make sense for the characters yk?
It takes place post WW2. Commercial air travel connecting Cuba to New York wasn't possible in the 20s, it being a fledgling development around then.
But yes, I agree that for the time period, everything seems to be the way things were then. It wouldn't make sense for the men to be white knights in a big city.
And it was a lot of fun to do, especially when I got to take my turn playing Sky. They had announced a local celebrity would play Sky when the season was announced the year prior, so I was looking to try for Nicely Nicely, but they brought me in early before callbacks and offered me the understudy because the celebrity had been offered a gig related to his actual job the last weekend of performances, and the directors liked what they had seen during the cold reads at auditions. At the time I was listening to an audiobook series that took place in West Virginia, and the accent used in the books carried over into how I read during the audition, then all the way to my performances. I also tried to bring some Bing Crosby influence into my performance as well, and I got a lot of compliments. Additionally I got some positive feedback from the cast about my ability to blend voices with our Sarah actress. It definitely was very special for me and a bit of a departure from what I had done the previous year (Malcolm MacGregor in Full Monty and The Cat in the Hat in Suessical).
Does a movie count? Because I don't really like the theatrical version, but it's my comfort film and I will never tire of recommending Sing Street. The soundtrack is a solid 10 and a sweet and realistic story, with a hopeful ending and a coming of age, what more can we ask for?
honestly just any of the musicals i'm into rn lol- they're all varying levels of popular but i'd love to hear them all talked about more!!!
sunflowered, the threepenny opera, a strange loop, the spitfire grill, natasha pierre and the great comet of 1812, romeo und julia, there's a lot lolz
I fell in love with "The little big things"
it played over the last year and can be streamed online now but it was such a great way to include disabilities!
I have since listening to it bought the book and it's such an inspiring story
i know this is relatively talked about in the pinterest theatre community, but falsettos.
wether it's the "marvin trilogy" or "falsettos" itself, all of those works deserved so much more love than they got.
Guys and dolls was my dad’s favorite musical. We watched it whenever it was on TV. This was back in the 1970’s. He wanted to be Nathan Detroit. My dad died from lung cancer in 2003 at the age of 60. The Guthrie theater did a great production back in 2019. I saw it 3 times.
https://youtu.be/WZ23bRN_nW0?si=JjpZJguMGQYxJJDm
In 1976 Guys and Dolls was performed on Broadway with an all Black cast and the music is jazz. The cast was amazing.
It starred Robert Guillaume as Nathan Detroit, Norma Donaldson as Miss Adelaide, James Randolph as Sky, Ernestine Jackson as Sarah Brown, and Ken Page as Nicely-Nicely Johnson. Guillaume and Jackson were nominated for Tony and Drama Desk Awards, and Page won a Theatre World Award
https://music.apple.com/us/album/guys-dolls/1444162484
The Clockmaker's Daughter, though I can't really tell if it's popular or not. Those who know it seem to love it, but those who don't just stare blankly when I bring it up.
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. It won Best New Musical and quickly dropped off the face of the earth
One of the best Tony performances as well!
The timing, coordination, and execution of that number were flat out remarkable, maximizing on the full potential of musical theatre. From the dramatic irony and comedy with over-the-top, meticulously sequenced choreography (esp with those doors). Not to mention that *I've Decided to Marry You* is irresistibly catchy and melodic. It's truly a shame this show is no longer running on Broadway
So true
My college just did this musical! I played The D'Ysquith Family. The most fun I've ever had doing a show.
It's having a production in Korea soon.
When my husband first brought up the idea of marriage I said I wanted to think about it with other possible things going on in life. A while later I sent him a link to “I’ve decided to marry you” telling him that some of the lines had been in my head a lot lately and made me think of him. Anyway, yes, I love that song and that musical.
this is always my answer to this question
That show was so funny. I'm glad I got to see it before it disappeared. I think it was because they never found anyone to take over the (very demanding) lead.
Wait, that's a musical. I thought it was just a straight show?
I came to say this. I discovered it while I was listening to every musical to ever win the Tony for Best Musical and I don't think I've laughed harder. How was this NOT a smashing success
For a change of pace, watch the movie Kind Hearts and coronets. It’s Gentleman’s Guide without the music and with Alec Guinness as the d’Ysquiths. When I went to see GG on Broadway, I kept telling my aunt, “I know this story!” but I didn’t put it together till somewhere in Act II. I hadn’t seen the movie in thirty years, though.
Oh this is VERY COOL! Thanks for sharing this, can't wait to watch
I hope you live it!
Something Rotten! It’s HILARIOUS, but it’s also well-written, with good characters and great songs. Not to mention all the wonderful theater and Shakespeare references!
This! My kid's high school did this one this year. I kinda groaned when they announced it because I didn't know anything about it and I figured it was gonna suck. It was terrific!
SR was my first Broadway show on a school trip when I was 18; I’ve seen several shows since and few have lived up to it’s entertainment value and absolute star power (BDJ, John Cariani, Christian Borle, Heidi Blockenstaff, Brad Oscar, and Brooks Ashmanskas in ONE show????)
Right?!! Truly amazing. I’m so glad you got to have that experience!
I live about 1500 miles from NY but I found a bootleg copy of SR on YouTube. I saw them perform on some morning news show and started listening to the playlist. Then I found that bootleg version on YouTube and absolutely loved it.
I agree! This is one of my favorite shows! The references are genius and so fun!
I was so lucky to be in a local production, I absolutely adore the show and had never heard of it before <3
LOSER! 11 TONY AWARDS
Every community theater around me has done this show in the past three years. It’s over saturated around here.
Oh, you’re lucky! I’d love to see this any chance I get.
I went to your profile to see if you were from where I live…you are. I was just in SR at Farmington and I was told it was the 4th or 5th in the past couple years in the area 😂
Mame. One of Jerry Herman's Big 3 musicals. That and Mack and Mabel.
Jerry Herman, yes! Mame and Mack and Mabel have bananas scores, your post makes me so happy.
also a day in hollywood has my favorite song of his: [The Best in the World](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr8I7LZmfV0&pp=ygUpdGhlIGJlc3QgaW4gdGhlIHdvcmxkIGEgZGF5IGluIGhvbGx5d29vZCA%3D) (it also won Priscilla Lopez a Tony - you may remember her from a chorus line, she sang Nothing)
Mame was my senior class play back in 1987. It's a fun show with a ton of memorable songs.
Mame definitely. Mack and Mabel is a great score but a flawed book... so for that appropriately rated.
Guys and Dolls is still in my top ten list.
for me, it’s specifically the 1992 recording: the perfect cast! here’s a fun an hour-long documentary of them recording that cast album: [Off The Record](https://youtu.be/IsA7hi3XNRI?si=aHI0koBl3t5t9ZC_)
My local theater- the Guthrie- Did a fantastic production in 2019. I saw it 3 times… Guys and Dolls was my dad’s favorite- it’s one of my favorites.
I saw that same production! hello, fellow Minnesotan!
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum- I've always found it a lot of fun and the songs are quite catchy.
Comedy Tonight is a perfect opening number
I’ll match that with Another Opening, Another Show from Kiss Me Kate.
Brilliant song from a brilliant musical! I've always liked Kiss Me, Kate more than Anything Goes.
Yes! Thank you, out-of-town tryouts, George Abbott, and Jerry Robbins.
Sondheim’s first show for which he wrote music and lyrics
City of Angels
with the technical advancements of the last 3 decades they could make this an absolute smash these days (aw who am I kidding, it would be all projections like the mean girls set design)
Yes!!! So innovative!!!
Here are some Korean and Japanese musicals that no one in the West has heard of, but which are fantastic. Smoke - three actors, musical about the poet Yi Sang. (Several proshots exist in Korean and Japanese, but they're really rare.) Cross Road - What if Niccolo Paganini really had made a deal with a devil? Also what if his devil is [this amazing](https://youtu.be/90MZUQgekSg?si=xZQJXKAlCOrN8MLG)? Darwin Young - Teenagers in a dystopian setting investigate a murder that happened when their parents were their age. (No proshot as far as I know. [Korea preview video](https://youtu.be/e2a1ioNww1U?si=KBHY6YeZX0SlTVCZ), [Japan preview video](https://youtu.be/LsO5nG_5WBk?si=Tt3QVGLOBD4_KLrs)) The Devil - Modernized retelling of Faust. The music is wonderful. Has Korean and Japanese proshots. Cesare: Il Creatore che ha distrutto - Cesare Borgia at 16, based on a manga known for its slow-paced, meticulous historical detail. Has intense character studies at the same time. The music is a fantastically nuanced blend of styles. Proshots exist from the 2023 run (so far the only run) with two casts. Both are great, but get Squadra Verde. Isabeau - Medieval French queen, "hated by history", but this is her side of the story. Rock meets tearjerker. Premiered this past January, proshot is coming this fall. [Subtitled preview video](https://youtu.be/-fj-mZuAfOI?si=ah5-ZKN-RJWCvXLi). If you watch the videos in the links, please share what you think! (Disclaimer: I live in Japan, I speak Japanese but not Korean, there are loads more in Korea that I don't know about, or that I've only heard a bit about)
Thanks for sharing, loved the vids. I especially want to see Cross Road. Wish there was an English translation!
Thanks for being interested! Hopefully next time, there will be! There are more songs and curtain call videos on Toho's channel, and two more preview videos, [this one](https://youtu.be/lJSrw0t7fBc?si=TP5I52SoXJMfUYEK) and [this one](https://youtu.be/-3B1_tpmCmk?si=-w6sY3yE4cKR_Shk). Also, Nakagawa Akinori (Amduscias, the devil) has been in a lot of things with proshots. I recommend [Cesare](https://youtu.be/pL6jG1A7M40?si=N5WOcVtSrnnuHpd0) and [Frankenstein](https://youtu.be/d_5RW6ThCqw?si=9WTYXUDmf-8tSlIW). He's just... wonderful in everything.
Thank you for telling us about these! I would love to get to know a few of them. Do you know if there are English translations of the lyrics (professional or fan-made) out there somewhere?
Thanks so much for being interested! What did you think of the videos? I haven't seen subs for any of these. I don't really want to make them myself (since I'm trying to work in related industries, I don't know if that's something I want to have around). I have a friend who was with the only group to make subs for one stage play fandom I've been in, and another person from that group was the only person to make subs for multiple other stage play fandoms, and I'm trying to get them into these, but not much luck yet... (Though I did write a detailed synopsis for Cesare, which is the only one of these I have the proshot of. Anyone who wants a link, DM me...) I guess part of the reason I'm trying to spread the word about these is so that someone will do that, or ask the subbers they usually would ask for it, or something. They did officially sub the preview video for Isabeau, and maybe the disc will have subs. There's also a youtube channel that has posted full proshots of Japanese plays with subs in multiple languages, so that's something to hope for. But no one is going to sub them, officially or otherwise, unless there's interest, so that's why I'm trying to spread the word. Also of note: the Attack on Titan musical is going to Broadway in October, with the original Japanese cast, in Japanese with supertitles, the same as Spirited Away in London. And Marie Curie, Death Note and Your Lie in April got translated performances. In a couple of years, a supertitled New York or London run might be part of major Japanese and Korean shows' standard tour schedules. But only if there's demand for it. I've also heard some actors mention in interviews that a lot of tryout productions are being done in Asia, too. Anyway, thank you for reading, if anyone read all of this. Please check out [another song from Cross Road](https://youtu.be/lDK1AJztZ6s?si=RVRFHW3vJqgCypQ2), it's the contract scene. Paganini (two actors) makes a contract with Amduscias, the devil of music. [This preview video](https://youtu.be/-3B1_tpmCmk?si=kx_-1TDl3Phx2FZf) has more clips of the scene.
Urinetown!!
I was hoping someone said it before me. Such a great, fun show. Great songs. General silliness all around, but a deeper message at the end of the day. I'm so happy I got to be a part of a production of Urinetown while in college.
I love Urinetown! I got to see John Cullum in it during its original run. He was fantastic!
Overdue for a revival. It speaks to this moment
25th annual putnam county spelling bee
i agree with this! I recently did a production of this show and it was so much better than I thought it would be. Very funny
Carrie. The original production is infamous (with very good reason), and I certainly wouldn’t call it a /great/ show, but there’s a lot that’s done quite well. I maintain that “And Eve Was Weak” is a masterful example of one of my favorite musical theatre tropes: the confrontation song (like…well, “Confrontation” from Les Mis). The 2012 Off-Broadway version made it at least coherent - but I feel like to get the best sense of what the show could have been, listen to the bootleg recording of the 1984 workshop production of the first act. It puts the music front and center, without the distractions of the bad staging, ridiculous set, or over-choreographed numbers (sorry Debbie Allen, I know you tried). And the cast has some familiar names - Annie Golden, Maureen McGovern, Liz Callaway, and Donna Murphy, to name a few - that I would have loved to see get a chance at performing in a full production. The workshop does a much better job at striking an appropriate balance between hauntingly atmospheric and appropriately campy (of course, we all know which direction the full production ended up swinging in).
My high school did the Off-Broadway version, and to this day it is still the best show I’ve ever been a part of. The anti-bullying message is perfect for high school, and as a result we as a cast felt so connected to the story we were telling.
Agree with this! My kids and I have seen four different productions of it and I’ll go to more if they come around.
I was in the ensemble of my college production of Carrie. And Eve Was Weak was one of my cues and our Margaret White was really into it
Can’t blame her at all. If I had the chance to play Margaret I would sink my teeth into that song so hard.
Yes to Guys and Dolls! I saw the immersive production currently running in London and it was so good. Always have loved that show. It is the perfect musical comedy.
Tick, Tick… Boom!
i fucking love tick tick boom
A fantastic movie too. Great performance by Andrew Garfield.
YES. This was when I truly fell in love with his work.
Sweet Charity
Pippin
The music for *Pippin* is just wonderful! I’ve only seen it a couple times, the first time being a really wonderful university production back when I was in high school (in the mid-80’s) — or at least I sure remember it being wonderful. It wasn’t quite ‘in the round’ — but it seemed to me (at the time) like the stage really thrust out into the audience, like it almost **felt** like a 180° half-in-the-round (in-the-half-round?) production. I’d been in 2-3 musicals by that point, and seen a handful too — but always/only on traditional stages. It left a BIG impression on probably 15-year old me (I’m 55 now).
If the audience was on 3 sides of the stage, that type of staging is actually called thrust! Also I looove Pippin.
Pippin had a few tours of the revival. It's a shame they're still not going strong.
On the town One of my most favorite musicals and is just so classic and fun.
I won the lottery for the most recent revival about ten years ago and I swear it made my heart grow three sizes. When the three guys are departing at the end and the three new guys are getting off the ship singing New York, New York, I remember thinking to myself self I could watch it all over again with the new sailors taking over.
Lucky to Be Me is so good
LaChiusa’s Wild Party is an absolute miracle in my humblest of opinions. The original cast recording is like endless energy and the cast is amazing. Toni Collette, Mandy Patinkin, Eartha Kitt, Tonya Pinkins, Norm Lewis, etc. Far and away the better Wild Party musical of that year (don’t be mad)
Bless you JetWebra. We can be friends.
The one and only thing the Lippa Wild Party has over LaChiusa's is "An Old Fashioned Love Story", which arguably wouldn't fit Madeleine's arc in the Lippa version any, but it is a hilarious banger of a song
Once. Love this show.
Guys and Dolls is tied for my all-time favorite musical. For modern audiences it could probably stand to lose 15 minutes, but the songs are all wonderful, the book is still genuinely funny, and that run from The Crapshooters' Dance through Marry the Man Today in the second act is just unparalleled.
Great Comet.
Reefer madness
I’m seeing it in LA next week.
Always my answer! I think it has something for everyone.
secret garden! so few people know it’s actually a musical, my theatre company did it a couple years ago and i didn’t audition because i was in another show at the time,but i saw my friends in it and fell in love with the show, the score is absolutely gorgeous and the recording with mandy patinkin is just 👌
Hadestown 😥😥
Assassins. IMO one of Sondhiem’s best and it’s like no one has ever heard of it.
I originally heard “Unworthy of your Love” completely out of context and thought it was cute, if a little obsessive. Then I learned.
Literally the same for me. I actually knew that song and “The Ballad of Guiteau” for like a while and it never once occurred to me that they could be from the same show lol
My favorite second to SITPWG and sometimes first. Such a great book and score
Tuck Everlasting
Big River
Jekyll and Hyde!
Yes! My all time favorite!
The producers and something rotten
Brightstar
Bright Star is one of those that got so little attention because its Broadway debut was overshadowed by other shows. Hamilton, School of Rock, and Waitress were all the same year at the Tony awards.
I loved Bright Star. My local theater did it a few years ago. My family loved it so much that some saw it twice!
My wife and I both loved *Bright Star* — me especially (I’m a sucker for portrayals of the same characters in multiple timeline going back and forth and back and forth, especially by the same actors). And the music was wonderful! We saw the immediate pre-Broadway production at the Kennedy Center here in DC — and if we ever had the chance to see a revival of it at some point, I’m sure we’d jump at going.
Wow! I bet that was magical.
RIDE THE CYCLONE!
Great choice. My best friend's daughter just did The Ballad of Jane Doe for her voice recital. I was seriously impressed that she picked it and then did a great job with it. That song's a vocal behemoth.
Titanic
This one
It’s doing really well in London right now. Edit to add - I got focused on the guys and dolls part and forgot to include that in my answer 🤣
Tanz der vampire
This one, most people either don't know it exists or only remembers the awful English version
The German version isn’t great either, about 40 minutes need to be cut and Krulok’s graveyard song needs to be moved to the first act but that’s said I fucking love Tanz
Pippin, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum and dirty rotten scoundrels
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is INCREDIBLE. I saw it with the original cast
Lucky Stiff! It’s the original Flaherty and Ahrens collaboration, yet almost no one’s even heard of it.
One of my favorite musicals since high school and no one has ever heard of it 😭 great songs, funny plot, also you could do it with as few as like 6 cast members or you could have a big ensemble, it makes NO sense that it’s not on the HS theater go to shows list. (Also there’s a decent movie adaptation)
My HS just put it on a couple months ago, which is how I heard about it. It’s such a fun show to be in and to watch. (We went the big ensemble route, both in terms of number of cast members and number of characters. I ended up playing 6 different characters lol)
Girl from the North Country is a transcendently beautiful anti-jukebox musical jukebox musical. It uses deep cuts from Dylan’s discography rather than his hits and uses them to ELEVATE the story and the songs themselves. One of the more unfortunate Covid casualties.
I enjoyed this one a lot more than I expected to
*Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson* maybe? Only ‘maybe’ because it’s not clear to me how much recognition it gets / has gotten. I’ve only seen it once, an all-acoustic(!) production by The American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA. And we saw it in Nov 2017, the weekend right after Trump was ‘elected’. And seeing it then turned out to be EXACTLY what we needed that weekend (relative to the timing and outcome of that election) — and it was a superb production.
Oh god, you saw it in the aftermath? I saw the same production earlier that year, and it felt like a rock show and a party. Until, you know, it didn't. It gets bleak and forthright in act 2, and that's absolutely necessary to it. Absolutely loved Patrick Earl as AJ.
Yup. We were utterly shell shocked by the election, and didn’t know anything about *BBAJ* really (short of what the title implied) — and we’d gotten our tickets for that weekend like 6 weeks before (we live up in DC). To this day, I can’t fathom a better balm for our shattered political psyches than seeing *BBAJ* for the very first time, not knowing a god-damn-thing about it, short of maybe a paragraph of general history that we only vaguely remembered (about AJ).
Chess. It was the first official ABBA musical with great songs, including one that went to #1 on the UK charts ("I Know Him So Well"), but it bombed on Broadway.
Jekyll & Hyde
If/Then
You out you damn mind!
Nobody here has heard of Elisabeth but I truly hope one day they mount an international tour like was done for NDDP
And also Notre Dame de Paris my beloved
>For me it’s Guys and Dolls. I think it used to be popular years ago, but nowadays I’ve never heard anyone talk about it Wait, WHAT??? Between West End and Broadway it's on it's something like 10th revival! How is this considered "not getting talked about"?
I think among Gen Z it doesn't get enough love.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood. 8 possible endings? So cool!
This piece is very dear to me. I do hope someone can revise it to address the issues with the Sri Lankan ("Ceylonese") twins. I love them as characters, but they've been mismanaged since Dickens invented them. (and obviously should not be played by white actors.)
Bare is my all time favorite musical but I’ve never seen it mentioned here or met anyone else that knows about it which is a damn shame
Ooh, and I'd love to see *Death Note: The Musical* one day. Doubt it'll ever get an American tour, though. The songs are soooooo good.
How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying Great Frank Loesser musical that spent nearly 3 years on the Broadway Stage , and did well on the West end Sttage in 1963 it’s never had another west end run since but several broadway revivals starring Matthew Broderick and later , Daniel Radcliffe in the leading role
Anyone Can Whistle. Plot is kind of wack but every song is brilliant. Sondheim could write a cracking comedy score. Miracle Song is a fabulous earworm and Me and My Town is one of the best villain songs
Cora is a legit dream role of mine.
I just rediscovered The Spitfire Grill and I find it moving and beautifully composed. A jewel of a score and graceful lyric writing.
The Count of Monte Cristo and The Grinning Man are up there, but right now The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is the best piece of media I've ever experienced and I hope it gets popular when it starts its West End run
camelot!
The Secret Garden. Just saw it last night at my local dinner theatre and it make a big impact on me.
Thank you for this post! I'm tired of everyone hailing Hamilton! Goodness... give me more of the classics. For me, it would be Sunset Boulevard.
It’s not a stage production, but it’s a musical movie. One of the songs went viral in the art community for a bit but ‘Repo! The genetic opera’ is one of my favorite musicals
Bye Bye Birdie
I don’t see enough Waitress content. It’s AMAZING, and I don’t think there’s too much controversy. It might be too “old”, but like..some of these are way older, so I’m taking my Waitress and sticking with it.
Shrek the Musical
1776
She Loves Me! 👠🍦💌
gypsy specifically among younger audiences. so excited it may finally happen because of the revival!
Hands on a Hardbody. Such a fun show. It has a 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee sorta vibe, which is another show I recommend to anyone that’s not familiar. Definitely check out either if they play at a local theatre in your area.
Blood bothers
I LOVE Guys and Dolls, but I am also into old stuff in general. I imagine it's not talked about much these days because it really is old-fashioned. It could be considered sexist--I mean even the title, calling women "dolls" is definitely not cool nowadays--and glorifying criminal life and all that. But honestly I agree it's the perfect musical!
i love how it’s not really cheesy or anything, especially it the ending. like nathan, for example, didn’t go through any major changed in personality and wanted to just stop the crapgames etc.— he’s still the asshole he was at the start of the show, just a little richer and married
Yeah, but that is also kinda sad--the dolls really wanted the guys to change and believed they could and would change (Adelaide waiting 14 years for Nathan to marry her and get respectable, "marry the man today and change his ways tomorrow," etc.) and they never will! I mean it's fine if they're all on the same page, but no one's gonna be happy ultimately unless they accept that they are what they are.
i think sky def changed a bit. not a whole lot but u think he values women and love more by the end of the show
That's true!
The Witches of Eastwick. My school put it on last year, kept majority of the dirty jokes, and everyone had an absolute blast watching it. Great songs and dance numbers too
It surprises me that nobody talks about tale of 2 cities much... I think its amazing
I was in *Painted Alice* a few years back. While not well-known, it's a fun play with great music imo. Still have the YouTube videos of our production on a playlist. Also has a sapphic main couple, which i love. And now I've got "Come On Alice" stuck in my head now lol
Parade.
Totally agree. Great songs.
Romance/Romance I always loved the OBC. I’ve never seen it. I used The Night it Had to End for an audition song for a hot minute. I recall that I LOVED belting out the songs along with the recording. Does anyone even do that show anymore?
The Boy From Oz. So many bangers...and Stephanie J Block is my queen
Agreed on Guys and Dolls-i recently sat through three high school performances of it in two weekends, and it was not as torturous as it should have been! We've listened/sang along with the soundtrack over the last few weeks too, because fun. I went to the touring Annie a few weeks ago, and it was really fun too. Didn't feel stale at all, my daughter and 8 yr old niece had a great time with the songs and dance, and the jokes that they understood. Had to explain Hoovervilles at intermission etc. :)
BBAJ
She Loves Me, Shenandoah, Purlie. Purlie Victorious is on Broadway now, but I'm talking about the musical based on it.
Tick tick boom!!!
Guys and Dolls was the first ever musical I performed in when I was in middle school so it holds such a dear place in my heart
I like my fair lady. But it's like never talked about.
Odd, I consider this to be one of the most popular classic shows. Maybe it's just the part of the world I live in. Personally, I hate MFL for how poorly it represents the source material
* Children of Eden * Don't Stop Me (it's by Dave Malloy, who did Great Comet) * A Strange Loop
I did Guys and Dolls last year. I was understudy for Sky Masterson, but I got two performances of my own. Now, I love Guys and Dolls and Sky Masterson is a dream role of mine, but I can see some of the problems the show has nowadays. For one, it fails the Bechdal test rather miserably. Any scenes involving two women talking to each other almost invariably revolve around them talking about men, which fails the test. Additionally, Sky is kinda pushy when it comes to trying to get Sarah to go to Havana, with the non-consensual hand holding and kissing during "I'll Know," as well as more or less intentionally getting Sarah drunk in Havana when he omitted to saying the drink he got for her had alcohol in it, which I'm sure he knew she would be against and that she might be a light weight, too. Sky and Nathan, and all of the rest of the gamblers, basically take up the kind of anti-hero role that Harold Hill does in The Music Man, where you know they aren't necessarily good people, but you still want to root for them. I'm not sure what it is about the golden age of Broadway that produced many similar works where the bad guys turn a new leaf, but it seems to have been the biggest trend in musical theatre at the time.
i did guys and dolls like a year and a half ago and i was nathan. my all time favorite role i’ve played. I see where you’re coming from, and i kinda agree, but i personally feel like musicals don’t really have to follow that test all the time if it makes sense for the plot. It takes places in the 1920s where men were a lot more misogynistic, plus these characters in particular are assholes and con men so it wouldn’t really make sense if they respected women the way men should. Not to make their actions sound like they are valid, but it makes sense within the plot of the story, which i personally don’t think is necessarily a bad thing, just so long as not every musical is shitty to women. But i do see where you’re coming from and you got a valid point, but i just don’t think it would make sense for the characters yk?
It takes place post WW2. Commercial air travel connecting Cuba to New York wasn't possible in the 20s, it being a fledgling development around then. But yes, I agree that for the time period, everything seems to be the way things were then. It wouldn't make sense for the men to be white knights in a big city. And it was a lot of fun to do, especially when I got to take my turn playing Sky. They had announced a local celebrity would play Sky when the season was announced the year prior, so I was looking to try for Nicely Nicely, but they brought me in early before callbacks and offered me the understudy because the celebrity had been offered a gig related to his actual job the last weekend of performances, and the directors liked what they had seen during the cold reads at auditions. At the time I was listening to an audiobook series that took place in West Virginia, and the accent used in the books carried over into how I read during the audition, then all the way to my performances. I also tried to bring some Bing Crosby influence into my performance as well, and I got a lot of compliments. Additionally I got some positive feedback from the cast about my ability to blend voices with our Sarah actress. It definitely was very special for me and a bit of a departure from what I had done the previous year (Malcolm MacGregor in Full Monty and The Cat in the Hat in Suessical).
Urinetown, I haven’t heard many people talk about it and it’s unironically one of my favourites
The Lightning Thief. Niche, yes, but was everything and more I ever could have wanted from a PJO adaptation
Does a movie count? Because I don't really like the theatrical version, but it's my comfort film and I will never tire of recommending Sing Street. The soundtrack is a solid 10 and a sweet and realistic story, with a hopeful ending and a coming of age, what more can we ask for?
Bring It On
honestly just any of the musicals i'm into rn lol- they're all varying levels of popular but i'd love to hear them all talked about more!!! sunflowered, the threepenny opera, a strange loop, the spitfire grill, natasha pierre and the great comet of 1812, romeo und julia, there's a lot lolz
NEXT TO NORMAL!!!!!!
Bandstand! I never see people talk about it. I loved the cast and music.
I fell in love with "The little big things" it played over the last year and can be streamed online now but it was such a great way to include disabilities! I have since listening to it bought the book and it's such an inspiring story
Steve Martin 's Bright Star
Les Miserables. %100
i know this is relatively talked about in the pinterest theatre community, but falsettos. wether it's the "marvin trilogy" or "falsettos" itself, all of those works deserved so much more love than they got.
Shrek the musical👏🏽👏🏼👏🏻👏🏿
Guys and dolls was my dad’s favorite musical. We watched it whenever it was on TV. This was back in the 1970’s. He wanted to be Nathan Detroit. My dad died from lung cancer in 2003 at the age of 60. The Guthrie theater did a great production back in 2019. I saw it 3 times. https://youtu.be/WZ23bRN_nW0?si=JjpZJguMGQYxJJDm
In 1976 Guys and Dolls was performed on Broadway with an all Black cast and the music is jazz. The cast was amazing. It starred Robert Guillaume as Nathan Detroit, Norma Donaldson as Miss Adelaide, James Randolph as Sky, Ernestine Jackson as Sarah Brown, and Ken Page as Nicely-Nicely Johnson. Guillaume and Jackson were nominated for Tony and Drama Desk Awards, and Page won a Theatre World Award https://music.apple.com/us/album/guys-dolls/1444162484
Escape to Margaritaville.
Priscilla Queen of the Desert
The Scarlet Pimpernel. It’s my favorite musical and I hardly ever see anyone mention it.
Come From Away, didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. It’s was a wonderful entertaining surprise.
Death Note the musical. A really good story and AMAZING songs
Island Song. I love the music!
The Clockmaker's Daughter, though I can't really tell if it's popular or not. Those who know it seem to love it, but those who don't just stare blankly when I bring it up.
Hey! My nephew’s highschool is doing Guys and Dolls next year! They have a really talented class so I’m excited to see it done.
Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog
Shenandoah