Nine Sweeney Todd Follies Sunday in the Park with George Company A Little Night Music Carousel The King and I Gypsy West Side Story Oliver The Sound of Music Hair Into the Woods Gypsy Cabaret My Fair Lady Fiddler on the Roof Rent Hedwig and the Angry Inch Hello Dolly The Music Man Oklahoma! The Secret Garden Shenandoah Showboat South Pacific The Threepenny Opera Urinetown
WORST:
Amour Annie Warbucks Big Brooklyn Bring Back Birdie Chess Fame The Frogs Grease Jekyll and Hyde Dracula Good Vibrations Saturday Night Fever Thoroughly Modern Millie Spamalot
"If you are going to do something, do it well. And leave something witchy."-Charlie Manson
ok now peoples worst lists are so big it just seems like they put it on because they just didn't care for it. Worst doesn't have to be your will not attend again list.
"I never had theatre producers run after me. Some people want to make more Broadway shows out of movies. But Elliot and I aren't going to do Batman: The Musical." - Julie Taymor 1999
Consider that there are thousands of musicals and most of them aren't very good. I will not even count the ones that do not deserve being counted: flopped shows like Dracula or Brooklyn don't even count by their nature. Cats I will agree was not a good show...but it served its purpose. You don't actually have to know English to see it and so it survived because of tourists. The only shows worth examining are ones considered by some measure successful. Also, the best show ever really needs to be a show that has had some effect on musical theater as a whole.
Best shows: Guys and Dolls and Oklahoma, and My Fair Lady. They basically created and/or drastically changed/improved musical theater as we know it today. All three of those shows also have some sort of depth.
Worst shows: Bye Bye Birdie, and any other show that survives on the cliches of musical theater while not giving another layer.
No offense ThunderCat but do you honestly think that Jerry Springer: The Opera is a better show then Jesus Christ Superstar?
Superstar, if done right, is absolutely phenomenal. While more modern productions cast more broadway type singers, it is thrilling to see it done with rock singers....ie: Ted Neely and Carl Anderson. For someone who loves the rock and roll music of Queen, I am surprised you wouldn't like JCS. Also, JCS really paved the way for shows like RENT, bringing rock music to the stage...along with many others of course. I'm not trying to offend you of course as I think CATS is bad, and Avenue Q is overrated.
I'm also surprised Fiddler got a worst nomination. It's a really great show, with a great message and awesome music. Perhaps by todays standards when we have Phantoms and puppets and huge sets and Idina Menzels on the stage, the show seems simple and contrite...too old. But it is truly beautiful and Tevye might be one of the most coveted roles for men in musical theatre.
What exactly constitutes the BEST musical? Is it by how long it lasts, how long it is popular? In that case wouldn't Oklahoma, Fiddler, The Sound of Music, Kiss me Kate...all of which go through revival after revival, sung at auditions endlessly, and presented by community theatres everywhere, be considered the best?
If it's by music, thats hard. Alot of people really dislike Sondheim, Wicked seems to contrite, Fiddler is too old, Hair is too hippy, JCS is to rock, Godspell is odd, Avenue Q is shock value etc etc etc.
Some people may say that long running, famous succesful musicals are best. Les Mis...great. Phantom...blugh. (IMHO)
Best - Sweeney Todd, sheer masterpiece. Its brilliant.
Worst - Cats, well Mario Cantone sums it up the best: "A Jellicle Cat can ear a hat. A jellicle Cat gets tit for tat, the jellicle luve the jellicle... What the **** is a jellicle cat? We'll tell you! *repeat* you know what! Kiss my jellicle ass. By the end of the show I had claw marks all over me, and they were self inflicted"
I know exactly how he feels
<------ Me and my friends with patti Lupone at my friends afterparty for her concert with audra mcdonald during the summer of 2007.
"I am sorry but it is an unjust world and virtue is only triumphant in theatricle performances" The Mikado
attend the tale, I like both or your choices, not a fan of rags at all and love Assassins, all most as brilliant as Sweeney but not before Sweeney, come to think of it Sondheim could take best show with at least 4 shows coming to mind.
<------ Me and my friends with patti Lupone at my friends afterparty for her concert with audra mcdonald during the summer of 2007.
"I am sorry but it is an unjust world and virtue is only triumphant in theatricle performances" The Mikado
Well, I thought I would really like Jesus Christ Superstar. I saw a touring version of it in Southampton, and the guy playing Jesus was just terrible. It was totally Justin-from-the-Darkness, and just made us laugh. I understand how it was a breakthrough musical paving the way for other rock musicals, but I just do not like it. Perhaps it's just that it is old-fashioned now. Or perhaps it's that I just dislike Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals-for-beginners style.
And sticking up for Jerry Springer the Opera - one of the finest pieces of theatre I have ever had the fortune to see. The cast was incredible, some of the best voices ever. The songs were catchy, funny, well written. I enjoyed it thorougly, and am seeing it again in May in Newcastle.
Yes I agree however, that Annie is crap!
And if we are saying what is the best breakthrough musical and all that jazz, I'd say West Side Story is the best. The songs are still brilliant, and it doesn't feel too old fashioned. Good ol' Bernstein/Sondheim!
Updated On: 1/23/06 at 08:35 AM
Asking someone what they think are the best and worst of all time is different from asking them what they liked the most and least of what they've seen. I mean, I never saw 'South Pacific' or 'Anything Goes' on Broadway, but I bet they were great shows for their era.
I forget who ran it, but there was a poll last year asking which Broadway show had the biggest impact on Broadway itself. I'll paraphrase heavily, but basically they asked, was it 'Oklahoma' with its use of songs to advance the plot? Was it 'West Side Story' integrating classical ballet and streetfighting? Or was it 'A Chorus Line' for giving people a good reason to go back to Times Square?
I chose the latter, because I can remember when Broadway, Eighth Ave. and 42nd Street were no-go zones during almost all the years between 'Midnight Cowboy' and 'Basketball Diaries.' You'd be lucky if all they snatched was your purse or chain as you ran the gauntlet to and from the Shubert Theater. Yet 'A Chorus Line' ran there for nearly 15 years, and a new Broadway sprouted all around it.
The show I've personally enjoyed seeing the most was 'Gypsy.' But the show I think most deserves its Best Musical Tony Award is 'A Chorus Line,' for being Broadway's ghost light during its darkest time.
Likewise, though I've never seen 'Carrie,' it gets my vote because it's been skewered so thoroughly and celebrated so frequently as the worst musical ever, becoming, as in Ken Mandelbaum's book, the benchmark against which all other bad musicals are measured.
I am just going to go by shows that I have seen or been in productions of since how can I really judge shows I haven't. I mean shows like BKLYN and Good Vibrations just looked so bad that I never even wanted to see them.
BEST HISTORICALLY: Gypsy and Guys and Dolls
BEST CONTEMPORARY: Ragtime
WORST: Thou Shalt Not
"You pile up enough tomorrows, and you'll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays. I don't know about you, but I'd like to make today worth remembering." --Harold Hill from The Music Man
Well, it's nice to see another "Cats" bashing thread.
Sounds like most of you don't "get" poetry in general, as opposed to lyrics. They ARE different, after all... and Cats is/was a different kind of show. Maybe many of you were too young to appreciate seeing "poetry" come to life in an experimental way, as a theatre "mood piece"... but I'm pretty convinced that the people who really think it's the WORST show they've ever seen, either haven't been exposed to very much experimental theatre... OR they just don't "get" poetry in general, or fell asleep in their English Lit classes more often than they tried to connect to it. Or T.S. Elliott. It's pretty obvious to me here when ANYONE tries to over-analyze or dissect the literal meaning of "Jellicle Cat." It shows more about your individual aversion to abstract poetry, or at the very least your lack of comprehension of what that really is, than it does to the "failings" of this show. Cats was and is one of the most daring and unique shows I've ever seen, or will likely see, on any "commercial" stage.
Sorry, guys, I'm in a bitchy mood this morning.
*sigh*
Some people just don't "get" Shakespeare either, and don't even want to try.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
I wouldn't call Cats the worst musical, but I just don't get how it was so successful.
My best musical: Sweeney Todd
In my upper level (in no order): Rent, Music Man, West Side Story, Evita, Assassins, Urinetown, Man of La Mancha, Fiddler on the Roof... and others, but I'm drawing a blank
Worst show I have seen: Phantom of the Opera
(I won't call it the worst, because I'm in no way qualified to call a musical the worst ever)
1776 and ANNIE? I know that now, ANNIE is the most overdone production ever, but if you examine the material, it's hardly one of the worst musicals ever written. Many would say it's among the best and most solid.
downtoearth: BYE BYE BIRDIE? You have got to be joking. Cliche? In the 60's, BYE BYE BIRDIE is one of the shows that created this "musical theatre cliche" that you're talking about. It wasn't trite and overdone when it was written.
"If you are going to do something, do it well. And leave something witchy."-Charlie Manson