Hamilton is the greatest musical since RENT?- Page 2

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 4/16/16 at 6:55pm

Updated On: 4/16/16 at 06:55 PM

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 4/16/16 at 7:04pm

If only rent was a great musical...

[After Eight]

Posted: 4/16/16 at 10:35pm

"If only rent was a great musical..."

 

If only Hamilton were even a good one...

[adamgreer]

Posted: 4/16/16 at 11:24pm

sarahb22 said: "Hamilton is getting huge numbers of young people interested in theater. They're thinking creatively and getting inspired. When was the last time that happened because of a Broadway musical?

 

Wicked.

 

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 4/16/16 at 11:28pm

I think people in the theatre community tend to conflate how much HAMILTON has really penetrated the masses. Because It hasn't really that much.

[aaaaaa15]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 7:36am

I disagree. No, it's not Star Wars or something like that. But I keep finding myself on websites that have nothing to do with musicals or theatre and people will start referencing Hamilton which is something I've never seen before with a new musical.

[aaaaaa15]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 7:36am

I disagree. No, it's not Star Wars or something like that. But I keep finding myself on websites that have nothing to do with musicals or theatre and people will start referencing Hamilton which is something I've never seen before with a new musical.

[adamgreer]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 9:18am

Mr. Nowack said: "I think people in the theatre community tend to conflate how much HAMILTON has really penetrated the masses. Because It hasn't really that much.

 

I agree.

 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 10:02am

Mr. Nowack said: "I think people in the theatre community tend to conflate how much HAMILTON has really penetrated the masses. Because It hasn't really that much."

I'd love to know the object of "conflate" but if you are going to make an observation about penetration it seems to me the intelligent prerequisite is a metric. So what is it? Because everyone I can come up with refutes your point. 

And if you can successfully supply that answer, you may want to move on to a discussion of market context. By which I mean, for example, has Spotlight "penetrated the masses"?

[JM226]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 10:53am

^^^ dude. you need to get a grip and MOVE ON. your obsession with knocking anyone who is skeptical of, or doubts, the cultural significance of a musical is beyond disturbing. 

[Steve C.]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 11:36am

Please, please believe me here... I've seen H, twice, and totally loved it, was amazed by it, play it endlessly, applaud its' originality and spirit, I think LMM is a true marvel of the Broadway and NY stage, and agree with its' "revolutionary" magnitude, (even though I still hate it when it's called hip-hop)...but, when I scan the topics and read the comments, you would think that before H there was no life on Earth.

It seems like every conceivable topic on every possible idea gets hashed and rehashed endlessly. I mean down to box office to news to stars to chorus members. Don't hate on me either! I LOVED the show!! But, It's getting to the point where I'm expecting to see a thread on, "Which Line Sitter Peed Today?" or "Which Hamilton Cast Member Picked Up Their Dry Cleaning Today?"

Just a thought...no sour grapes.    

[JM226]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 11:42am

^ THIS

[sarahb22]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 12:33pm

It's a popular show.  People want to talk about it. It's on Broadway. That's why people are talking about it here, on a chat board about Broadway shows.   It's a great problem to have.  If it bothers you, come back around September or so, it will likely have died down by then.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 12:37pm

JM226 said: "^^^ dude. you need to get a grip and MOVE ON. your obsession with knocking anyone who is skeptical of, or doubts, the cultural significance of a musical is beyond disturbing. "

If you are disturbed, hang a do not disturb sign on your avatar. If you look, you will see that the post I responded to was not skeptical or doubtful; it made a statement about penetration as a fact, and I simply asked for a sourcing for the claim which frankly seems preposterous. What is disturbing about expecting some nexus to reality when someone posts something purporting to be factual. 

I do not understand why someone who reads this board would be anything other than enthusiastic about a musical that escapes the cocoon of places like this. Yet we have folks like you who want to diminish what we have going on-as if making a show popular is somehow depriving you of your self-entitlement to musical theatre. That pathology, to me, is kinda disturbing. The show is getting all this attention because people care about it. If you don't, move on. I make no apologies for disabusing someone of their poo-pooing of the most objectively significant show in 2 generations -without regard to whether that person likes it personally or not. 

[jwsel]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 2:57pm

Call_me_jorge said: "If only rent was a great musical...

 

"

This site so desperately needs a like button

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 3:41pm

Pardon my apparent grammar snafu. I don't tend to put much thought into my wording for musings on a message board.

As for evidence of my claim, I'm just going off people I know.

[Ranger Tom]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 3:59pm

sarahb22 said: "It's a popular show.  People want to talk about it. It's on Broadway. That's why people are talking about it here, on a chat board about Broadway shows.   It's a great problem to have.  If it bothers you, come back around September or so, it will likely have died down by then."

Yep, most fads die down.  It's popular and, as HogansHero said, people care about it.  I think it's great that it's driving people to read true history about the Founding Fathers.  I think it's culturally significant too; but, then again, so is Keeping up with the Kardashians.  And as for being the "greatest musical since Rent" - I don't think Hamilton is the greatest musical since Drowsy Chaperone.  However, it is popular and people care about it. Bring in a new generation!!

 

[Dave19]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 4:46pm

I think Hamilton matches Rent or Chess, overall quality wise. Only the latter 2 actually have some beautiful songs. But still mediocre shows.

 



 

 

Updated On: 4/17/16 at 04:46 PM

[rodrigo_ca]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 6:16pm

After Eight said: "If only Hamilton were even a good one..."

Thanks!

[sarahb22]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 6:17pm

Ranger Tom said: "Yep, most fads die down.  It's popular and, as HogansHero said, people care about it.  I think it's great that it's driving people to read true history about the Founding Fathers.  I think it's culturally significant too; but, then again, so is Keeping up with the Kardashians.  And as for being the "greatest musical since Rent" - I don't think Hamilton is the greatest musical since Drowsy Chaperone.  However, it is popular and people care about it. Bring in a new generation!!

And that's the thing. The most important result of Hamilton's success is that it's inspiring the next generation of Sondheims, Kanders, Ebbs, Hammersteins, etc.  Kids who until now probably had no idea that THEY liked telling stories this way are finding that out, and that's exciting.  We need to ignite the new storytellers, and this show is doing that.

As for the fad dying out...I think demand for tickets will stay strong through the end of the year, but I would wait to buy the tickets until after July when many of the original cast will probably be leaving the show.  The resale price on the remaining tickets will probably go down quite a bit, since the demand now is for the original cast. Will scalpers be able to sell seats for $3,000 when LMM, Odom Jr, Diggs, Goldberry, Soo, Ramos, Jackson, etc. are no longer there? Honestly, I don't think so. But we'll see.

[yfs]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 6:25pm

HogansHero wrote:

To suggest that the Pulitzer does not signify greatness is culturally depraved. It is the artistic equivalent of being a climate change denier. 

 This can only be true if you believe that a work is great at the time it wins. Lots and lots of plays have won the Pulitzer and then faded, and would certainly no longer be considered great works. Without getting into detail about current and very recent works that people may have differing feelings about, I think it’s safe to say that the following baker’s dozen are not works we would think of as “great” today.

No Place to Be Somebody

That Championship Season

The Shadow Box

The Gin Game

J. B.

The Teahouse of the August Moon

There Shall Be No Night

Harvey

State of the Union

The Kentucky Cycle

The Shrike

The Old Maid

Both Your Houses…

And so forth. And that doesn’t mention the certifiable great plays that have not won the Pulitzer: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, M. Butterfly, Perestroika, etc.

Once you get into recent years, I personally don’t think that Between Riverside and Crazy, The Flick, Water by the Spoonful or a number of others will remotely stand the test of time, but I concede that it’s too soon to tell. But as for the prize being a guaranteed signifier of greatness? No way.

 

 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 4/17/16 at 10:12pm

yfs,

Interesting list. Thanks for taking the time to compile it. Cutting to the chase, yes, I believe a play is great in its own time. For me, that is an outgrowth of my notion of what a play should do, which is speak to its time. Thus, I consider Angels the greatest play of my adult life. (I assume you don't disagree by much-people can argue about whether or not a second Pulitzer would have been redundant, etc but not about the merit.) And yet some day I hope its subject matter will fully recede from the public consciousness and it will no longer speak to people as it does to us. The number of plays that endure in resonance-reaching back to the Greeks-is remarkably small-less than the number of plays presented on the New York stage in any given year I suspect. 

[yfs]

Posted: 4/18/16 at 2:50pm

Fair enough. I guess I was just reacting to your contention that prizes absolutely confer greatness. I don't think they do, and I don't think it's heresy to say so. But with the understanding that you mean that the winners tend to speak loudly to the community in which they're presented at the time they're presented, I'd say that's largely true. What's more shocking is the naturally conservative nature of the prize-givers, including the Pulitzer, which shied away from, say "Virginia Woolf" and then gave the prize to a couple of other Albee plays later on, when he was no longer an "Enfant Terrible". Certainly "Virginia Woolf" was the most important play produced in 1962, and probably the only one from that season that has achieved a permanent place in the repertoire, yet the Pulitzer Committee ducked it and gave no award. So Prizes may confer greatness, but they're not always a reliable way of judging it. 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 4/18/16 at 3:10pm

well I don't think exceptions prove rules and there are certainly headscratchers in both directions. I'd also be more comfortable if they exercised the right to decline giving an award a little bit more often. But all of that being said, I still believe the Pulitzer is a fairly reliable measure of what is great at the time. In the case of Virginia Woolf, I think one could argue it was a case of a play being ahead of its time. 

I've written previously about my feelings on people declaring anything "for the ages" until after everyone around at the start has been dead for a while. I think that informs my feelings on this.

[JM226]

Posted: 4/18/16 at 5:15pm

^ shush!