Favorite Story Songs
Favorite Story Songs
CurtainUp
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/9/04
#0Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/20/04 at 7:02pm
Just a random, fun topic. As a character actress, I often want to use a story song for vocal auditions. Unfortunately, there is usually a time limit so the song only makes sense in its entirety, not in segments.
A) What are your favorites?
FUNNY
*A Trip to the Library - "She Loves Me"
*Nothing - "A Chorus Line"
*Swamps of Home - "Once Upon a Mattress"
Feel free to give me serious ones too.
B) What DO you use in case for a time limit.
*Sensitivity - "...Mattress"
I WOULD USE: *"Can't Get a Man with A Gun" "Sun in the Morning" "Doin' What comes Naturally" - Annie Get Your Gun
*"Little Known Facts" - You're a Good Man Charlie Brown
Rosencrantz: "Be happy - if you're not even HAPPY what's so good about surviving? We'll be all right. I suppose we just go on."
- from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
FabalaCohen
Broadway Star Joined: 10/30/04
#1re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/20/04 at 7:57pm
Not Broadway, but Kitty's Back by Bruce Springsteen is the best story song I've heard.
"During this performance, please feel free to let your cell phones and pagers ring willy-nilly. However, do remember that there are heavily-armed knights on stage and you might well be dragged up and impaled."
(Pre-curtain announcement at the new Broadway musical Monty Python's Spamalot)
#2re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/20/04 at 8:00pm'Poor Thing' from "Sweeney Todd"
"Smart! And into all those exotic mystiques -- The Kama Sutra and Chinese techniques. I hear she knows more than seventy-five. Call me tomorrow if you're still alive!"
BWIDB Charlie
Broadway Star Joined: 5/6/04
#3re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/20/04 at 8:16pm
All of The Last Five Years.
Charlie
magicpiane@kc.rr.com
touchmeinthemorning
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/3/04
#5re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/20/04 at 9:43pmStars and the Moon from Songs for a New World
"Fundamentalism means never having to say 'I'm wrong.'"
-- unknown
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
millie_dillmount
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/22/04
#8re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/20/04 at 11:49pmThis didn't start off on Broadway, but "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" by Billy Joel is a good one.
"We like to snark around here. Sometimes we actually talk about theater...but we try not to let that get in our way." - dramamama611
Evita
Swing Joined: 11/1/04
#9re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/21/04 at 12:11am
"Oh What A Circus"(I think that counts)
Non-B'Way: "Adrian" by Jewel, "Painter" by Jewel
Currently: FASTRADA in Pippin
Dream Role: Mimi in RENT
"No day but today."
"PATTI: Would you mind if I sang?
JACK: Shut up, Patti LuPone! Shut your brassy, magnificent trap! I don't wanna hear you sing. I don't wanna cut your hair. And I certainly don't wanna hear you singing while I'm cutting your hair! Got it?! Now I'm talking to my best friend, so stand back, Buenos Aires!"- from Will & Grace
#10re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/21/04 at 4:17am
Saga of Jenny
Summer in Ohio(Does that count?)
Surabya (or howeva u spell it) Santa from Songs from a new world)
J'ai compris tous les mots, j'ai bien compris, merci.............
#11re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/21/04 at 9:31am
"Can't Get A Man With A Gun" - Annie Get Your Gun
"Little Girls" - Annie (Not really a "story" song, but a character song.)
"The tick BOOM tick BOOM is so loud I can't hear the rain on the grass. I can't hear the wind. I'm about to scream. But I realize I'm not alone."
#12re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/21/04 at 10:15am
The first one that comes to mind is Meg's "The Love of My Life" from Brigadoon. Any nympho rant is all right in my book!!
Other -- although perhaps predictable -- favorites are "Charity's Soliloquy" from Sweet Charity and Billy Bigelow's "Soliloquy" from Carousel.
"ubiquitous"
Updated On: 11/21/04 at 10:15 AM
#13re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/21/04 at 11:39am
FUNNY
Joshua Noveck
Taylor the Latte Boy
SERIOUS
Meadowlark
Stars and the Moon
"Nothing is an accident, We are free to have it all, We are what we want to be, It's in ourselves to rise or fall!!" - "Fortune Favors the Brave" from Aida - the love that never died
#14re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/21/04 at 1:28pm
"My Book" and "I Won't Mind" by Jeff Blumenkrantz
"I Eat" by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty
"Ring Them Bells" by Kander & Ebb
"Did you know that if you take the first two vowels in Olive and rearrange them it spells I-Love?"-Spelling Bee
"It's night like this that hotel bars were specifically made." Light In The Piazza
Broadway Star Joined: 12/31/69
#15re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/21/04 at 2:33pm
Tom is a gr8 one. LOVE it.
Any of the songs from closer than ever or starting here starting now.
Many Moons ago - Mattress
CurtainUp
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/9/04
#16re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/21/04 at 3:13pmOy-how could I forget L5Y and Hedwig? Oh, and AndyH a girl last year tried out w/ "I Can't Say No" and the teacher assigned her to "Love of my Life" and it was HYSTERICAL! This beautiful girl, w/ not a great voice but a great character belt was just AWESOME-she was one of the best.
Rosencrantz: "Be happy - if you're not even HAPPY what's so good about surviving? We'll be all right. I suppose we just go on."
- from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
#17re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/21/04 at 4:06pmI second "Taylor the Latte Boy"! I also enjoy "And They're Off" from A New Brain and most of the songs from Elegies.
"Is it your booty? Is that what it is? Is it that booty of yours? I hope it is!"-Zanna, Don't!
(.JPG)
mizzie
Featured Actor Joined: 9/30/04
BEKA531
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/4/04
Beanmatt
Chorus Member Joined: 5/16/03
#20re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/21/04 at 5:43pmHow about "All For You" from Seussical or "The Writing on the Wall" from Drood. Both good character/story songs.
#21re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/21/04 at 6:25pm
What about some parts in Cabaret? I am listening to it now.. and the whole "I used to have a girlfriend known as Elsie.." reminded me of a story song. yeah okay it's a stretch 
#22re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/21/04 at 7:15pm"A Trip to the Library" from She Loves me:)
There's always room for pathos - and jazz hands.
CurtainUp
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/9/04
#23re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/21/04 at 8:11pmOh, Magic, how "...Library" would've been an absolutely perfect audition song for me if the teacher hadn't had a 1.5 minute limit. Grr---it's SO fabulous, fun, adorable and has SO many different emotions. I just love it! "So many books!"
Rosencrantz: "Be happy - if you're not even HAPPY what's so good about surviving? We'll be all right. I suppose we just go on."
- from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
#24re: Favorite Story Songs
Posted: 11/21/04 at 8:19pmYou guys keep saying stuff from Once Upon a Mattress... we had our last show today... I being Winnifred... ugh, I hate that show. But another song in it that kinda tells a story is Happily Ever After... after all, she is telling the fairy tales.
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