100 Most Historically Significant Musicals? (Corona/theater education related help needed)

[edmundog2]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 5:56pm

Hello! I'm a drama teacher who is going to be teaching remotely for the next three weeks at least due to the virus, and I thought it would be fun to do a little post for my students every day about a musical. You know, when it came out, who wrote it, what the best song is, if there's a movie, stuff like that.

To make it more educational, I decided to be sure to focus at least in part on musicals that are in some way "significant", and discuss their importance to the development of the art form if I can. But I tell ya, I am TERRIFIED that I forgot an obvious one, as this is really not my area. I'm a play guy, not a musical guy. I like them, but I don't know them as well as plays. 

So I turn to you, expert enthusiasts. Am I missing anything obvious? Or is there something more obscure that's more important than people think? Obviously, I've got a bunch on here that are just popular, or that I think the kids will like, but I'm more than willing to add some, or remove some if I decide to keep it at a top 100 list. (fingers crossed this doesn't last that long.)

So here's the list as I currently have it, at 101. The notes after the titles are what I thought made them important, or at least interesting. Have at it, and on behalf of the drama students of America, thank you!

1866 - The Black Crook - Debated first musical

1879 - The Pirates of Penzance - Example of operetta

1915 - Very Good Eddie - First successful book musical

1927 - Show Boat - First successful musical drama

1943 - Oklahoma! - Started musical trend

1945 - Carousel - Integrated songs and dialogue

1946 - Annie Get Your Gun

1949 - South Pacific

1951 - The King and I

1954 - Peter Pan - Original play with added songs

1955 - Damn Yankees - First competitive Best Musical tony

1956 - My Fair Lady

1957 - Cinderella

1957 - West Side Story - Full dance integration, youth oriented story

1959 - Fiorello!

1959 - Gypsy

1959 - The Sound of Music

1960 - Bye Bye Birdie

1960 - Camelot

1960 - The Fantasticks

1961 - How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

1963 - A Fvnny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forvm

1963 - Half a Sixpence - star vehicle

1963 - She Loves Me

1964 - Fiddler on the Roof

1964 - Hello, Dolly!

1965 - Man of La Mancha

1966 - Mame

1967 - You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown - off-Broadway hit, unusual development

1966/1998 -  Cabaret - First post-book musical (original), example of revamp (revival)

1968 - Hair - First major rock musical, social issues

1969 - 1776 - Historical/contemporary commentary

1970 - Company - Pioneering concept musical, no plot in traditional sense

1971 - Grease - Retro/nostalgia show

1971 - Jesus Christ Superstar - concept album/concert/show

1972 - Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

1972 - Pippin

1974 - The Magic Show

1974 - The Wiz

1976 - A Chorus Line - First mega-run

1976 - Chicago

1976 - Pacific Overtures

1977 - Annie - Comic strip inspiration

1977 - Working - 

1978 - Ain’t Misbehavin’ - First hit jukebox musical

1978 - Evita - First hit of "British style"

1979 - A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine

1979 - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

1981 - Dreamgirls

1982 - Little Shop of Horrors - Cult film adaptation

1982 - Nine - Almost all female cast

1983 - Cats - First modern blockbuster

1984 - Sunday in the Park with George - Pointillism used in score

1985 - The Mystery of Edwin Drood - First major musical written entirely by one person

1986 - The Phantom of the Opera- Longest run

1987 - Into the Woods - merging and altering known/popular plots

1989 - Forever Plaid

1990 - Assassins

1990 - Once on This Island

1991 - Phantom

1992 - Five Guys Named Moe

1994 - Beauty and the Beast - First Disney

1996 - Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk

1996 - Ragtime - Intersecting plotlines, wandering narrator

1996 - Rent - First modern rock musical

1997 - Bat Boy: The Musical

1997 - The Lion King - Use of puppets, variety of international theater styles

1997 - The Scarlet Pimpernel

1998 - Hedwig and the Angry Inch

1998 - The Drowsy Chaperone

1999/2014 - The Hunchback of Notre Dame

1999 - Mamma Mia!

2000-2006 Dracula/Lestat/Dance of the Vampires

2000 - Aida

2000 - Seussical

2000 - The Full Monty

2000 - The Wild Party

2000 - The Wild Party

2001 - The Last Five Years - song cycle

2001 - The Producers - spurred revival of American musical comedy

2001 - Urinetown

2003 - Hairspray

2003 - Wicked

2004 - Avenue Q

2005 - Billy Elliot

2005 - Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

2005 - The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

2007 - In the Heights - First major narrative hip-hop musical

2008 - Next to Normal - sequel

2010 - Love Never Dies

2010 - Matilda

2010 - The Scottsboro Boys

2011 - Newsies

2011 - Shrek

2012 - A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

2012 - Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812

2013 - Fun Home

2015 - Be More Chill

2015 - Death Note - international hit

2015 - Hamilton

2016 - Dear Evan Hansen

2017 - SpongeBob SquarePants - Cartoon adaptation of nonhuman characters

2018 - Hadestown

[edmundog2]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 5:58pm

By the way, quick clarification on that Drood note, that "entirely by one person" refers to Holmes doing the book, music, lyrics, AND orchestrations. Plenty have done the first three, I think the only ones to have done all four are him and Dave Malloy.

[Mr. Wormwood]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 6:26pm

The Music Man and Guys & Dolls are the most glaring ones missing

EDIT: Also Les Miserables...

You can't really make a list of significant musicals without those three

I would also include Oliver & 42nd Street

Updated On: 3/16/20 at 06:26 PM

[edmundog2]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 6:39pm

See? Perfect example! How the **** did I miss Les Mis? The other two I can forgive, at least a bit. 

Maybe they were lost to time. I made this list a while back for a different thing, and I tried to keep it roughly even in terms of time. Counting forward from Oklahoma, if you split the timeline into quarters, there's about the same amount in each chunk. It's not perfect, but it's about there. Perhaps Music Man and Guys and Dolls got lost in that shuffle. But Les Mis is such an international hit, it has to be on there.

[Det95]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 6:52pm

Personally, I would add Kiss Me, Kate the first show to win the Best Musical Tony. I would also add Shuffle Along (1921) the first hit show written by an African American writing team.

[edmundog2]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 6:55pm

Ooh, Shuffle Along is perfect, because I was thinking of adding something to reflect the proto-musical revue shows, and that fits the bill just right in addition to the historical import.

[edmundog2]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 6:55pm

Any I can delete on there? I like the idea of keeping it at 100. I don't need the Scarlet Pimpernel, I'm sure.

Updated On: 3/16/20 at 06:55 PM

[CT2NYC]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 7:17pm

The Book of Mormon belongs on the list.

Updated On: 3/16/20 at 07:17 PM

[CT2NYC]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 7:31pm

And Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, for the longest preview period, among other reasons.

[CT2NYC]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 7:36pm

And Merrily We Roll Along, for its troubled history.

[copskid949]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 7:57pm

Here are some suggestions (not counting the ones above, all of which I agree with)! Great list so far. :)))

1929 - Good News! - great example of a show from and inspired by the time period, also has a long history of being revised both on film and onstage, to the point where it basically represents the entire collaborative career of its writers through all the material that got sucked into it; these guys, DeSylva/Brown/Henderson, were actually super big in their day but aren’t as well-remembered despite writing some really iconic songs like “The Best Things in Life Are Free” which originated in Good News! (the movie of the same name is an interesting watch to learn more about them)

1930/1992 - Girl Crazy/Crazy for You - Similarly to GN, a ‘20s musical that got revived in the ‘90s and is basically one of only a few Gershwin shows you’ll still see regularly performed today that haven’t been staged/written after the fact (American in Paris, Nice Work If You Can Get It, etc.)

1966 - Sweet Charity - 👏🏻Bob👏🏻Fosse

1983 - La Cage aux Folles

1988 - Carrie - wildly unsuccessful big-name adaptation that became THE flop to beat, but eventually got a new life in 2013 and is actually quite popular with teen/college age audiences

1992 - Falsettos - Off-Broadway one-act musicals written essentially in real-time as the AIDS crisis occurred, eventually combined into a two-act Broadway musical whose 2016 revival REALLY blew up online

1994/1996 - Grease/Chicago revivals - producers pioneered stunt casting, where shows hire big stars to fill in certain roles and sell tickets (Rizzo in Grease, basically every lead in Chicago); some have been historically disastrous, such as Cameron Dallas in Mean Girls or Aaron Carter in Seussical, but it has kept Chicago running since 1996 so there must be something to it!

1996/2013 - State Fair/Cinderella - Rodgers and Hammerstein shows that originated in film or TV before coming to Broadway posthumously

1996 - The Rosie O’Donnell Show - not a stage show, rather a daytime talk show; Rosie constantly supported/invited the casts of various Broadway musicals, particularly struggling ones that she wanted to boost, including Titanic and (most notably) Seussical, which eventually stunt-casted her as the Cat in the Hat in a move that saved the show for at least a little bit

1997 - Titanic - super underrated Best Musical from the composer of “Nine” that used a large cast and a tilting set

2005 - Jersey Boys

2006 - Spring Awakening - very unique as a show, indicative of the progress Broadway made in defying social norms, also an evolution on a rebellious work from 1891

2010 - Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark - the new Carrie

2013 - Kinky Boots - huge example of stunt casting

2014 - Heathers - the cult musical of the 2010s despite not making it to Broadway after some unfortunate (rumored) in-fighting; if someone was posting about shows on Tumblr in the second half of this decade, it was one of the Big Five: Heathers, Be More Chill, Dear Evan Hansen, Falsettos 2016, and Hamilton

2015 - Something Rotten! - a musical that was essentially a love letter to all musicals

2016 - Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 - just a note that might be interesting with the other stuff I’ve mentioned, but the closure of the show is an interesting case study of stunt/colorblind casting vs. racial relations in America: a black actor, Okieriete Onaodowan, was colorblind-cast to play Pierre after Josh Groban left, but his run was cut short by the stunt casting of Mandy Patinkin, a white actor, due to low ticket sales; Onaodowan AND Patinkin backed out, leading composer Dave Malloy to take over; the controversy killed the show, calling it “racist” despite having the most diverse cast on Broadway at the time

2017 - Come From Away - 9/11 musical in NYC, kept its original cast for a few years and is probably one of the most important shows currently running in terms of the lesson it provides and also its impact on the locals

2018 - The Prom - landmark show for the LGBTQ+ community, especially with their parade performance

2019 - Beetlejuice - their social media presence is MASSIVE; like, Be More Chill certainly takes the award for online power, but Beetlejuice is really using it, specifically pioneering on TikTok, to their advantage here; also the story behind their closure is, as the kids say, tea: their contract had a stop clause, where if they couldn’t make a certain amount of money in a two-week period, producers could kick them out at any time. They hit this clause JUST before their Tony Awards performance boosted them, becoming what I’m pretty sure is THE most-watched Tony’s performance to date. In came Music Man and the coronavirus, and it looks the show won’t be able to move. Never say never, but a month off seems very rough.

Updated On: 3/16/20 at 07:57 PM

[kdogg36]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 8:35pm

Out of curiosity, why did you note “sequel” with Next to Normal?

[edmundog2]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 8:50pm

kdogg36 said: "Out of curiosity, why did you note “sequel” with Next to Normal?"

I think that must have been me typing the notes in a hurry. I meant to put that note on Love Never Dies below. Musical sequels are such a rarity at all, and Phantom was such a huge hit, I think the failure of its sequel is very interesting.

[edmundog2]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 8:52pm

These are great suggestions. Definitely adding Carrie and Spider-Man, and while I won't do revivals independently unless they severely revamp the show (Cabaret, for instance), I do love the suggestion to mention the late 90s stunt casting surge.

[ggersten]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 9:55pm

Porgy and Bess?
Of Thee I Sing? First musical to win Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Follies?
Contact? If only to discuss what makes a “musical” a “musical” and because Simply Irrisistible is a personal favorite.


Why is Fiorello! on the list?

[Mr. Wormwood]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 10:28pm

edmundog2 said: "See? Perfect example! How the **** did I miss Les Mis? The other two I can forgive, at least a bit.

Maybe they were lost to time. I made this list a while back for a different thing, andI tried to keep it roughly even in terms of time. Counting forward from Oklahoma, if you split the timeline into quarters, there's about the same amount in each chunk. It's not perfect, but it's about there. Perhaps Music Man and Guys and Dolls got lost in that shuffle. But Les Mis is such an international hit, it has to be on there."

Guys & Dolls should absolutely be on the list over at least 80 of the ones you have there. A Pulitzer winner (before vetoed due to the Red Scare), one of the first shows to very successfully integrate plot and music in a true all-out comedy as opposed to R&H shows with their drama elements, a show that spawned a very unique all black revival in 1976 and one of the most acclaimed revivals of all time in 1992 and a show that has endured more than almost any show from that time. High schools still perform Guys & Dolls much more than R&H shows now. It's one of the most quintessential Broadway shows of all time.

[SeanMartin2]

Posted: 3/16/20 at 11:19pm

"Very Good Eddie" was not the first "successful book musical". That accolade belongs to "The Pink Lady" from 1902, which may now be forgotten but in its day was a success on the scale of Phantom today. It was one of the first to fully integrate song and script — you can only take out one number and perform it alone; the rest are dependent on the libretto giving them a framework. At its height there were no less than four touring productions, and the star's wardrobe inspired a whole line of women's fashions. It's a wonderful little play, in dire need to revival.

Updated On: 3/16/20 at 11:19 PM