20 Broadway Shows that Everybody Should Know Well — Page 2

I like the idea of 20 flops. There are far too many amazing musicals to simply narrow it down to 20 - something important will be left out.

I'm only 21 so I am most familiar with recent flops.

Anyone Can Whistle
Merrily We Roll Along
Candide
Carrie
Sweet Smell of Success
Glory Days
9 to 5
A Catered Affair
Cry-Baby
A Tale of Two Cities
Little Women
The Pirate Queen
Lestat
High Fidelity
The Woman in White
Caroline or Change
Urban Cowboy
Taboo
Thou Shalt Not
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Updated On: 8/9/10 at 05:25 PM

I think anyone who makes a list and leaves "Chorus Line" out (Yes, Jordan, even you) is absolutely stupid.

Chorus Line, aside from being the longest running American musical, it TOTALLY revolutionized the creation of the musical with the introduction of workshopping. It's also got the most prime example of musical theatre hierarchy. That being, when the emotion is heightend, you sing, and when words are no longer enough you dance. It's so brilliantly charted with "Music and the Mirror."

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If a theatre professor is teaching Wicked as one of the classics they need to be fired and banned from teaching.

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Be careful, Mordden doesn't always fact check too well....

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Honestly, it's been so long since I read one, that nothing specific stands out. I just remember reading One More Kiss (that's the 70's right?) and going "This isn't right...neither is this...or this!"

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Ok, so I pulled out "The Happiest Corpse I've Ever Seen" (got it as a gift, never read it) and am skimming through. First thing, during his discussion of "La Cage" he never gives a character name, just the actors. This would be fine, except he then uses an excerpt from the script, using the actor's last name instead of the character's name. I find that a bit odd. Especially since later he uses an excerpt from "Collete Collage" and uses character names.

I really wish I had "One More Kiss" still, b/c it really was a continual stream. Enough so that I stopped reading.

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Wow, it's a sad commentary on Broadway that you asked for 20 Broadway shows and almost nobody picked a single play .. as opposed to musical.

Really pathetic.

If you want good theatre nowadays - Broadway is the last place to look.

But more so, if you want people knowedgeable about theatre, it's not a Broadway audience. They just want shows they already know the plots of and musicals of movies they have seen.

Rent
Phantom
Gypsy
Sweeney Todd
Cabaret
The King and I
Les Miserables
West Side Story
Company
South Pacific
Oklahoma!
Chicago
Fiddler on the Roof
Evita
Hair
Ragtime
Nine
Camelot
Into the Woods
Carousel

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Carousel
A Chorus Line
August Osage County
The Homecoming (Actually any Pinter play)
Caroline or Change
Angels In America
Sweeney Todd
Merrily We Roll Along
Company
Doubt
Parade
Carrie
Follies
West Side Story
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
RENT
Phantom of the Opera
CATS
Showboat
Wicked
Les Miserables

Books:

The Season
A Chorus Line and the Musicals of Michael Bennett
The Happiest Corpse I've Ever Seen
Everthing Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies
Stephen Sondheim: A Life
Free For All: Joe Papp, The Public and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told

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Updated On: 8/10/10 at 12:43 AM

Phantom - most successful piece of entertainment of all time

Longest running doesn't necessarily mean most successful. Wouldn't THE LION KING be the most successful, as it is the highest grossing in Broadway history? Last year it became the first to gross over $1,000,000,000 since it opened.

Hard question because it can be interpreted in so many ways. Some shows are more important for composers to know; others are more important for librettists to know, others for producers to know; others for, respectively, designers, aficionados, performers, investors, scholars, etc.

Some shows people should know well because they are so damned good and illustrate what the form can do at its best. Some shows people should know well because they are extremely successful. Some shows people should know well because they were truly innovative. Some shows people should know because they are deemed innovative, which is, in many respects, as important as being truly innovative. Some shows people should know well because of why they failed artistically. Other shows people should know well because of why they failed financially.

And I could go on and on.

One thing's for sure, though. I'd have trouble reducing the list to 20.

Updated On: 4/6/14 at 11:41 AM

There aren't just musicals:

A Streetcar Named Desire
Death of a Salesman
Long Days Journey Into Night
Angels in America
The Odd Couple
The Crucible
The Glass Menagerie
The Piano Lesson
A Raisin in the Sun
Picnic
All the Way Home
Night of the Iguana
Fences
Anna Christie
Our Town
Harvey
A Delicate Balance
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
M. Butterfly
August: Osage County