First of all I apologize for mistaking you for someone young, untutored and inexperienced -- it's an understandable mistake considering your "Awards" list. You claim YEARS of theatre-going experience (which I don't believe for a second, by the way) and yet your so-called "Century in Musical Theatre Awards" only includes roughly a dozen different shows (and a handful of movies) from that 100 year period, with no entries from the first half of that century. And in your "experience" you honestly believe Jennifer Love Hewitt gave one of the five finest performances of the CENTURY by an actress in a supporting role??? That Starlight Express is one of the five greatest achievements in musical composition in the last 100+ years???? You most certainly have a right to your opinion and, in turn, we have a right to find those opinions utterly ludicrous and call into serious question your "taste" in and "knowledge" of the subject.
Clearly, as you state, you are no theatre expert -- but I am (I'll let Robbie speak for himself, but I know that he's been a professional working the industry for many years). My training in several theatrical disciplines and extensive work in the field qualifies me as one. And as for your rather weak boast that you've probably "seen a lot more shows both here in NYC and at the West End in London," I gave up counting years ago but my best estimate is that I've seen somewhere between 850 and 1000 professional productions On and Off Broadway, Regionally and in the West End -- over 90 so far this year (over 400 in the last 5 years alone).
As for your touting of what reviews you saw of that Christmas Carol movie, I too saw a few good ones, but more that were mixed-to-negative at best (a couple of two star ones as I recall). Regardless of the critics, going on (AND ON AND ON) about a damn tv movie you saw a week ago like it's some landmark in the history of the musical form, makes you look, well, .... (I'll try to be kind) like someone who hasn't seen very much and lacks the knowledge and perspective and sense of history to be able to make such a bold assessment. It calls everything else you say into question (and your elevating Ms. Love-Hewitt as one of the all time great musical theatre performers doesn't help).
Anyway, enough. If Robbie and I seemed arrogant, it was YOUR own arrogance at putting together such an ill-informed "Awards" List and holding yourself out as some sort of authority on the last 100 Years of Musical Theatre -- which you couldn't be further from being -- that inspired our pointed remarks. Read a few books on musical theatre history, watch some documentaries (some are some excellent ones out there) and see a LOT more shows and then try your list again in a few years.
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
.jpg?format=auto&width=300)
