ANY GENIUS LEFT IN MUSICAL THEATRE?!!!

[ORPHAN]

Posted: 10/19/03 at 1:04am

Is there any GENIUS left in musical theatre? Remember when you could really say a show was brilliant!!! Maybe I'm just kidding myself. IS THERE ANY BRILLIANCE LEFT IN THE SHOW WRITING AND MUSIC!!!

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 10/19/03 at 1:07am

Stephen Sondheim


...oh wait.. I forgot BOUNCE.. sorry :-/

[Musetta1957]

Posted: 10/19/03 at 1:30am

HOW about you GIVE SOME examples OF WHY you are ranting WITH occasional ALL CAPS?

[MusicMan]

Posted: 10/19/03 at 3:13am

Philip Jones, believe it or not, yes, there is. Trust me--THERE IS.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 10/19/03 at 10:06am

I believe there is, but they are not working in NYC. Unfortunately, Broadway has hired some untalented hacks. You can look to London for some true genius work.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 10/19/03 at 10:14am

Genius is defined by history, not contemporaries. This is art, not science.

[King Stevos]

Posted: 10/19/03 at 7:03pm

I would say Tim Rice is a lyrical genuis.
Jason R Brown does some great things boardering on genuis.
and lastly Jamie Strawn, a new composer, is a music genuis, and if he ever gets produced, you will think so to.

STEVOS

[Deena Jones2]

Posted: 10/19/03 at 7:16pm

King... I totlally agree about Tim Rice. Is he working on anything new? It was a thrill to see him at the Chess Concert.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 10/19/03 at 7:32pm

Yes, Sondheim. And how about that David Y_______, who wrote THE FULL MONTY. He captures the modern idiom brilliantly in that score. Let's see how he fares in his next offing.

[King Stevos]

Posted: 10/19/03 at 7:37pm

I dont know if Rice is working now, but i would love to see menken and rice team up again...king david...brilliant.

What about Hollman, and Kotis? the urinetown stuff is pretty genuis, even if the music is kinda simple.

STEVOS

[Cadriel]

Posted: 10/19/03 at 7:48pm

Tim Rice is usually taken to task for his too-clever rhymes, like "It's vital you sell me / So Machiavell-me" and "They need to adore me / So Christian Dior-me" in "Rainbow High" from EVITA, but yes, he has displayed genius talents for lyric writing. I don't think he's done anything truly magnificent since CHESS, and some of the rewrites for that got truly questionable by 1992 (a "Someone Else's Story" reprise Off-Broadway featured the truly lamentable lyrics "Tell me are we supposed to end up like this? / Why going cuckoo? / Why pretending to be Swiss?")...but a lot of his work was nothing short of brilliant.

I love Sondheim's work but a lot of his material, especially after SWEENEY TODD, seems to be obsessed with being brilliant at the expense of involving the audience. SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE is the ultimate, truly beautiful but cold to the fact that you're watching it. His canon has gone from being sophisticated to being plain elitist. (Of course, I love PASSION, so take that as you will.)

Jason Robert Brown is a true songwriting talent. The man crafts music that bursts with theatricality, and THE LAST FIVE YEARS may have had a bad run Off-Broadway, but it's destined to legendary status among theatre fans.

I agree that David Yazbeck did some great work on THE FULL MONTY. Good stuff there. I'd like to mention Andrew Lippa, who wrote a score for the Off-Broadway WILD PARTY that was one of the major factors that got me into American musical theatre (after having been mostly a fan of British shows).

-Wayne

[MusicMan]

Posted: 10/19/03 at 10:35pm

The qualifying word in this thread is that much-abused term, "genius," and the only writer mentioned thus far to whom that appellation applies is Sondheim. Period. (Though I completely agree wtih Cadriel's assessment that Sondheim's works since SWEENEY lack the middle-brow appeal---I mean that as a compliment---of the great middle-period shows for which he will be best remembered, it's the innovative and extraordinary quality of the writing that is the issue.) To make that same claim for the banal drivel that passes for Rice's lyrics or the self-indulgent songs of Brown, particularly those for the truly dreadful The Last Five Years (it failed off-Broadway because it was BAD) or the thoroughly undistinguished music of Lippa and Yazbek is unsupportable. These other writers, second or third-rate talents at best, would be lucky to kiss the lint in the thread-ends of the trailing hem of Sondheim's raiment.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 10/19/03 at 11:58pm

In a genre of storytelling which considers 'Annie' an achievement in the artform, I'm not sure being a genius is of any real use.

[orion59]

Posted: 10/20/03 at 8:14am

I agree that Sondheim equals genius. Terrance McNally has done some wonderful shows that will certainly stand up over time and be considered genius...Love, Valor and Compassion, A Man of No Importance, Master Class.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 10/20/03 at 9:08am

Well, Sondheim may be a genius musically (although I defer to actual musicians for that assessment) but I would hardly call his overwritten and unfriendly lyrics genius of any sense of the word. Basically, all his characters are as smart as Mr. Sondheim's rhyming dictionary and, generally, speak far too complexly for their character's place in the musical's world. It may be good wank material for wannabe sophisticates but to imply he's any more loyal to character than anyone else is, at best, apologism. Also given that all Mr. Sondheim's characters eventually descend into New York City middle-aged neuroses is another example of his limits as a wordsmith. Only "Sweeney Todd" stands as an exception.

[King Stevos]

Posted: 10/20/03 at 7:21pm

Poppa,
I find that Assasins has great lyrics, good for the characters. Did he not write them?

STEVOS

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/20/03 at 7:33pm

Most of the good ones are gone but here is my list

1. Kander & Ebb
2. Chita Rivera
3. Jerry Herman
4. Stephen Sondheim
5. Rob Marshall