Posted: 6/6/16 at 11:58am
Margo319 said: "The Scottsboro Boys, Next to Normal, and Once on This Island.
"
Nailed it 
Posted: 6/6/16 at 12:07pm
Sorry to quibble, Audrey, but "map s-e-d he" is an imperfect rhyme with "rhap-so-dy". It's something any marginally competent lyricist could invent and nothing to brag about. In fact, I'll wager most theater lyricists find it sloppy and something to avoid.
***
To aaaaaa15, I'm sure it seems otherwise at times, but very few of us here were attending Broadway shows before the late 1960s/early 1970s. (My first two Broadway shows were by Sondheim, not Vincent Youmans.) We know earlier shows from revivals, cast recordings and reading librettos, just as you know them. It's called education.
***
To the OP, I'll be happy to put together a list of 10, but to ask me to justify my choices is to ask me to write an entire article. Some of the following are including because of historical significance, sheer richness of the score, or merely my personal taste. Note: I am deliberately excluding PORGY AND BESS, STREET SCENE and GOLDEN APPLE, because to me they are operas that just happened to premier on Broadway.
OKLAHOMA!
SHOW BOAT
GUYS AND DOLLS
MY FAIR LADY
A CHORUS LINE
MAN OF LA MANCHA
GYPSY
FOLLIES
COMPANY
MOST HAPPY FELLA
I'm sure I'd have a somewhat different list tomorrow.
Updated On: 6/6/16 at 12:07 PM
Posted: 6/6/16 at 12:59pm
Hello Dolly!
Posted: 6/6/16 at 1:08pm
Certainly before everyone's time here, but I would think MY FAIR LADY directed by Moss Hart and with the original cast of Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison would be unbeatable.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 1:20pm
The ask is not what are our ten favorites but what are the ten all-time best, right? I'd go
A Chorus Line
Guys and Dolls
Gypsy
My Fairy Lady
Sweeney Todd
Les Miserables
Sunday in the Park with George
West Side Story
Cabaret
Carousel
Posted: 6/6/16 at 1:26pm
Gypsy
A Chorus Line
Guys and Dolls
Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf
Company
Death of a Salesman
Porgy and Bess
South Pacific
Moon for the Misbegotten
Streetcar Named Desire
Posted: 6/6/16 at 2:08pm
GavestonPS said: "To aaaaaa15, I'm sure it seems otherwise at times, but very few of us here were attending Broadway shows before the late 1960s/early 1970s. (My first two Broadway shows were by Sondheim, not Vincent Youmans.) We know earlier shows from revivals, cast recordings and reading librettos, just as you know them. It's called education."
I know 6 of the musicals on your list well. I certainly enjoyed them and would put some of them on my list of favorites. I just don't consider myself qualified enough to talk on which were the best as I think a lot of what comes with being the best is how they were relevant culturally at the time. I haven't seen/heard a lot of the lesser known musicals that came before my lifetime and therefore don't feel I can say well these ones are the best because I know of them. That's why I chose to comment on modern day only. Obviously, others can feel free to do what they wish in compiling their lists.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 2:12pm
Gaveston writes: Sorry to quibble, Audrey, but "map s-e-d he" is an imperfect rhyme with "rhap-so-dy". It's something any marginally competent lyricist could invent and nothing to brag about. In fact, I'll wager mosttheater lyricists find it sloppy and something to avoid.
Gaveston, at the risk of making us sound like two "word nerds" (I wonder if this term exists -- it should), I know it's an imperfect rhyme, and I'm sure Alan Jay Lerner realized it, too. I've forgotten what they call two and three syllable rhymes; some are considered "soft" because the last syllable is the same, and the next-to-last syllables rhyme. In this case, the last syllables, "he" and "dy" rhyme perfectly. More important, the non-rhyme ("said" and "sode", in my view, emphasize the rhymes in the first and third syllables.
In any event, cleverness is in the eye of the beholder. Otherwise Sondheim wouldn't be so controversial. 
Audrey
Posted: 6/6/16 at 2:17pm
Cupidboy2 posted a really great link a page back, to a brilliant conversation between 5 great theater minds on this very question that I guess was posted on the NY Mag website. It should be required reading for anyone interested in this debate each time a thread like this gets started. (Don't these threads show up regularly every 6 months or so?)
The difference between which 10 shows you LIKE best and which 10 you think are the BEST ever written is a subtlety lost on me. Shouldn't each of us believe in our hearts that what WE like the best are perforce the best shows for everyone for all time?
Updated On: 6/6/16 at 02:17 PM
Posted: 6/6/16 at 2:42pm
Someone in a Tree 2 writes: Shouldn't each of us believe in our hearts that what WE like the best are perforce the best shows for everyone for all time?
Not necessarily, Tree 2. As everyone on this board has figured out by now, my favorite musical, bar none, is "The Phantom of the Opera." The story, as told in the ALW version, speaks to me on a visceral level.
I often compare the Phantom to Jean Valjean, in that both of them started out with miserable lives (pardon the pun). JVJ made lemonade out of lemons. In contrast, the Phantom had plenty of lemons, but his musical talent also gave him plenty of sugar. He had the ingredients for lemonade, but threw away the sugar and kept the lemons. The story would fit well into a Greek tragedy.
Nonetheless, I do not consider POTO up there with "My Fair Lady," my second favorite musical. There is a major logical inconsistency in POTO , specifically, there was no reason for the Phantom to murder Buquet during the Act III ballet from "IL Muto." (In the Gerard Butler movie, Buquet was chasing the Phantom and that fixed the inconsistency). The Phantom had gotten what he wanted -- Christine in the starring role, instead of Carlotta. Why ruin Christine's opportunity?
Also, a few hours later, after overhearing Christine and Raoul on the roof, the Phantom crashes the chandelier while Christine is taking her bows, presumably for "IL Muto." Would anyone actually stick around for the performance after Buquet's body has dropped to the stage? For that matter, would the police allow the performance to continue? Once again, the movie solved the problem by postponing the chandelier crash, and making the timeline in that spot more ambiguous.
Additionally, the message in "My Fair Lady" is more intellectual than the message in POTO -- POTO is almost exclusively a melodramatic emotional journey. I consider stories that challenge both the intellect and the heart to be superior to those that challenge only one or the other.
Finally, "Something Rotten" has become one of my favorite musicals, even though it is a lot like a piece of fluffy cotton candy, that disappears when you chew on it. I love it, but I would never argue it is one of the greatest.
Audrey
Posted: 6/6/16 at 3:08pm
Fair enough, AH. By the way, you should really look up that link Cupidboy2 listed to read the deep discussion over where to include MY FAIR LADY in the list of greatest shows. (It ultimately did NOT make their cut of the 5 or even 10 greatest. Go figure.) As to my own picks, here goes--
PORGY & BESS
CAROUSEL
GUYS & DOLLS
MY FAIR LADY
WEST SIDE STORY
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF
CABARET
A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (though COMPANY is more groundbreaking)
A CHORUS LINE
SWEENEY TODD (though SUNDAY IN THE PARK again broke newer ground).
That's 10, which only got me to 1979; my apologies to the last 37 years.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 3:15pm
Screw needing to stop at 10.
I'm adding RAGTIME as well.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 5:32pm
Cupid Boy2 said: "To actually assist with the question at hand, I recommend you read this piece that is a conversation between Jesse Green, Nora Ephron, Frank Rich, Jonathan Tunick, and George C. Wolfe that is about this very topic. It might spark some ideas for you.
https://nymag.com/news/features/greatest-new-york/70476/
"
A very fascinating article. The panelists, to their credit, are gentle with shows they know are widely loved by others but not by them.
As a long-time reader of Frank Rich as theater reviewer (when he was known as "The Butcher of Broadway", and liberal opinion columnist for the Times, I would expect him to have to have no liking for any production sentimental or even having a touch of corn. But The Music Man is high on his list of favorites, going back to his childhood, and he professes love for the three R&H classics Carousel, South Pacific and King and I, while still giving the highest praise to Sweeney Todd and Night Music (which, it is noted, is seldom revived).
Posted: 6/6/16 at 8:11pm
My top 10 are:
WEST SIDE STORY
HAMILTON (sorry not sorry)
A CHORUS LINE
WICKED
SHE LOVES ME
SPRING AWAKENING
THE SOUND OF MUSIC
LES MISERABLES
INTO THE WOODS
PIPPIN
I know I said only 10, but I need an eleventh:
IT SHOULDA BEEN YOU
Posted: 6/6/16 at 8:25pm
My Top 10 are...
1) Billy Elliott
2) Les Mis
3) Rag Time
4) Rent
5) Fun Home
6) Sound of Music
7) Wicked
Gypsy
9) Damn Yankees
10) Into the Woods
Posted: 6/6/16 at 8:58pm
To go along with this discussion of favorites/the actual best:
I know these shows aren't necessarily all the best technically, but I find much more joy in doing these lists based on my favorites :) So my favorites are-
- RENT (admittedly, this one is partly sentimental reasons, but nevertheless, I still adore it and always will)
- Hamilton
- Next to Normal
- Hedwig and the Angry Inch
- Spring Awakening
- In the Heights
- Les Miserables
- The Last 5 Years
- Tick, Tick...Boom!
- Book of Mormon
There are a lot of other fantastic musicals that have been listed in here, but for me personally these are just the ones I constantly find myself coming back to time and time again :) A lot of the classics are shows I can recognize are impeccably crafted, but they don't tend to stick with me on a gut level in quite the same way.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 9:16pm
A Chorus Line (original production)
Hamilton
Equus
Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolf
Follies
Falsettos
A Little Night Music
Can't stack rank the rest
Posted: 6/12/16 at 4:44pm
Thank you for everyone who took the time to respond. It is greatly appreciated!!
Happy Tonys Day!
Posted: 6/12/16 at 7:54pm
In no particular order my top10 would have to include:
A Chorus Line
Company
Sunday in he Park with George
Anything Goes
My Fair Lady
City of Angels
Les Miserables
Rag Time
Show boat
On the 20th Cenrury
like previous responders my list could change daily depending on which cast albums I have listened to that day and the mood I am in!!!!! Do I want to hear an upbeat show, something to sing along with or to have a great sobbing session.
Posted: 6/13/16 at 5:49am
The best Broadway shows in my opinion are:
-A Chorus Line
-Miss Saigon
-Beauty and the Beast
-Wicked
-The Phantom
-Titanic
Favorite non-Broadway show:
-Elisabeth
Updated On: 6/13/16 at 05:49 AM
