Side Show: Come Look At The Freaks Aida: Every Story Ragtime: Prologue Carousel: 1994 Revival.........PURELY BEAUTIFUL TO SEE Seussical: Oh The Thinks You Can Think. The Wild Pary(Off-Broadway): Queenie Was A Blonde.
Songs For A New World Sweeney Todd A Chorus Line Company Into The Woods
"First and foremost I want to thank God, because there is no way that somebody with my name from South St. Louis ends up at Radio City Music Hall holding one of these without some divine intervention" -- Norbert Leo Butz (Tony Speech)
Andrew...tons of people put A Chorus Line...but its still an awesome choice. I really like the Prologue in Ragtime and Audition Dance in 42nd Street. I'm a bit surprised no one mentioned Runyonland from Guys and Dolls. I never saw it on Broadway but in a production I was in it was pretty cool, and like WSS, set the scene and atmosphere without a word spoken.
Jekyll and Hyde: Either opening "lost in the darkness" or "I need to know". Both those songs, while quite different, are also very powerful and IMHO, brings the audience in immediately. I love it. Freaked me out a little when I first saw it.
Ragtime's opening number is completely un-beatable. This song introduces you to the story, the characters, and the themes of the piece, is energetic and entertaining, and a BEAUTIFUL song. The moment when the three groups (whites, immigrants, blacks) let lost in the music and end up intermingling, only to run back to a huddle with their respective groups with Mother, Coalhouse, and Tateh left center is definitely one of the most powerful stage pictures I've ever seen. Gives me chills every time.
And just to be different, I love the pure jazzy excitement of "Queenie was a Blonde" in lachuisa's Wild Party (Lippa's doesn't even come close).
Comedy Tonight from Forum, for me. Beautiful Girls from Follies, too.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
I'm kinda new here so I don't know if too many people know this one but "Let There Be" from Children of Eden is spectacular, i think better than Schwartz's "No one mourns the Wicked".
Also, whoever said "too Much Exposition/Urinetown" is COMPLETELY correct! Absolutely wonderful!!
Also, I think that for Aida, you need to include "Fortune Favors ther Brave" with "Every Story..." but I don't think they're that high on my list.
No One Mourns the Wicked is my favorite because it covers such a large range of information. I love the power of it, the ensemble on stage belting it out, Glinda in the bubble belting in an operatic voice, "Good News!" So powerful, gets the audience right into the show!
"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
To Kill A Mockingbird