Does Avenue Q owe Urinetown for The Tony for Best Musical? — Page 2

It has nothing to do with it being "my kind of show." I thought the lyrics were horrendous, the acting was mediocre, the music was enough to put someone to sleep, the lighting and sets were nothing short of "okay." You sound as if you think I don't like it because it was "deep" which is hardly the case at all. I prefer a show which causes me to think and see the symbolism.

I think the point here had nothing to do with whether COC should have been considered. People can like it all they want but to say that it was a contender in this year's Best Musical Tony is just not true. People may have liked to have seen it be a contender but it wasn't. It just wasn't that spectacular that it was going to blow away those other two. It just wasn't going to happen. Maybe if you put it in a year where there were not two powerhouse shows, maybe. You have to look at it Tony voter style. How many of the voters said they voted for Q because they wanted it to tour? Caroline was not a show that would have done well on tour. I'm not saying it would have done badly, but they wanted a show like Q or like Wicked. Caroline is a hard sell to theater fans, imagine how hard it would be to sell to others.

I'm sorry but I will never see how Caroline was moving, provocative, or even remotely good. I'm not the biggest Wicked fan in the world but I'll say this for it, it was better than COC. Then again, anything I've seen in the last 10 years aside from Rent and Hairspray was better than Caroline.

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I've looked in my crystal ball and can say, definitively, that CAROLINE will be remembered as the GYPSY of 2004...a spectacular, deeply affecting show that didn't win any Tonys.

And if WICKED went up against MILLIE for Tony in the same year, I would have given it to WICKED any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

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You can't question someone's credibility based on the fact that they didn't like one show. I'm sorry I would have to put Wicked's lyrics and Caroline's lyrics on the same page. Neither show was anything fantastic in terms of score- at all. I have seen many a show and neither of these two stand out as fantastic, however, Wicked (although incredibly long) didn't make me want to walk out at intermission.

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I've had people say things to me about disliking Caroline before, and yet I'm sorry but I cannot see how saying that I thought Wicked was okay and Caroline was not does anything for credibility. I don't go to a show to compare it to something else. Each show is an entity unto itself. Caroline's lighting was enough to put a person to sleep before the score even takes hold. The lyrics at the beginning of both the first and second acts were so completely muffled that I'm shocked anyone could even hear it. People then always say to me, well maybe you saw it on a bad night. I'm sorry but if opening night is deemed a "bad night" that's just sad.

I see the symbolism. I see the depth. I see what they attempted to do and I think they were highly ineffective in pulling it off. I absolutely saw all the content in Caroline or Change. I understood it. I sat through it.

My credibility has nothing to do with it. I am just as credible as anyone elses and the fact that I thought a show was poorly done has nothing to do with it. I've run into a ton of people who have criticized my dislike of Caroline and you know what, that's fine, they don't have to agree with me. Most of them, however (and I'm not saying this is you) did not even see the show and were basing their reactions to it on a cast recording.

If I've said it 1000 times, make this 1001, a person simply can NOT be an honest judge of an entire show based on only hearing a cast recording. It is just not possible. I don't care if the person sees the tour, west end, london, regional, or whatever kind of performance but until the person sits down and actually has to watch the show in its entire form they cannot state whether or not the show was any good. A show is not just made up of a score. It comprises a heck of a lot of other things and if you want to say that Caroline was superior to all the other shows this season simply because (which I disagree with anyway) its score was excellent, that's just wrong. You can like the score all you want but if you want to talk about the show in compared to other shows you cannot base it on score alone, it has to be based on its entire package. Caroline's lighting was awful, the costuming was decent but not memorable, the sets were okay, and the acting was nothing to write home about.

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I never said anyone else wasn't allowed to like it. Like it all you want, it doesn't matter to me at all. I just don't see it as groundbreaking on any level.

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I never said you didn't see Caroline. I saw Caroline too, and after sitting through opening night I could never go back to see it again. I just wouldn't put myself through that.

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People might have had Urinetown on the brain when this year's Tony race was going on, but I think plenty of them just decided to hop off the overwhelming Wicked bandwagon and vote for the smaller but better-executed show. I'm sure getting told that you have to vote for Wicked got annoying after a while.

As for Caroline...at the time of the Tonys, I thought Avenue Q should have won. Once I saw Caroline, my mind was changed. It isn't as perfectly executed as Q, which was just pitch-perfect in everything it attempted, but had higher ambitions, and reached them far more often than not.

As I remember, the Caroline appreciation threads, and the widespread love for the show on this board, didn't start until after the Tonys. I know that this place is hardly a reflection of the wider theatergoing public, but I wonder how the show would have done had it opened a bit earlier on Broadway. I also hope that Caroline gains popularity in the future. Or better yet, that Kushner and Tesori make another go at creating a musical in the future.

Updated On: 10/22/04 at 08:20 PM