"Faves" you've never actually seen

I somewhat agree that it's a bit presumptuous to declare something you've never seen as one's "favorite show of all time", but more so with musicals that aren't sung through. If a show is sung-through, it seems a bit more valid because you're essentially getting the entire story, albeit without any visuals.

The only show I've never seen that I nonetheless consistently count among my favorites is The Woman In White. The CD reflects what I believe is quite nearly the entire show, and I love it.

Updated On: 6/25/17 at 09:46 AM

I've never seen Next to Normal live, but I'd put it somewhere in my top five of favorite shows. I own the full script and the cast recording, have watched every clip of it I can find on YT, etc. and I do think I can pretty fully grasp the show and confidently call it one of my favorites of all time, and I don't think seeing a live performance would change that.

As for the examples you listed with TGC and DEH – I probably listened to the original TGC soundtrack at least once a week every week from early 2015 (when I found out about it) to November 2016, when I finally got a chance to see it live. Now, prior to seeing it, I would have also put it somewhere in my top five, but with TGC especially, seeing it in person completely changes your perception of a lot of stuff, and it immediately catapulted it to around my number two spot. The same thing happened with DEH, but in the opposite direction. I wasn't a massive fan of the music itself – I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it – but figured in context maybe it'd come across better for me. However when I saw it, book and all, it only solidified my indifference towards the show (except for Ben Platt, of course, who only grew in opinion in my mind).

So basically, long story short, I think that it's very possible to call something your "favorite show" without ever seeing it live. People usually have a pretty good sense of what they like and dislike, and unless there's something radical that happens in the live performance, I don't think seeing it live would do much to change your opinion on it.

I've thought about this a lot, actually. There are a number of older shows that I wasn't around for (some that weren't even professionally recorded) that I know from ephemera like draft scripts and scratchy bootlegs and photos from books and the Lincoln Center library and reviews and articles, and I love these shows that I've never seen. I love them the same way I love favorite shows that I have seen.

When it's over, a show only lives on in your mind. We experience a show once (most of us) but it lives in us forever. (How's that for cheesy?) So there are unseen shows that burn as brightly in my mind as the ones I've seen, and in the end that's all we're left with anyway.

There's also the phenomenon of where the production in your head is way better than the one you actually see. My imagined "Hair" has never been equaled by anyone actually doing it.

I think it's totally possible to love a how you haven't seen.

If it's a play, you can read the script (in fact many were written to be read s literature without being seen) and if it's a musical you can hear the music and know the story. For me that is enough.

My top musicals are SHE LOVES ME and A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC. I saw SHE LOVES ME on Broadway last season because it was my favorite show, and it did live up to my expectations. I still haven't seen ALNM but I have no doubt in my mind that I adore it. I know the story, I've listened to the music hundreds of time and read the script, in addition to watching the NYCO video and listening to a radio broadcast or two. More shows I loved before I saw them were THE GOLDEN APPLE and THE FANTASTICKS. And I love LITTLE SHOP and ON A CLEAR DAY (the original version) without having seen them either.

I think anyone who rolls their eyes and judges someone for loving a show they haven't seen are the pretentious ones. We all don't have the luxury of seeing every show that hits Broadway or New York (or even Boston, Chicago etc.) and in fact for the vast majority of theatre fans even the closest community or regional theatres are an hour or more away. And for young people if you don't drive that means no theatre for you.

Mr. Nowack said: "I think it's totally possible to love a how you haven't seen.

If it's a play, you can read the script (in fact many were written to be read s literature without being seen) and if it's a musical you can hear the music and know the story. For me that is enough.

My top musicals are SHE LOVES ME and A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC. I saw SHE LOVES ME on Broadway last season because it was my favorite show, and it did live up to my expectations. I still haven't seen ALNM but I have no doubt in my mind that I adore it. I know the story, I've listened to the music hundreds of time and read the script, in addition to watching the NYCO video and listening to a radio broadcast or two. More shows I loved before I saw them were THE GOLDEN APPLE and THE FANTASTICKS. And I love LITTLE SHOP and ON A CLEAR DAY (the original version) without having seen them either.

I think anyone who rolls their eyes and judges someone for loving a show they haven't seen are the pretentious ones. We all don't have the luxury of seeing every show that hits Broadway or New York (or even Boston, Chicago etc.) and in fact for the vast majority of theatre fans even the closest community or regional theatres are an hour or more away. And for young people if you don't drive that means no theatre for you.



I understand your point, BUT. You were lucky, in that She Loves Me is a perfect show. I absolutely love the score to Rags -- it is one of my absolute favorites -- but I have been assured by this board that I would have been severely let down by the original production, which was described as a mess that tried to cover too much ground, and failed as a result. Still, the cast album remains a favorite that I play at lead sty every few weeks, something I don't do for some of my all-time favorites that I have seen, e.g., ironically ALNM.

Chess is one of my favorite scores, and even though I've watched the DVD of the Royal Albert Hall concert I've never seen the show live (hopefully in a little over a year that will change if the revival rumors are true)!

Lot666 said:

The only show I've never seen that I nonetheless consistently count among my favorites is The Woman In White. The CD reflects what I believe is quite nearly the entire show, and I love it.

"

If I recall right, the CD was a live recording at the Palace Theatre in London of an actual production. So, it would include most of the entire show, except maybe for some editing to fit CD content restrictions.

I saw the show both in London and on Broadway, but with Michael Ball as Count Fosco. Michael Crawford was the original cast but had taken sick during the London run.

It's one of my favorite ALWebber musical theatre albums.

It's complicated.

On the one hand, there are scores I loved on hearing from shows I've later seen and not loved or even been very disappointed by.
And vice versa - there are scores that didn't thrill me from shows which I surprisingly later saw and loved. To the point sometimes where my feelings about the show as a whole made me appreciate the score very much.

On top of which, I often revise how I feel about shows based on productions that I feel unlocked or understood what was there in the text; often what was there that had eluded me for years based on either my hearing of the score and or my response to productions I saw earlier.

on top of on top of that, sometimes my revised opinion of a show has more to do with how I've changed than about how a newly seen production treated the show.

Thank you guys for intelligent, thoughtful responses. Its nice to know this board can still have those from time to time lol. I appreciate all your opinions!

^ Be very worried, Valentina. I love the FOLLIES score, and have seen a slew of supposedly top-flight productions in the flesh: the '85 Concert at Lincoln Center, the '87 West End revival, Roundabout revival in '01, Chicago Shakespeare Festival show in '11 along with the last Bway revival (both shows in 1 intense weekend!) and I have yet to see a production that fulfills the promise of that storied original Bway show described in the Chapin book. For me personally, that's one show cursed never to work in the flesh, only on a CD.

I wish the licensed version of MERRILY used the graduation framing device.

Follies is one of those for me as well. The Chapin book is so fascinating and really does do as much as it can to put you in the thick of it.

There wasn't a lot of local theatre where I grew up, so I fell in love with shows through cast recordings and film musicals. I can remember buying cast albums like Ragtime, Sunset Boulevard and The Most Happy Fella and falling in love with the music and the stories. As was mentioned above, it's easier to get the gist of shows like these where so much is included on the album.

That prospect is so much more difficult on other cast recordings. For me, although I knew so much of the music as well as the basic storyline - and had even seen the Roz Russell film - I never really got Gypsy until I finally saw a live production. I wouldn't have called myself a fan of it, but sitting in the theatre, everything for that show clicked into place for me and now it looms large in my personal pantheon.