I have been thinking about this a lot and have decided that my fave characters are: Male: Sweeney Todd, Edgar Allen Poe in Poe the musical and Doctor Zhivago Female" Elphaba in Wicked, Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, Lucy in Jekyll and Hyde
The Countess Aurelia, Julien, and Nina in Dear World; Ruth in Mulk and Honey; Barnaby in Hello, Dolly; Laurie in Tenderloin; Nancy in Sail Away; Madame Ernestine in Little Mary Sunshine.
Male: Sweeney Todd, Billy Bigelow, George Suerat, The Baker, Elder Cunningham (sorry but he's what makes Book of Mormon good), Seymour Krelborn, Master of Ceremonies, Tevye, Ernst Ludwig (the wonderful but Underrated role in Cabaret)
Female: Dot, Mrs. Lovett, Miss Trunchbull, Fosca, Fraulein Schneider, Audrey, Fraulein Kost, The Witch, Sally Durant Plumme, Little Red Ridding Hood, Fantine
My Fair Lady: Henry Higgins Les Miz: JVJ The Phantom of the Opera: The Phantom
I believe that JVJ and the Phantom are opposite sides of the same coin: Brilliant men with much to give, at whom life threw sh-t. One overcame and learned to love, saving and enriching lives in the process. He truly made lemonade out of lemons. The other left chaos and misery in his wake, when he could easily have made similar choices to the other.
Audrey, the Phantom Phanatic, who nonetheless would rather be Jean Valjean, who knew how to make lemonade out of lemons.