Since it seems that
most influential is the term describing what this thread is seeking to determine, I think that
Company is hands down the most influential show in the '70s. (If we're counting 1970 as the first year of the 1970s, not the last year of the 1960s.)
Without
Company, there would have been no
Chorus Line. And
Company was the show that established Sondheim as a major figure, and is anyone going to suggest that Marvin Hamlisch has been more influential on Broadway than Sondheim?
In fact, I wouldn't even say that
A Chorus Line was the runnerup for the 1970s. I'd give that to
Evita. I'd say that the most influential thing about ACL was its use of the workshop process. And that might give it third place.
As for the 1960s, I think it's a close call between
Cabaret and
Hair. I think you're wrong, MichhaelBennett. In various ways,
Cabaret led to
Company, it led to
Chicago, it led to
Sweeney Todd and
Assassins. And there's something to be said for Mark Grant's point of view in his provocative but sometimes inaccurate or illogical
The Rise and Fall of the Broadway Musical that the most influential show of the 1960s was
Hello, Dolly!, in which production trumped text, sounding the death knell of the Golden Age, and leading to an age of spectacle.
Frequently, the most influential show is not, of course, the one that's most popular in its time. No one is nominating
My Fair Lady as the most influential show of the 1950s, though it was pretty influential in a number of ways and probably deserves to be thought of as the second most influential show of the 1950s.
And in the crucial decade of the 1940s, after
Oklahoma! the most influential show . . . well, it would have to be a tie, I think, between
On the Town and
Love Life, with an honorable mention to
Billion Dollar Baby. And I'm forgetting
Pal Joey, which has to be in there (unless we count it as 1930s, but since it opened in December of 1940, it probably should be 1940s). And then there's
Allegro and
Lady in the Dark and
Street Scene and
Regina, all not-so-popular (except
Lady), but very influential. I think that the '40s were the single most important decade in the development of the musical.
And as a precursor of colorblind casting,
Beggar's Holiday was surely important (and its use of an integrated chorus was also one of the ways in which
On the Town was important).
For the 10s, I'd go with
Very Good Eddie. Not sure about the 00s.
For the '20s, yeah,
Show Boat. The '30s presents several candidates:
Porgy and Bess, Of Thee I Sing, The Boys From Syracuse. But I might go with
Anything Goes, for an important but not-so-obvious innovation: the belter as heroine.
Updated On: 7/22/06 at 10:37 PM
