Obscure musicals

[gertiecummings]

Posted: 9/18/10 at 1:08pm

My friend criticized me the other night for not being familiar with more obscure musicals. So now I'm trying to expand my knowledge. Which ones would you guys recommend I look at?

[HistoryBoy2]

Posted: 9/18/10 at 1:13pm

Well tell us what you are familiar with and we can work from there.

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 9/18/10 at 1:26pm

Or you could watch this, a video about a song whose lyrics consist almost entirely of obscure musical titles.
Monkeys and Playbills

[gertiecummings]

Posted: 9/18/10 at 1:46pm

Thanks ghostlight2. My college did Working and I used to sing Not a Day Goes By from Merrily, but the rest I'll have to check out :)

[twinbelters]

Posted: 9/18/10 at 1:50pm

For as low as $0.98 you can own the original cast album on CD of a true train wreck, the Peter Allen vehicle from the same season as Carrie, Legs Diamond. Not a boring listen.
Legs Diamond on RCA

[uncageg]

Posted: 9/18/10 at 1:59pm

Twin, about 2 years ago I went downstairs to do laundry and on the "give away table" where we put things we don't want, I found a copy of the Legs Diamond CD. Of course I took it!

[twinbelters]

Posted: 9/18/10 at 2:16pm

Haha! I've thought about buying many copies of it off eBay and Amazon and covering a wall with them as an installation piece.

I'm serious, though, I'm never bored listening to that score.

Plus, I read in another thread there's a Broadway revival heading our way with Hugh Jackman in the lead. =)

[uncageg]

Posted: 9/18/10 at 3:23pm

It's not the greatest score but I like to listen to it while I cook. I like the orchestra/orchestrations and it has the feeling of an old Broadway musical.

Updated On: 9/18/10 at 03:23 PM

[twinbelters]

Posted: 9/18/10 at 4:00pm

Agreed. Legs also has some of the most amusingly incompetent lyrics ever written for the Broadway stage. The orchestrations are lovely and have professional polish with an 80s flair. "Speakeasy" is among my favorite guilty pleasure songs as is the dreadful "I Was Made for Champagne"--a lyric followed by "but don't get me wrong I'm still glad I came."

I was fascinated by Legs after reading Ken Mandelbaum's article "The Final No-Fooling Last Word On Legs Diamond," in Theater Week. Of course his piece in Not Since Carrie fired my interest as well.

I read those in 1996 or so and had no idea there had been a cast album, as Ken makes no mention, and that is was LONG out of print. I assume it was produced with Peter Allen money because I can't imagine how else it exists being one of the biggest embarrassments of 80s Broadway. Well, consider my shock when I came across a copy at a closeout CD sale around that same time.

Arkiv has made it available on-demand, but it can be found for less than a dollar. So odd.

The artwork is still among my favorites. Ooh, and Julie Wilson is always fun.

[uncageg]

Posted: 9/18/10 at 4:14pm

Do you know where I can find that Theater Week article? I still haven't read "No Since Carrie". I really need to order it. I actually pulled the CD out after reading this thread and listened to "I Was Made For Champagne".

Another musical I just can't seem to track down is "Stop! You're Killing Me". We did it in school and I don't know if it was on Broadway at some point or not. I have hummed the opening song, "It's Such A Great Night For a Murder" for over 20 years! I have asked about it before. I would love to get my hands on a recording if one even exists.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 9/18/10 at 4:14pm

Blackbeard. Obscure and surprisingly good. Don't get the highlights CD. Get the double disc one.

http://www.spiremusic.net/servlet/Detail?no=51

[twinbelters]

Posted: 9/18/10 at 5:16pm

uncageg: You can find the Theater Week article through.... ME! I have that magazine issue still, the sole survivor of an extensive collection of Theater Week magazines from the late 80s-early 90s. My storage flooded years back, but because I had that particular issue on a bookshelf for the longest time it remains to this day. It is now in an acid-free mylar sleeve. I've vowed to scan it and share it on these here message boards before and am committed to doing that... in time.

I don't know "Stop!" but it calls to mind a musical I've wanted to find something about: a "Lyle the Crocodile" musical with a score by Charles Strouse. I saw a production as a child with my father when he was reviewing theater for a local paper. It was good from what I recall.

CATSNY: I've been meaning to pick that up, so I just did. I swear I saw it elsewhere for considerably more money. Hope your recommendation pans out. =)

[Weez]

Posted: 9/18/10 at 6:30pm

I don't know how obscure you'd consider it, but you simply MUST get Floyd Collins! It doesn't feel obscure to me, because HELLO, it's an Adam Guettel show, why WOULDN'T I know it? But I do often get met with Looks when I bring it up, so it probably counts. Even though half of those Looks are probably just responses to the way I tell it: "it's a brilliant musical! It's about a man who gets stuck in a cave and [SPOILER]! 8D".

Updated On: 9/18/10 at 06:30 PM

[Tamerlano]

Posted: 9/18/10 at 8:25pm

King of Hearts from 1978 Broadway and The Good Companions from 1973 West End are two of my favourites. Both suffered from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. King of Hearts opened during the newspaper strike so it was hard to sell and Good Companions opened during the IRA bombing campaign in London so the crowds stayed away. Both shows had great casts and thankfully preserved with cast recordings.

[Broadway Bob*]

Posted: 9/18/10 at 11:02pm

Personally I love GUYS NAKED FROM THE WAIST DOWN and HELLO AGAIN. I had a pretentious teacher in school who claimed to know every musical ever written. Well he was less than pleased when I showed him up by bringing in songs from these two musicals for class. He made my life hell the rest of the semester.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 9/19/10 at 12:40am

I'm a big fan of Goblin Market. It's a lovely, lyrical two woman chamber piece. Polly Pen did a very commendable job of creating a very atmospheric score that serves the original Victorian poem extremely well.

[Hest882]

Posted: 9/19/10 at 12:53am

Did your friend truly mean "obscure" musicals or just that you only seem familiar with current blockbusters?

[jasonf]

Posted: 9/19/10 at 1:10am

There's this Scarlet Letter that I LOVE -- NOBODY'S heard of this:
http://castalbums.org/recordings/The_Scarlet_Letter_1998_Studio_Cast/968

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 9/19/10 at 1:19am

Where do you live? If you're able to go, I'd strongly recommend trying to see at least one show Encores does. They're not necessarily obscure, but they're very often shows you might never see produced again. I sometimes have a hard time listening to full albums of shows I've never seen, which is why I recommend the Encores series as an introduction to shows.

[gertiecummings]

Posted: 9/19/10 at 2:34am

Hest882, she meant "obscure" musicals.

[twinbelters]

Posted: 9/19/10 at 1:37pm

I too like The Good Companions. Judi Dench and Christopher Gable are delightful. DRG reissued many interesting obscure cast recordings from the West End, my favorite perhaps being Sandy Wilson's Valmouth.

[uncageg]

Posted: 9/19/10 at 1:50pm

Was just on the Overtures thread talking about...Overtures and I mentioned the AccuRadio station. I just noticed that AccuRadio now has a "Wide Playlist" channel that includes more obscure theatre music. Might want to check it out. It is on the right under the "Now Playing" channel.

http://www.accuradio.com/broadway/

[tazber]

Posted: 9/19/10 at 2:16pm

I'm equating "obscure" with "flop" since most hits are fairly well known.

Here are a bunch (I'm limiting this list to shows that had legit production, as opposed to merely concept albums):

Welcome To The Club
Prince Of Central Park
Doonesbury
A Change In The Heir
To Whom It May Concern
Metro
Chu-Chem
Mail
Got Tu Go Disco
Dude
Romance In Hard Times
Bring Back Birie
Tom Sawyer
Roza
Cantebury Tales
Honky Tonk Nights
I And Albert
Grind
Teddy And Alice
Legs Diamond
La Strada
Flowers For Algernon
Goodtime Charley
Hannah...1939
I Can't Keep Running In Place
The Chosen
Now Is The Time For All Good Men
One Night Stand
Bar Mitzvah Boy
Rex
Oh! Brother
Blood Red Roses
The Goodbye Girl


There are of course dozens more, but that's all I can think of off the top of head.

And I also LOVE the recording of 3 Guys Naked From The Waist Down. Never got into Goblin Market, but I can appreciate the artistry of it.

[RaisedOnMusicals]

Posted: 9/19/10 at 3:36pm

Would "Subways are for Sleeping" be considered obscure?

[twinbelters]

Posted: 9/19/10 at 4:24pm

Depends who you're talking to, but I would say so. Are Take Me Along, New Girl In Town, Carnival and Henry, Sweet Henry obscure? To Bob Merrill fans, probably not but most people are only familiar with Carnival.