Plays or Musicals
Plays or Musicals
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/22/04
Plays or Musicals#0
Posted: 7/23/04 at 8:10pmDo you prefer plays or musicals? I prefer musicals. I love to see the dancing and singing in additon to acting. In plays, there is barely any dancing or singing, if any.
re: Plays or Musicals#1
Posted: 7/23/04 at 8:13pmmy short attention span and need for the flashy dance/singing routines definitely make musicals better for me!
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/4/03
re: Plays or Musicals#2
Posted: 7/23/04 at 8:17pmi enjoy both. i prefer musicals though because i'm really close with my musical inner-self. did that make any sense at all? haha. ok anyway...i want to be able to do it all and show off all aspects of my talent. If I am on broadway one day I would definitely like to do both musicals and plays though.
re: Plays or Musicals#3
Posted: 7/23/04 at 8:18pmAt the theatre I definitely prefer musicals. I can go to a movie for drama or comedy, but movie musicals are so rare nowadays (hopefully changing) that the theatre is really only place to get my musical fix.
re: Plays or Musicals#4
Posted: 7/23/04 at 8:21pmI love both but I'll always pick a musical to see first, plus I love that I can always listen to cast recordings. I've always had music be a big part of my life so musicals are my choice.
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/16/04
re: Plays or Musicals#5
Posted: 7/23/04 at 8:23pm
I love them both, but first choice is always an intense Drama
Thank Goodness I dont have to REALLY pick
heh heh heh
re: Plays or Musicals#6
Posted: 7/23/04 at 8:29pmLike many, I like Both..........but my love is musical theatre. And oh what a love it is.
re: Plays or Musicals#7
Posted: 7/23/04 at 8:31pmI tend to like BEING in plays and WATCHING musicals
re: Plays or Musicals#8
Posted: 7/23/04 at 8:32pmThis might sound weird, but for some reason I like musicals better at night, and plays better at matinees.
re: Plays or Musicals#9
Posted: 7/23/04 at 8:42pmMusicals better, although ill take what i can get
re: Plays or Musicals#10
Posted: 7/23/04 at 8:50pm
I love musicals. I enjoy plays, too, but musicals were my first love. I only got into seeing plays after falling in love with musicals.
I also hate the snobby people who look down on musicals.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/1/04
re: Plays or Musicals#11
Posted: 7/23/04 at 8:52pmIf it's on a stage, I'll go see it.
re: Plays or Musicals#12
Posted: 7/23/04 at 9:00pm
I love them both.
So I was going to make a joke about how I would put them in a blender and end up with like half-musical, half-play.
But then I realized the result would be a musical.
A really bad musical.
I'll just say both.
Joined: 12/31/69
re: Plays or Musicals#13
Posted: 7/23/04 at 9:01pmi love both but have grown up with musicals so i think i love that a little bit more
re: Plays or Musicals#14
Posted: 7/23/04 at 9:03pmI love both, but if I was forced to choose one, musicals. That was what I grew up with.
re: Plays or Musicals#15
Posted: 7/23/04 at 9:07pmI think its easier to introduce small children to musicals then it is to plays which would show why when people get older they are usually more familiar with musicals so they keep the attachment. At least thats how I think it was for me.
re: Plays or Musicals#16
Posted: 7/23/04 at 9:16pm
I prefer musicals. I think the musicals appeal to me because music is so ancient and such a basic part of the human, very human instinct-ish, and is a part of me whether I like it or not. Since it is human nature to relate to and create music, the music makes me more open and able to accept and understand, therefore it's a helpful tool to use to tell a story if you're looking to affect an audience.
Sorry if that sounded uber-tacky.
Updated On: 7/23/04 at 09:16 PM
re: Plays or Musicals#17
Posted: 7/23/04 at 9:20pm
I don't have a preference. I like good theatre, be it comedy, drama, farce, avant garde, the classics, performance art, rock opera, regular opera, musical comedy, musical drama etc...
I think in any given year, I probably see far more good non-musical theatre than musical theatre, mostly because musicals are much harder to get "right" (not to say that plays are easy). The city is filled with very good actors and if they're cast well and if the script is good (a big "if"), you're more than halfway home -- many is the time that I've seen first rate actors in a decent play overcome mediocre direction or wrongheaded design elements and still be able to deliver a thoroughly satisfying theatrical experience.
In musicals, so many more things can go wrong and hurt the overall experience -- direction problems, choreography problems, pacing issues, book problems (including a flawed overall concept), bad songs in the score (or songs that aren't integrated well into the book), inadequate costumes and/or sets and/or lighting, a bad sound mix that make the lyrics hard to decipher, musical numbers that are too long or too short or placed badly in the story ..... frankly, for me, it's something of a rarity to see a musical whose assets outweigh its flaws.
I love a great musical (and many of my all-time favorite theatre experiences are musicals), but in any given year, I'm lucky if I see even one or two musical productions that I would term "great," whereas in that same year, it's rare that I don't see a dozen or more "great" productions of non-musical plays (original or revival).
re: Plays or Musicals#18
Posted: 7/23/04 at 10:14pmAs a musicians, definitely musicals, but I think there's more to it, though. I don't think Broadway is the best venues for plays. The fact that a Broadway house has to hold at least (I believe it is) 750 people means that all the acting has to be bigger, and it seems more fake. I think plays do better in a more intimate setting. This is not to say that Broadway plays are bad, but I think other venues may be better.
re: Plays or Musicals#19
Posted: 7/23/04 at 10:27pmMinimum for a Broadway house is 500 seats -- that's not that large. Some of the greatest plays and greatest performances in the history of 20th century theatre happened in these "big" Broadway houses -- Brando, Olivier, Laurette Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Redgrave, The Barrymores, Gielgud, Julie Harris, Zoe Caldwell, Maggie Smith, Pacino, Meryl Streep ...... all did great acting, that wasn't fake, that wan't "big" (and most of them did it without microphones). Many great performances also happened in West End theatres (that are roughly the same size). A great actor can make a play and a venue seem intimate regardless of the number of seats. I have seen many extraordinary, legendary straight play performances in houses on Broadway and in the West End and nothing about them seemed broad or fake -- I hope you get to see one of them someday and you'll see what I mean
re: Plays or Musicals#20
Posted: 7/23/04 at 10:38pmI thought the Henry James was the smallest on Bway? Even still, 500 is a lot. Many off-broadway houses only hold 100. Certainly, plays can be amazing if not the best on Broadway: just like with Musicals it is where all the money is, and while a good show will work on a low budget, money helps. I tend to like drama better on screen, where the facial expressions are more apparent, and the actors don't have to project, so the speech sounds more natural. That's why I said about smaller theatres.
Joined: 12/31/69
re: Plays or Musicals#21
Posted: 7/23/04 at 11:02pmBoth- I find theater in any form exhilarating... as long as it is a good and professional cast (unlike CATS that we saw last April.. .HORRIBLE!).
re: Plays or Musicals#22
Posted: 7/23/04 at 11:22pmi'm gonna go with both as well. I also tend to prefer musicals because I love song and it's so much a part of me, but I'm always up for a good play. Margo made a good point about it harder to get musicals "right", but I still love 'em
re: Plays or Musicals#23
Posted: 7/23/04 at 11:42pm
The Helen Hayes (where GOLDA'S BALCONY is playing) has a capacity of 597. Circle in the Square (FROZEN) holds 681. There isn't a Henry James Theatre on Broadway (are you thinking of the Henry Miller which is scheduled to be torn down? I think it's capacity was around 800).
The thing about great stage actors is that you're never conscious of them "projecting." It always seems that they are speaking in a normal tone of voice (unless, of course, the play calls for them to scream or be loud). In the documentary, "Broadway: The Golden Age" there's a section in which several actors lament the introduction of microphones to the theatre and they talk about the art of being able to speak and be heard on stage. Several talk about Ben Gazarra in the original production of "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof" -- he created the role of Brick -- being able to literally whisper on stage and be heard clearly up to the last row of the balcony. Gazarra and other great stage actors have SO much technique that they can give performances with the same ease ,simplicity and naturalism of any film performer.
Today, if you ever get the chance to see Redgrave, Dench, Maggie Smith, Ian McKellan, Zoe Calwell, Pacino, Estelle Parsons, Helen Mirren, Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Wright, Stephen Dillane, Kevin Kline, Charles Dutton, Rosemary Harris, George Grizzard, Marian Seldes, Brian Murray, Viola Davis, et al, you might be amazed at how powerful, yet subtle and intimate acting can be in a 1000-seat space.
re: Plays or Musicals#24
Posted: 7/23/04 at 11:46pmI like musicals more only because I was brought up on them. I havent seen that many straight plays so I think thats another reason I like musicals more.
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