Shows You Didn't Like at first...but you liked later on. — Page 2

Bat Boy.

I posted this somewhere before, I think, but I almost left the theatre when I saw it (OOBC) in NYC. Too campy and over the top. My friends made me stay and somewhere in the middle of the Children, Children number...I got it! Went back a number of times, love the recording, and have seen 3 or 4 regional productions.

I've managed to warm up to pretty much any show I've been involve in that I hated before. That's saying something because I've been involved in at least four shows that are technically considered horrible and with good reason: Footloose, Jekyll and Hyde, Joseph... Dreamcoat and High School Musical. I began to really like all of those shows except High School Musical.

I hated the Light in the Piazza when I first got the recording too. Like absolutely despised it. But it's slowly growing on me, more and more.

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les mis

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ANNIE--I've had to sit through so many bad productions of this show (due to people I know being in it, etc.) that I never wanted to hear about it again. Then I ended up directing it (?) and actually working on it made me appreciate it.

GUYS AND DOLLS--same thing--SO sick of bad high school, community theatre, etc., productions, but working on it (twice) won me over.

FOOTLOOSE and FAME--extremely bad books, but both shows have so much youthful energy in the music and staging that they're irresistible when the cast is in the right spirit.

On the other hand, I've worked on two productions of BRIGADOON and two SOUND OF MUSICs, and I haven't been able to find anything redeeming about either show--I still think they're the sappiest, most insipid musicals ever written.

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I wasn't particularly fond of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels but after listening to the cast recording a few times I like it a lot.

Not sure this counts but I saw Whistle Down the Wind in London purely because it was at the half price booth that day and I thought this would be one big chance to see an infamous flop that I could tellpeople I saw (I only knew of the disastrous US Hal Prince premiere--not how the London one had been doing). While I was sceptical at first, and it's was far form perfect, it ended up being one of my fave things I saw that trip (this was in '99) and I'm glad I went.

On CD even as a teen I was used to havign to give as how a few listens before fully "getting"--being already a Sondheim freak. But when someone on the old Sondheim listserv told me, after I had fallen for Passion the week it came out, to check out the CD of LaChiusa's Hello Again for another interesting new musical and one with Donna Murphy I played it about 3 times and simply never took to it or grasped any of its melodies and put it away. Probably until 5 years later when LaChiusa had Wild Party and Marie Christine and I started to see his name again--I pulled it out and it quickly became one of my fave cast albums (still is)--LaChiusa does take a lot of investment to really get into his scores I think but I've never had one take that long--I think as a kid I just never gave it the proper chance.

E

Two of my top 10 favorite scores: PASSION and CAROLINE, OR CHANGE.
At first I didn't know what to make of either one of them, now I think both are some of the most brilliant shows written for the stage.

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WICKED

right now it's Follies. I'm really starting to get more into the music with the complete recording, but I still don't understand the young counterparts concept.

WICKED!!!!!!!!

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Avenue Q. I absolutely love it now.

When I got the Mamma Mia! cast recording a few years ago, I thought, "Why the heck did I buy this? I never want to even see this." I rarely listened to it at all. For some reason, little by little I got more interested in it and eventually decided to see it. Despite the corniness, I had fun!

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bare
Into the Woods
A Chorus Line (now I LOVE it)
The Drowsy Chaperone
The Last Five Years

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