The Perfect Musical?

for me its Gypsy, nothings better and nothing ever will be

It's one thing to say nothing has been better than Gypsy. That's a defendable argument. But that nothing CAN surpass it is hyperbolic. It's like saying "Rock Around The Clock" is the greatest rock song, and nothing has nor will surpass it, in 1962. You don't know where the genre is going to go and what geniuses and innovations it will produce.

Gypsy is certainly a nice musical, but not without flaws. Little Lamb is up there as Most Annoying Song in the musical theater. Plus the music is completely centered around the Rose character and doesn't give Herbie much of anything to do.

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I agree that She Loves Me is the perfect musical. I love everything about it.

As you can probably tell by my username, my perfect musical is FOLLIES, with my favorite Sondheim song "Losing My Mind". It has the right amounts of dry wit and sarcastic banter to even out the pathos and tragedy. And Dorothy Collins was the heart of the show as Sally. It has a brilliant score and book that always makes me cry after the Loveland sequence. It is the show that made me fall in love with Sondheim and it is why I believe that Dorothy Collins should be recognized as one of the musical theater queens. Her delivery on "Tomorrow? Oh dear God, it is tomorrow" was heartbreaking and beautiful. For me, it is utter perfection.
As for Gypsy, the show is essentially a star vehicle for the person playing Mme. Rose. As with Funny Girl secondary characters like Herbie had songs and more scenes during tryouts and previews but they were cut because the storyline had to be centered around the main character: Rose or Fanny Brice. And "Little Lamb" is not annoying to me as it is to other people. I think it's quite lovely and melodic, with deep heartfelt passion.

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I do love it immensley, as my screen name and icon suggest.

It also has the distinction of being one of the first musicals to recieve a multi-disc recording, possibly only the second, after THE MOST HAPPY FELLA. They wouldn't cut one song, because there is not a stinker in the bunch.

Nothing is flawless and im also not saying that nothing will ever be better than Gypsy, its just a figure of speech.

For me it is Anything Goes. While it isn't my all time favorite, most of my favorite shows are deeply flawed; I personally believe that everything works so well together in Anything Goes to create the perfect night of theatre.

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I think My Fair Lady and Hello, Dolly! are perfect in every way.

No musical is "perfect."

...The ever elusive "perfect" musical doesn't exist. There are musicals, primarily the 'watershed' classics, that come pretty darn close. But every musical has its flaw. Every single one.

So many musicals have great first acts but then the flaws become obvious in the second act (even CAROUSEL has a weak second act -- the Starkeeper, really?).

I remember hearing years ago a composer (can't remember which one) saying that when shows used to go out-of-town before Broadway they would concentrate on the first act and never got around to fixing problems in the second act.

Updated On: 12/15/13 at 11:50 AM