Top 10 Theatre People of All Time — Page 2

Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.

#26

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/5/05 at 9:53pm

Stephen Sondheim
Ethel Merman
Bob Fosse
David Merrick
Bernadette Peters
Angela Lansbury
Richard Rodgers
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Cameron Mackintosh
Harold Prince

BSoBW2: I punched Sondheim in the face after I saw Wicked and said, "Why couldn't you write like that!?"

#27

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/5/05 at 9:59pm

William Shakespeare
Tennesee Williams
Arthur Miller
Eugene O'Neill
Lillian Hellman
William Inge
Neil Simon
Thorton Wilder
Anton Chekhov
Henrik Ibsen

If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.

#28

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/5/05 at 10:05pm

I just reread my list, and realized that everyone on it is involved in musicals, not straight plays.I always forget there's life outside of musicals. So I should have included Tennesee Williams and Eugene O'Neill, at the very least.

Behind the fake tinsel of Broadway is real tinsel.

#29

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/5/05 at 10:10pm

This thread is already two pages and nobody has yet mentioned Rosie O'Donnell? She's not going to be happy when she reads this. Look out for the Wrath of Rosie.

If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.

#30

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/5/05 at 10:18pm

elphaba4: No, hun. Expand your Broadway repertoire! Go see some more shows and listen to more recordings! Taye Diggs, Idina Menzel, and anyone even REMOTELY new to the Broadway scene should be nowhere on your list. There are so many better people out there... just explore! :)

#31

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/5/05 at 10:19pm

Thank you, Gotham (it took 30 posts for someone to mention Shakespeare?????).

"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie [http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/] "The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney

Updated On: 1/5/05 at 10:19 PM

#32

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/5/05 at 10:21pm

Oh my i also forgot shakespeare! I was thinking modern musical theater!

"At the opening night party, they had clowns on stilts, jugglers, a chocolate fountain, popcorn, hot dogs. [My son] looked at me like I had been holding back. Like, 'This is what you do?' I had to tell him, 'No, no, darling. Opening nights don't usually look like this.' It's usually a dark bar with a bottle of vodka." ?Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's Jan Maxwell plus i proudly share the title of the shortest member over the age of 10 with wickedrentq!

#33

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/5/05 at 10:22pm

Shaddup Margo you know I was thinking about him!

BSoBW2: I punched Sondheim in the face after I saw Wicked and said, "Why couldn't you write like that!?"

#34

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/5/05 at 10:22pm

OH my...the mere thought of mentioning people involved with straight or classical theatre didn't even occur to me...shame. on. me.

#35

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/5/05 at 10:27pm

Oh, it's Okay......

It's not like Shakespeare is as important to the history of theatre as Taye Diggs or Idina Menzel or anything .........

"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie [http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/] "The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney

#36

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/5/05 at 10:32pm

Hmmm... this is hard. I'll make multiple lists, I guess, then try to narrow them down to one later.

Dancers/Choreographers:
Bob Fosse
Jerome Robbins
Tommy Tune
Ann Reinking
Agnes De Mille (spelling? She did choreo. for the original Oklaholma)
hmm... I'm sure I'll think of more later, this list feels incomplete.

I'm a huge musical theater fan, and don't know much about plays, but I think Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams belong on a top 10 (or whatever) list.

Actors/Actresses (musicals only, no specific order)
Chita Rivera
Carol Channing
Joel Grey
Jerry Orbach
ACK! my memory is gone. I will have to edit this post later, I know it.

#37

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/5/05 at 10:35pm

It's not like Shakespeare is as important to the history of theatre as Taye Diggs or Idina Menzel or anything

Are you one of the people who believe Francis Bacon wrote 'Shakespeare's' plays, Margo?

"One no longer loves one's insight enough once one communicates it."

The opposite of creation isn't war, it's stagnation.

#38

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/5/05 at 10:37pm

Or maybe Marlowe? Or perhaps, Sir Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford?

But none of them compare to the legendary Taye Diggs' contribution to the last 500 years of theatre.....

"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie [http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/] "The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney

Updated On: 1/5/05 at 10:37 PM

#39

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/5/05 at 10:53pm

This isn't ten, but the first two I think of are Stephen Sondheim, and Michael Bennett.

#40

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/6/05 at 8:15am

I can't do it! I need categories of 10!

Oh, and I am not doing top 10 theatre people of all time, but narrowing it tot musical theatre. The lists are in order from Most Important to Least Important (not least important, but just 10th out of the thousands).

Top 10 Directors
George Abbott
Harold Prince
Jerome Robbins
Bob Fosse
Michael Bennett
Gower Champion
Joshua Logan
Moss Hart
Michael Kidd
George S. Kaufman

Top 10 Choreographers
Agnes deMille
Jerome Robbins
Bob Fosse
Michael Bennett
Michael Kidd
George Balanchine
Jack Cole
Herbert Ross
Helen Tamiris
Hanya Holm

Top 10 Broadway Leading Ladies
Ethel Merman
Mary Martin
Gwen Verdon
Gertrude Lawrence
Chita Rivera
Angela Lansbury
Julie Andrews
Carol Channing
Barbara Cook
Elaine Stritch

Top 10 Leading Men
Alfred Drake
John Raitt
Al Jolson
George M. Cohan
Jerry Orbach
Bert Lahr
Richard Kiley
Ray Bolger
Robert Preston
Sydney Chaplin

Top 10 Songwriters
Stephen Sondheim
Richard Rodgers [and Lorenz Hart]
Oscar Hammerstein
Jule Styne
Jerome Kern
Irving Berlin
George and Ira Gershwin
Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick
John Kander and Fred Ebb

Top 10 Impresarios (Producers)
Florenz Ziegfeld
David Merrick
Harold Prince
Cy Feuer and Ernie Martin
Sam H. Harris
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein
George White
Alex A. Aarons and Vinton Freedley
Alexander H. Cohen
Cameron Mackintosh

Updated On: 1/6/05 at 08:15 AM

#41

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/6/05 at 8:42am

Fosse
Uta Hagen
Ethel Merman
Gwen Verdon
Hal Prince
Sondheim
Carol Channing
Jerome Robbins
Kander and Ebb
Balanchine

There are so many more. It's very hard to narrow the list down to 10.

#42

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/6/05 at 8:45am

I'm with gherbert - the task is too daunting. When a list of even just the songwriters doesn't include Cole Porter or Lerner and Loewe - and it's justifiable - then this task is beyond doable.

#43

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/6/05 at 8:57am

I know this is more then ten people, but without these people we wouldn't have musical theatre as we know it.

Aristophanes
Claudio Monteverdi
Jean Baptiste Poqueline
Jean Baptiste Lully
John Gay
Jacques Offenbach
Johann Strauss Jr.
Richard Wagner
Gilbert & Sullivan
Stephen Foster
The Burlesque Bunch (Michael Leavitt, Millie De Leon, Fanny Brice, The Minksy Brothers, Sally Rand, Gypsy Roses Lee)
James Bland
Tony Pastor
George M. Cohan
Victor Herbert
Sigmund Romberg
Rudolf Friml
Otto Harbach
Florenz Ziegfeld
Grandfathers of Musical Theatre: Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin
Fathers of Musical Theatre: Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II
Agnes de Mille
Harold Arlen
Frank Loesser
Bob Fosse
John Kander & Fred Ebb
Alan Jay Lerner & Frederick Loewe
Jerome Robbins
and finally,
Stephen Sondheim

and I can back up each one of these choices with an justifiable reason.

#44

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/6/05 at 10:20am

God! Your right, I forgot Cole Porter and Lerner and Loewe. What is wrong with me! I'll update it now.

#45

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/6/05 at 11:21am

Impossible to answer!!!!!

Miriam

Every movement has a meaning--but what the hell does it mean!

#46

re: Top 10 Theatre People of All Time

Posted: 1/6/05 at 7:29pm

Great lists, but don't forget Konstantin Stanislavsky!

"This is what I trained to do, and this is what I love about theater. What I love about being an actress is being able to really look into myself and understand another human being. And out my own self, to shape and form and fashion a real human being--and to present that in such a way that people see something of themselves or their own understanding in that human being." --Phylicia Rashad

← Back to Message Board

View all Videos

Tickets From $59

Tickets From $71

Tickets From $95