Top ten musicals on Broadway

Does anyone else here think that THE PRODUCERS and THE LION KING are two highly overrated musicals? After the first 20 minutes of THE LION KING, the show just bored me to tears. Maybe if they shaved off about 40 minutes from it I could have gotten into it more, but it was just WAY too long. As for THE PRODUCERS I laughed in some parts, but I didn't think it was anywhere near as great as everyone else said it was. I definately think there have been better musicals that should have the record for most Tonys won. And MOVIN' OUT - the fact that it's still playing baffles me. It's another show I found very tedious and just not entertaining at all.
But these are just my opinions.
And USActorSinger, your picture is wicked cute.

---

(Avenue Q and others are not on this list because I haven't seen them or don't know anything about them really...but I'm sure many of them would go higher in the list :) )

---

i pretty much love every musical currently on Broadway except Rent and Avenue Q. I'm also not a huge fan of 42nd Street and I haven't seen Bombay Dreams.

---

Updated On: 5/25/04 at 12:20 PM

Well, there are 22 musicals currently running on Broadway -- some shortly leaving and more coming soon -- which means I had to leave 12 off the list. In some cases, I'm rating the original production (I saw the original cast of 19 of the 22 -- had no interest in Beauty and the Beast, I haven't gotten around to Fiddler, and I saw the 1981 production of 42nd Street and have no interest in seeing it again). In some cases I'm rating the the current cast, if I happened to revisit the show in the last year or so (sorry, unlike some of you folks, I have little interest in seeing ANY of these shows more than two or three times over the course of their runs.... at the MOST!) Here are the ones that made my cut:

1) Chicago - A
2) The Producers - A
3) Hairspray - A
4) Caroline - A-
5) Movin Out - A-
6) Avenue Q - B+/A- (just not nearly as funny as it could/should be, but some very good stuff in it)
7) Gypsy - B+ (I saw Bernadette on an off night in previews -- going back for the closing performance)
Assassins - B+ (still a flawed show -- lots of interesting stuff but, man are there book/structure problems .....the ideas are great, but the execution less so)
9) Wicked - B (sort of like Galinda -- tons of style/little substance)
10) The Boy From Oz - B- (terrible book/extraordinary Jackman -- the most entertaining bad show I've seen in many years ... ultimately I decided I had more fun with Hugh and Keating et al in this mediocre star vehicle than I did sitting through some of the other better written, more "acclaimed" productions I could have included in my top ten)

---

Wicked--- A
Avenue Q--- A+
RENT--- ok- this one now deserves a B-. A year and a half ago, it deserved an A.
Thoroughly Modern Millie--- C
Aida--- B-
42nd Street--- C
Little Shop of Horrors- A
Phantom of the Opera- A
Beauty and the Beast- now deserves a B-, but a few years ago it deserved an B+

---

This was hard- but here's my list. I did it based off of how I saw them, not how they are today because I wouldn't know if I didnt see them.

1) Thoroughly Modern Millie
2) Avenue Q
3) Caroline, or Change
4) Wonderful Town
5) Rent
6) Wicked
7) Bombay Dreams
Chicago
9) Little Shop of Horrors
10) The Producers

I loved Aida and Beauty and the Beast very much, I just couldnt find a place for them.

---

Hairspray is, strangely, a musical that has music that I am in love with, and a show that I'm "Eech" about. The music is absolutely amazing, I love every song on that recording.

However, I saw the show and was utterly disappointed. The plot got swallowed up in the music and lights and dancing and costumes. Not to say that all of that was bad; it had some of the best setting and costumes I've ever seen. But the plot was almost completely lost in it, and call me a stick, but I like a show with a point.

Hairspray was a helluva lot of fun, and that's about it.

Yeah, I'm done.

---

The Lion King is very overrated; when I saw it it just wasn't as good as I thought it could have been. I haven't seen ten of the musicals that are currently on Broadway, but of the ones I've seen, here are the best.

Rent-wasn't bad when I saw it (go figure)
Wicked-Idina was great, as was Kristin (the show, not so much)
LSOH-I enjoyed it a lot
seeing Assassins soon, that will probably go to the top of my list because I love the music.

1)Wicked=A
2)Thoroughly Modern Millie=A- with Sutton, B with Susan
3)The Boy From Oz=B+ (without Hugh, D)
4)Beauty and the Beast=C (walked out during intermission)
5)The Phantom of the Opera=B+ (Yay Hugh Panaro!)
6)Hairspray=B
7)Little Shop of Horrors=C+
Cabaret, sadly closed 5 months ago=B-
9)The Lion King=D+

Rent, Wicked, Avenue Q, Assassins, (i guess) Phantom of the Opera, Chicago, Caroline or Change, Beauty and the Beast, Mamma Mia, (i guess) Producers.

I thought that Producers was a bit overrated, as was Hairspray and Lion King. Not to mention Aida. Mamma Mia is just so corny and campy that it's great, that's why i have it on their.

---

Oh, trust me I got the point of the show -- acceptance no matter the skin color etc, etc -- kind of hard to miss even if one were a tired tourist or a six year old, but it was done with all the triteness and depth of a thirty minute afterschool special (or a "very special episode" of Facts of Life) stretched out to two and half hours. Terrific performances, impressive design work, average score, terrible choreography, unimaginative staging -- all of which will win it a shelf load of Tonys which says more about the state of the Broadway musical today than the quality of the show itself. It's great for the tourists and it'll run for years, but, deep it's not.

---

Updated On: 5/25/04 at 11:55 PM

TABOO should be in the top 10 what a shame =o(