Unknown Musicals

[santeFEEE]

Posted: 3/27/18 at 4:44pm

I want to make a list of cool unknown musicals to listen to, what are some of your favorites? These can be shows that haven't played broadway or off broadway but it would be nice if they had some what of a recording. Thanks!

Examples: Bare, Polkadots: The cool kids musical, etc.

[uncageg]

Posted: 3/27/18 at 5:09pm

The Story of my Life
Hello Again
Gone Missing

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 3/27/18 at 5:17pm

Only Heaven Knows

[Sertzo19]

Posted: 3/27/18 at 5:30pm

See What I Wanna See is one of my lesser known favorites. I also love Barnum and Nine is often forgotten about, especially since the movie adaptation basically destroyed what made the original show such a delight.

I guess what are the typical musicals you listen to? Classics, pop musicals, newer stuff? What decade of musical theater do you listen to most? Are there particular actors/actresses you look for in a recording or production? 

[FosseTharp]

Posted: 3/27/18 at 8:42pm

Lesser known/produced musicals I’m a fan of are: The Adding Machine, Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story, The Hatpin, Yeast Nation, Is There Life After High School, Bernarda Alba, See What I Wanna See, Marie Christine (So many LaChiusa, really...).

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 3/27/18 at 9:08pm

Random favorites with great recordings:

A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE

DESSA ROSE

THE RINK

THE ROTHSCHILDS

THE GRASS HARP

RAGS

 

[MichelleCraig]

Posted: 3/27/18 at 9:17pm

All That He Was

[MTMadison]

Posted: 3/27/18 at 9:18pm

My theatre company does lesser-known shows specifically so I spend a lot of time thinking about this...here are a few just off the top of my head but there are tons. 

LIZZIE

STRIKING 12

THE FROGS

35MM

HOSTAGE SONG 

LOVE KILLS

THE GLORIOUS ONES

JASPER IN DEADLAND

MURDER BALLAD

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

ZOMBIES FROM THE BEYOND

ADDING MACHINE

NEVERMORE

VENICE

Yeston's PHANTOM

BUBBLE BOY

I could go on and on really/

If you really want to dig deep, go to the licensing websites (Music Theatre International, Samuel French, Dramatists Play Service, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Tams Witmark, Theatrical Rights, Playscripts) and start looking-you'll find a lot of gems. Nymf.org and Namt.org are good resources too for newer stuff.  Also newmusicaltheatre.com although they're redoing their website at the moment.  Many new shows don't have an official recording but you can find links to demos on SoundCloud and YouTube. 

[antonijan]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 12:15am

Significant Others from the same composer of Allegiance

[Broadway Bob*]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 6:55am

A fewof my favorites:

-Triumph of Love

-john & jen

-Hello Again

-Evil Dead: The Musical

-Is There Life After High School?

-The Last Session

-No Way to Treat a Lady

-A New Brain

-The Story of My Life

-[title of show]

-Weird Romance

-3 Guys Naked from the Waist Down

[MCfan2]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 10:13am

High Spirits
You Never Know
New Girl in Town
Flowers for Algernon
Breakfast at Tiffany's

And I'll probably think of some more later!

[uncageg]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 10:37am

MTM, I was just about to add ADDING MACHINE also. Listened to it a lot when the recording was released.

[darquegk]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 10:59am

A few of my lesser-appreciated favorites:

Little Me. The closest thing traditional musical comedy has to a cult show, it's revived and revised every few decades for a specific comedic talent. The 1998 recording with Martin Short and Faith Prince has some fantastic performances and a tight swing-band arragement, but the 1963 original has the very traditional "1960s bored businessman musical theatre" feel that some people love.

The Sandman. A tiny little German Expressionist musical by Richard Oberacker, starring Patrick Page, based on the weird tales of Hoffmann.

Amour. Michel Legrand's unique French take on jazz and musical theatre was the inspiration for the style and sound of La La Land, and his Broadway outing was a little too small and slight to succed. It's got a fantastic cast and a wonderful, if not exactly memorable, score- you can clearly hear everything La La Land wanted to be.

Disney On the Record. No real plot, no real revelations, but a great jazz band and eight fantastic singer-actors work their way through the Disney stage and screen catalogue. Great for sing-alongs- but good luck hitting all of Andy Karl's bass parts.

 

And finally, I'll plug my own unknown show, "Tink," which ran in the 2016 New York Musical Festival as a Next Link full production. We never put out a full cast recording, but you can hear our demo on the composer's Soundcloud here.

[MCfan2]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 11:40am

Billy. I knew I'd think of more! I can't believe I was recalling pre-Phantom Michael Crawford cast albums like Flowers for Algernon, and forgot Billy! (There's also Barnum, but I think that was mentioned already.) 

[Sertzo19]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 12:15pm

Blood Brothers is a good one. Not sure if anyone would consider Parade obscure but it's pretty much forgotten at this point even though it was critically acclaimed in it's initial run. That's probably one of my favorites of all time though, if you haven't listened to it yet- find it! You can find the OBC Recording on Spotify and there's also a recording of the London Donmar Warehouse Cast Recording. The instrumentation in the Donmar recording is more minimal, but it includes all of the dialogue of the show as well, which is great. Weird Romance is also fantastic, the recording includes the legendary Ellen Greene and her voice is in top form. The Life, a musical about prostitutes is pretty great as well. 

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 10:36pm

White Noise

[blaxx]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 10:43pm

Sertzo19 said: "Blood Brothers is a good one. Not sure if anyone would consider Parade obscure but it's pretty much forgotten at this point even though it was critically acclaimed in it's initial run. That's probably one of my favorites of all time though, if you haven't listened to it yet- find it! You can find the OBC Recording on Spotify and there's also a recording of the London Donmar Warehouse Cast Recording. The instrumentation in the Donmar recording is more minimal, but it includes all of the dialogue of the show as well, which is great. Weird Romance is also fantastic, the recording includes the legendary Ellen Greene and her voice is in top form. The Life, a musical about prostitutes is pretty great as well."

Neither the best musical Tony winning Nine, nor Blood Brothers which ran for decades in the West End, nor Parade are "unknown musicals". Maybe to you only. 

 

[Elegance101]

Posted: 3/29/18 at 1:08am

Listening to Murder Ballad is fun because it’s an entirely sung through show, so you can basically listen to the entire thing. You’re missing the immersive space, but it’s very well-written. Also Rebecca Naomi Jones, that’s all.

This isn’t unknown as it was just on Broadway, but an under appreciated show is Dames at Sea. So sad it closed so soon.

[Theatre Geek2]

Posted: 3/29/18 at 8:47am

The Hardy Boys musical:  The Secret of the Old Queen

 

Updated On: 3/29/18 at 08:47 AM

[Fan123]

Posted: 3/29/18 at 6:08pm

'Unknown' is relative of course, but here are some other recommended shows which have some kind of cast recording(s) or demo tracks available but which, to my knowledge, haven't had a major label cast recording release as such. (Some do have commercial cast recordings.)

Ghost Quartet - spooky, melancholy interweaving of various story threads and ideas. (If you're a Dave Malloy fan, there are selected songs available for listening from his other 'unknown' shows on his website as well.)

A Very Potter Musical series - good silly fun, though you may need to be a Harry Potter fan. The same team's Disney/Aladdin/Wicked parody 'Twisted' is also fun.

Futurity - not sure if I can summarise or even fully know what this show is about, but I enjoyed the album! This show is even having its libretto published as well, straining its 'obscure' credentials.

Shaina Taub's Shakespeare musicals - she has released self-sung demo cast recordings of 'Twelfth Night' and 'As You Like It'. I haven't listened all the way through, but what I have heard sounds good.

Picnic at Hanging Rock - there are a few haunting demo song recordings around. IMO this show has a bit of a 'Goblin Market' vibe, if that means anything.

Peter Pan (Stiles and Drewe) - it's not top-tier but is, in my opinion, closer to the spirit of the original play and novel than other musical versions I've heard.

Cannibal! The Musical - soundtrack for Trey Parker and Matt Stone's early movie musical effort.

James and the Giant Peach - Pasek and Paul kid-friendly show.

21 Chump Street - not that obscure these days, but the cast recording is on iTunes and Spotify.

If you search this board for threads on 'obscure' musicals, you'll find some other recommendations.

By the way, according to https://unsungmusicals.org/umc-digital/ a company called 'Unsung Musicals' will be releasing a couple of abridged recordings in November of some older relatively unknown musicals, 'Gatsby' and 'Peggy-Ann'.