Broadway Star Joined: 3/19/05
My vote would be Spamalot followed by Memphis and The Producers. Especially when you compare Spamalot to the other nominees that year.
Light in the Piazza was so lush and beautiful.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was fun farce.
Spelling Bee was intelligent, snarky and sweet.
Spamalot was stupid (not necessarily a bad thing) and kind of pointless.
If you were a Monty Python fan, you loved it.
If you wanted a mindless night at the theater, you loved it.
If you were a straight girl with a boyfriend, you were thankful there was ONE show on Broadway your boyfriend would go to and not be embarassed.
Funny? Maybe
Best Musical that year - not even 3rd.
As for those that posted on Contact and Millie - I thought Contact was so different and more a dance piece and Millie was light and refreshing (and Sutton Foster was perfect for the role and reminded me all night long of a young Mary Tyler Moore in the Dick Van Dyke Show).
And I have seen all the shows -
Updated On: 6/15/10 at 02:20 AM
Featured Actor Joined: 4/10/09
1. The Producers
2. Billy Elliot
3. Hairspray
4. Avenue Q
5. In The Heights
6. Contact
7. Spring Awakening
8. Thoroughly Modern Millie
9. Memphis
10. Spamalot
""2006: Jersey Boys: Adored Jersey Boys and for me it was the win for Dreamgirls that Nine so inappropriately stole. Jersey Boys is brilliant."
Um....what?"
I think the line of reasoning here is "Dreamgirls" should have beat "Nine," but since "Jersey Boys" is also about a music group (though it is more literally based on a nonfiction subject), and the plot details the interactions of the members of the group, "Jersey Boys'" victory is in "Dreamgirls'" honor.
It's stupid.
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/21/06
This thread is a joke is anyone is saying The Producers.
Fine, you may not have liked it, but it wasn't the weakest this or any decade. It was a huge success, a phenomenon.
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/23/05
I'm gonna pick Contact. I liked Memphis.
Not having seen CONTACT, I'm going to say MEMPHIS.
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/10/08
Memphis! Hockadoo!
Weakest: Spamalot
Runners Up: Avenue Q, The Producers
All of these shows are an embarrassment to Broadway
Some of the shows in the past ten years may not have deserved their award. I liked Spamalot, but there were much better shows that year. I also really enjoyed In the Heights but felt there were better musicals against it. I said this elsewhere, but looking at the quality of the shows, not at whether other shows that year were more or less deserving, Memphis is the weakest Best Musical since Cats.
Understudy Joined: 9/20/08
1. Spring Awakening
2. Billy Elliot
3. Avenue Q
4. In The Heights
5. Thoroughly Modern Millie
6. Contact
7. Hairspray
8. The Producers
9. Spamalot
10. Memphis
11. Jersey Boys
I liked Thoroughly Modern Millie. I agree that the book sucked, but I thought that all the other elements of the production supported each other really well, which I think is unusual for Broadway musicals these days. Usually, when I see shows, it seems like there weren't enough production meetings and all the designers just took all the money that they could find and did the biggest, splashiest, thing they could think of. Millie seemed really cohesive to me.
1. Spring Awakening
2. Billy Elliot
3. Avenue Q
4. In The Heights
5. Hairspray
6. Spamalot
7. Thoroughly Modern Millie
8. The Producers
9. Jersey Boys
10. Memphis
11. Contact
I needed the list in this thread to even remember Contact. The rest I liked or disliked but a Best Winner shouldn't be so easily forgotten. Memphis loses points for being a Hairspray wannabe. I enjoyed Jersey Boys more than I expected, but it wasn't really a musical. If I were being intellectually honest, I'd switch Spamalot and The Producers on this list, but I enjoyed Spamalot a lot more than The Producers. And Light in the Piazza just didn't live up to my very high expectations, so I was happy Spamalot won that year.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/30/09
Strongest to weakest, excluding Contact and Memphis because I haven't seen either:
Avenue Q
Spring Awakening
Billy Elliot
The Producers
Thoroughly Modern Millie
Hairspray
Jersey Boys
In the Heights
Spamalot
Hairspray and jersey Boys make the transition from the good to the bad. For me, the first three are very close. So are In the Heights and Spamalot.
Now I want to actually rank all 11 since everyone else is.
1. Hairspray
2. Spring Awakening
3. Avenue Q
4. In the Heights
5. Jersey Boys
6. Spamalot
7. The Producers
8. Billy Elliott (I know! I know! I just didn't love it.)
9. Contact
10. Millie
11. Memphis
The order on this list makes me look like I'm 12. It's strange to look at the top of this list because none of these are real favorites of mine other than Hairspray which I truly love and Spring Awakening which I largely loved. But musicals I've LOVED? They've either lost (Caroline, or Change; Passing Strange; Fela) or been off-Broadway.
Ranking the best musical revivals? That's MUCH harder. Talk about depth of field!
1. South Pacific
2. Hair
3. La Cage 2010
4. Assassins
5. Company
6. 42nd Street
7. The Pajama Game
8. Into the Woods
9. Nine
10. La Cage 2005
Granted, I haven't seen the past winners for "Best Musical" on Broadway, however, I feel that Memphis should not be the weakest. I think it also depends on what other shows are in the running. I saw Million Dollar Quartet and found it to not be an actual musical, but rather a concert with a terrible book. Many of my friends saw Fela! and believed it to not be up to par in relation to other musicals, and American Idiot should not have been nominated whatsoever.
I feel as a whole Memphis is not the weakest (Spamalot, in my opinion is); however respectively within the 2010 season Memphis definitely deserved the award.
I haven't seen all of the shows that have won in the last 10 years, but of the 6 I've seen I'd say that Memphis is the only one I outright hated.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/29/07
Here they are ranked best to worst, imo:
2001: The Producers/ 2009: Billy Elliot (TIE)
2004: Avenue Q
2007: Spring Awakening
2003: Hairspray
2005: Spamalot
2000: Contact
2010: Memphis
2002: Thoroughly Modern Millie
2008: In the Heights
2006: Jersey Boys
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