What is the weakest Best Musical winner of the past 10 years? — Page 3

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

""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.

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I'm gonna pick Contact. I liked Memphis.

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Memphis! Hockadoo!

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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.

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.

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

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.