the show that got you hooked

[ohhoney_]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 1:38pm

so there you are, innocent as pie, watching some odd musical movie or taking your seat in the 3rd row of the balcony. and by the end of the show, you can't believe how hooked you've been.

i've loved musicals since i was about 8...i got mary poppins on VHS for christmas and i was obsessed. then that summer, i saw "grease" and thought stockard channing was the most perfect human being EVER.

i have liked them for a while now, but all my loves came from movies. i think it was seeing "the rocky horror show" 2 and a half years ago, done locally, that really opened me up, and i realized that it was what i wanted to do with my life. since then i have seen 2 shows in NYC on Broadway (hey i'm canadian and have only been once!) and in a little under 5 weeks i am going back and seeing "Dirty Rotten Scoundrals."

my favorite musical is into the woods though.

[OasisBroadway]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 1:41pm

RENT. First saw it in 1997. I thought I was not going to like it. I could not have been more incorrect. Since then, been hooked.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 1:42pm

Aida.

It was the first time I saw a show that I truly loved, and loved so much that I remember leaving the theatre and saying to my mother "I want to turn right back around, go back in, and see it again." I had never experienced that before.

Updated On: 3/6/06 at 01:42 PM

[keatonbynumbers]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 1:44pm

It was 1994. And it was Carousel. And I understand that's sort of random, but seriously, folks--Audra McDonald.

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 1:45pm

BIG

[ohhoney_]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 1:46pm

RENT seems to be one of those shows that just, sinks its claws into you. the first time i heard it i was in love with it. since then i have had those moments where i sitck my nose up in the air and say "oh, rent. well. everyone likes that!"

then suddenly, la vie boheme comes on my itunes and i get chills.

i haven't heard aida. but i want to so bad.

[Kitzarina]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 1:46pm

A combination of Les Miserables and the world premiere of Jane Eyre. Both occured in 1995 when I was 10 years old.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 1:47pm

The Wizard of Oz. I was 3.

[gavrochegirl]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 1:50pm

RENT.

[ohhoney_]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 1:55pm

OOOH. How could I forget, "The Wizard of Oz!" and "Peter Pan"

since then i have learned that gee, the music to peter pan is god awful and i would rather shove an ice pick in my eye than hear mary martin sing "i gotta crow" ... but the version i saw was spunky and fun and NOT RACIST! whoop!

[Enjolras77]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 1:55pm

Well...mine came in more of a secession of events that happened over a period of a few months. I had always liked performing myself. I sang in church as a child and was in all of the church plays. I also took theatre arts my sophomore year in high school for fun. However, what got me hooked on musical theatre was:

1) I was cast in a very successful community theatre production of The Sound of Music. I was in the chorus, but through this show I met my future voice teacher. I also was given a lot of compliments on my voice and encouragement by some of the lead actors I looked up to that made me excited that I might could suceed at performing.

2) I went and saw the national tour of Les Miserables.

3) In the next show I was cast as Hero in Forum at the same theatre.

4) My high school chorus went to NYC and saw three Broadway musicals.

[wonderwaiter]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 1:59pm

When the First National Tour of Les Miserables came through Atlanta, I was hopelessly and unrequitedly in love with the boy who sat across from me in Algebra class. The television commercial had Linzi Hately singing "On my own, pretending he is beside me" and that was it. That one line went right to the center of my little gay heart and the world was never the same again.

(I refer to the OLC of Les Mis as my "gateway" cast album.)

[BroadwayChica]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 1:59pm

My general love for musicals began with "Les Miserables". I saw it when I was 9 years old (this was back in 1989, so, yes I'm 26 years old). I'm not a big fan of that show now, but it's what sparked my love for theater in the first place.

[Menken Fan]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 2:02pm

Evita, with Patti LuPone, 1980.

Not too many shows have come close to that first experience.

[mrcacou]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 2:04pm

Les Misérables. My borther got the music in 1982 when I was 4. I got hooked. Still listen to it 24 years later !

[broadway_baby4]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 2:05pm

Rent. Six years old

[Bohemian1232]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 2:07pm

I had really enjoyed a lot of shows, but my first all out obsession was Rent. I listened to the OBCR almost 24/7 for a while.

[timote316]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 2:10pm

Grease, the musiacal, and later seeing a production theater.

[Attendthetale331]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 2:13pm

The show that got me hooked to theater was when I did a production of Les Miserables, thats when i started to love theater, when i worked with a broadway production team, thats what got me obsessed.

Posted: 3/6/06 at 2:15pm

I would have to say seeing NLB as Freddy on the Tony Awards got me hooked. I mean I liked listening to broadway music before, but never really loved it. But after seeing him I was like, I HAVE TO HAVE THIS CD AND WHO IS THAT GUY?! Also I really enjoyed the two b-way musicals I saw before that which was Hairspray and Grease.

[Nothatsmrt]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 2:20pm

The musical that hooked me was the movie version of "The Sound of Music". I was in 6th grade. That movie was, and still is, pure magic to me.

The show (live Broadway) that got me hooked was (oh lord) Phantom of the Opera. It had already been running for a few years when I saw it as a 12 year old.

[YankeeGal#24]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 2:23pm

All the old movie musicals got me early on. They didn't have them on DVD then and I would just wait for one of them to be on TV so I could watch, and between times listen to the cast albums over and over and acting them out with my sisters. The ones that really hooked me were (are!) West Side Story, Carousel, Gypsy, and Oklahoma.

[Ourtime992]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 2:37pm

My father is a director and I grew up attending musicals almost weekly, but it was The Secret Garden in 1991 that blew me away. Looking back I'm not all that enchanted with it, but at the time I was amazed. My sisters and mother were dead tired from a week in the city and slept through it, and I quietly fell in love with theater.

In any other crowd I'd claim it was Tommy several years later that hooked me on musicals, but the truth is it was Daisy Egan.

[livelife]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 2:56pm

sound of music.....haha i WAS 8

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 3/6/06 at 3:01pm

Gypsy and Bye Bye Birdie when I was about 14.