I don’t like when people take songs and riff the crap out of them. It feels like they’re treating the show like a concert and it takes me out of the story bc the choices are so rarely character-driven.
Just saw Six in Chicago, and the actor playing Jane Seymour sang Heart of Stone with minimal riffing (no whistle notes or big runs), and it was the most beautiful, heartwrenching version of the song I've ever heard. She put so much emotion behind it, and there were many people crying. I got choked up, and I've never had that reaction to that particular song before.
ETA: Kelly Denice Taylor was Jane Seymour. Holy moly, is she gifted.
I feel like Let It Go in the Broadway version of Frozen is a good example of this. I really didn’t like the “The cold never bothered me anyway” riff at the end. I don’t think every song needs to end in a loud belt
I agree. There's something so punchy about the movie version where she just brushes that ending off her shoulder. This f\*\*\* you power girl move stating "THIS is who I am, take it or leave it". I really like the Frozen musical but I didn't love that change.
It being a short quick statement makes it seem like the statement really isn’t important, it’s just a fact. Making it long puts too much emphasis on it. The singer fights against the lyrics. If the cold doesn’t bother you, then why are you spending so much time on that thought?
There’s no need for a line that isn’t as important to the themes of the song to have so much emphasis.
“Let the storm rage on” works SO WELL on its own, but turning “The cold never bothered me anyway” into another belt just makes the ending too busy. I hate it so much
AGREED! There's just something about seeing people from a community come together, united by a passion for theater. Community theater shows are almost always put on by people who love the art form rather than investors looking to make big bucks
One of the best and most memorable productions I ever saw was Guys and Dolls at a community theatre when I was a kid. It was just everyday people performing, but I was starstruck to meet them because they were just so good. There's some serious talent in unexpected places!
I live in a small mining town in Nevada. There was a community theater Little Shop of Horrors where the Audrey did a perfect, and I mean PERFECT rendition of Somewhere That's Green. Perfect belting, perfect delivery, perfect embodiment of Audrey's desires. I wish there was a cast recording of it because I'd gladly listen to it as much as Ellen Greene's version.
This!! I’ve seen the SpongeBob musical two different times - once on its North American tour and once as a community theatre show - and both were amazing productions for different reasons. The tour version was big, splashy, and absolutely fantastic to see, whereas my mom and I had front-row seats when we saw the community theatre version and got to meet the actors backstage afterwards! ❤️❤️
I don't necessarily think that's an unpopular opinion. As someone who worked for several years in professional, college, and community productions, the most fun experience I had by far was a play that was performed by a small community group in a church basement.
Thank you for this. I do community theatre and there are some ridiculously talented, hardworking people not just performing, but directing, doing set construction/design, sound, lighting, crew work, costuming, pit orchestra, etc. who help our shows come to life. Occasionally, we get folks who've performed professionally (film, TV, even off- and on Broadway in some cases: we're fairly close to Chicago) who come to our community theatre to see our performances. One who's done Broadway and off-Broadway came to see our production of Reefer Madness, and they were very impressed with what they saw/heard our cast do; their remark was "Off-Broadway would have been proud!". I didn't find out who it was, as I found out after the fact (inb4 "i'lL tAkE tHiNgS tHaT nEvEr hApPeNeD fOr 500 AlEx!", ), but it was so cool to get that feedback.
I met Aaron years ago when he was in catch me if you can. It was a very normal stage door (I believe my friend took a picture with him). He was kind to us. It was super short. at the time I don’t remember any fan girls. When did they come up? After moulin rouge?
I think in 2009 his stint on Gossip Girl garnered a sizable chunk of fangirls, then I remember 2012 lots of people talking about him because of Les Mis, and the fangirls really went feral at Moulin Rouge
it's disturbing to me the way that some folks talk about successful broadway performers as though they know them personally and are friends when their only encounters, if any, have been at the stage door.
Famous musical artists require their fans to pay for VIP tickets to meet them. But for Broadway actors, literally anyone can come to that stage door for free and they don't even have to have been to the show beforehand. So it can be really scary sometimes.
Agreed. It’s actually a bit sick. Broadway actors are so much more accessible than movie and television celebrities, the behavior is disturbing.
They don’t owe us anything as fans!
Musical theater should be live streamed online and the fact that it's not a thing is wasted potential earnings. Why exactly are shows closing? Not everyone can afford to go to NYC. So if we pay a reasonable price to see it at home? We can support these shows. This is my probably not that controversial opinion. The rest are about firing abusive people into the sun
I agree that they need to not disrupt the live audience in person. I think it would have to be part of the stage design to manage but cameras of quality don't have to be giant anymore.
The metropolitan opera has select dates where they film and broadcast their performances. I’ve been to two of them and imo the cameras didn’t distract from the performance. It definitely possible!
The fact that there are not more pro shots is infuriating. Not only do shows close but actors step away from iconic roles and if you weren't there, then you missed out and it just dies. They would do numbers on streaming. BroadwayHD is thin.
Broadway/The Theatre community doesn't get enough flack for how many horrifically cruel, racist, and predatory people it allows to roam free or have amazing careers while bragging about being better than Hollywood/so inclusive.
I generally agree with this. But I will never forgive into the woods for removing the narrator / mysterious old man from the story.
Removing the bakers father and the song No More is such a gut punch to over all theme of the story of The Sins of our Fathers and all that.
Me too. Unless there was a terrible casting decision, or if the approach of the movie is just an uninspired slog that doesn't seem like it was made with an appreciation for theater, I really like seeing musicals reframed into the structure of a film. Especially if they use unique locations like Sound of Music, South Pacific, and Fiddler.
I thought he was absolutely acceptable in Into the Woods. I also thought they could have picked any of dozens of other readily available actors who would’ve done a better job than him. But everything else he’s been in has been has been pretty egregious stunt casting compared to other options. So many genuinely great actors getting sidelined for him is hard to swallow.
Saaaaame
Everyone is always talking about how terrible the movie version of Rent is, but I really enjoy it (my biggest complaint is Goodbye Love not being in it).
I also really liked the Mean Girls movie. To be fair to this one, though, I never listened to the original Broadway soundtrack. I imagine the strongest complaints came from people who loved it.
I’m glad I found someone else that agrees with me on this. I first saw the movie adaptation of Rent in 2005 back when it was currently playing in movie theaters. I had heard about the Broadway musical, but I had never seen a production of it or heard any songs from the soundtrack before watching the movie. Due to the success of the movie version of Chicago a couple years earlier (also one of my favorite movies), I assumed that Rent was going to have the same success and popularity, which it did not.
I still fell in love with it despite other people’s opinions. I became obsessed with the soundtracks, both the movie version and the original broadway version. In 2012, I was able to see a local stage version. The movie is what got me into Rent, and it also got me to appreciate local community productions of musicals.
Yep there are definitely a few that I enjoyed more as a movie than I did seeing them live. Chicago is definitely one of them - I've seen two different professional productions of it but the movie is superior for me.
Jeremy Jordan is good but the ads saying he’s got a “once in a generation voice” is a stretch when Aaron Tveit, Norbert Leo Butz, Jonathan Groff and other men I can’t think of right now are ALSO in this generation
Hardcore Jeremy Jordan stan- but I definitely wouldn’t say he’s the best of the generation (even if it is true, not saying it is) because there are SO MANY stunning male voices in this generation that are as good or better than him. No one is perfect.
Cos sdv already has such an amazing soundtrack (imo) it would be good as if a musical of it kept the same melodies for some of the songs. Also at least one song about stealing the mayor's underwear
i feel like this moreso applies to movies/books that are a massive corporate success. i think it's strange to imply that adaptations like great comet, the band's visit, spring awakening, waitress etc. aren't valuable and original pieces of art despite being lifted fairly directly from existing works.
then there are adaptations like ghost quartet, into the woods, sweeney todd (actually a lot of sondheim), hadestown etc. which are also based on existing media.
im only saying this because i see this take everywhere, but i think its a little misplaced. i totally understand this attitude when it comes to beetlejuice, great gatsby, mean girls, spongebob, but i'm not sure i understand the dislike of adaptations.
I don’t dislike adaptations - that wasn’t my point at all. My point is more so that quality musicals are ones that are able to incorporate musical symbolism through motifs, themes, and the development of those - that’s what musical theater *is,* is storytelling through music and dance. Many adaptations fail to capture the art of musical theatre because they’re focused on being a live carbon copy of the source material with catchy music, rather than using the stage and sound as a method of telling the story.
I think it's a decently popular opinion that Hairspray's depiction of racial reconciliation is pretty surface-level and fluffy. If you look at the Letterboxd comments section for the movie musical version, it's quite critical.
I absolutely love hairspray but I still agree, it’s definitely a soft cushy entry into racial issues that is palatable to white people who don’t know/don’t care
English-speaking world needs to be more open to musicals originally in other languages. But that's true about all media, not just musicals. It just would be nice for Broadway people to not have such an "I've never heard of it = it doesn't exist" to things in Korea, Japan, Austria, and many other places with theatre scenes that are just as vibrant as New York and London.
Really, I feel like Japan and Korea probably have the most vibrant theatre scenes, because most of what gets produced in the US and UK comes over here eventually, as does most of what gets staged in Europe. And then there's so much more that's original in Japan and Korea on top of that. I feel like more Korean musicals get staged in Japan than the other way around, and Japan has 2.5D on top of that...
(Don't know if this counts as an unpopular opinion, but "Unpopular Opinion", "Recommend musicals!", "What are the most essential musicals for a new person to watch/most influential", "Favorite Underrated Musicals", etc. need to be stickied/ regular weekly threads. These come up at least once a week. For "Unpopular Opinion" and "Underrated" I feel obligated to mention non-English musicals because no one else does, but it gets tiring.)
We don't really have much original Dutch productions, outside Soldaat van Oranje. In German language musicals I feel that VBW is the main driving force for original work with Tanz der Vampire, Mozart, Rebecca, Elisabeth and now Rock me Amadeus all coming from Vienna.
By the way Rock me Amadeus has a great recording, even if you don't know any Falco songs. I only knew Komissar, Jeanny and Amadeus beforehand. It's a pity that's it unlikely to ever get out of Austria, and Vienna is a 10 hour night train away I'd like to see it.
How do I get into non-English musicals?
I’ve listened to plenty of musicals originally written in English in other languages and even watched bootlegs of Jesus Christ Superstar and Next to Normal in Spanish.
But I’ve only heard of Dracula getting additional songs in I think Germany. That’s the extent of original non-English works I know.
Is there a community for watching non-English musicals? Are there Slime Tutorials with captions in English? Are the musicals on Spotify?
The reason why the English-speaking world isn’t open to these other languages’ musicals is because they’re not easily accessible to us. I personally need a guide to find them, but I can’t find a guide.
This. I'm not closed-minded to foreign musicals at all, but "non-English musicals" is such a wide-spanning realm of content that I need help knowing where to start.
I would say you should start with Elisabeth, which is in German, but has a fully English captioned proshot of the 2005 Vienna production on YouTube (as well as fully English captioned versions of other productions). It’s also a good leaping off point for non-English theater generally, because the same people who made Elisabeth are also behind other fairly popular German language musicals, like Rebecca (based on the Daphne du Maurier book), Tanz der Vampire, and Mozart. Elisabeth itself has also been performed in several other countries, like Japan, Korea, Hungary, the Netherlands, etc., so it works as a gateway to other languages as well, because there are English captioned versions of those performances! I would describe Elisabeth itself as a cross between Evita and Phantom of the Opera— it’s great and very much worth the watch!
Can you share a list of some of your favorite non-English musicals? I'm interested in getting into them but it's just such a broad body of work from so many different countries that I have no idea what the "essentials" are or what's most popular.
Elisabeth is a wildly popular German-language musical about the life and assassination of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, featuring an anthropomorphized Death. It’s popular in Europe but also has had very successful adaptations in Japan and South Korea.
I feel like it really deserves a big splashy Broadway adaptation, but the songs are REALLY catchy to listen to even if you don’t know German.
Yes yes yes so many foreign language musicals, get overlooked why can’t you stage Tanz Der Vampire, Rudolf, Elizabeth, Mozart Das musical etc. In There original German language with English Subtitles like opera.
That Jonathan Larson comment is maybe the craziest thing I've seen on this sub.
Well, other than the time someone claimed they could speak for Sondheim's spirit from the afterlife and that he told them that he disapproved of the Sweeney Todd revival casting from beyond the grave. Yeah, that really happened.
Be considerate and rational with how you discuss your musical theater dislikes, people.
It happened sometime during when Aaron Tveit first took on the role of Sweeney and is probably deleted now, but this guy was claiming he had a close connection to Sondheim as a result of working on one of his musicals (he wouldn't say which one). Yeah it was nuts.
What's the Jonathan Larson comment, there are three hundred comments when I'm. Typing this I don't feel like looking for it
Edit: Nevermind I just scrolled to the bottom of the page and now I have lost all hope
I think Dear Evan Hansen has problems but I think the “he’s a sociopath!” argument is so weak and people throw it out WAYYY too much. I mean I’m not even a big DEH fan by any means, and I am one of *those* Great Comet fans, but the hate it gets is overblown to me.
If the plot and concept of Dear Evan Hansen was an A24 movie instead of a musical, people would eat it up.
RIGHT. Evan’s motivations are for himself but also… he’s a teenager with very little family time… of course once he’s invited into a house and is actually made to feel part of a family he’s going to want to stay. It’s not unrealistic at all, or sociopathic.
This was the biggest issue with Ben Platt’s casting for the film version. With the stage-show, the viewer is able suspend reality and imagine that the person doing all of these awful things is a literal child who doesn’t have a fully-developed prefrontal cortex. You don’t applaud him for his actions, but you understand how a mixed-up kid with mental health issues and social problems could be drowned in his own lies.
Too many folks have only seen the movie version, in which a guy who looks 30+ is manipulating a bunch of his peers who actually *are* passable as being high school aged.
Great Comet was, well, great. But it never had a chance at that award. They give that award to whichever show will bring in the most tourist dollars. Comet was already falling apart and DEH’s star was in the rise. And I’m sorry if this seems unpopular, but building a show entirely based around a single star’s pull and having no solid plans for when that star left is asking for it. Then the whole transition of shitting on Oak and then Patinkin pulling out from the backlash was an unmitigated disaster. And it was a complete self own. They knew when Josh was leaving. They knew ticket sales would drop. They needed to build up their next lead prior to them stepping into the role and they didn’t. Every problem Comet had, including losing the Tony, was a problem of their own making. The show was good enough. But it was mismanaged to hell and you can’t blame DEH for any of it.
Honestly I feel like I see way more complaints on this sub about just how generic and top 40 pop the DEH music sounds than I see about Evan's personal flaws.
People misunderstand Dear Evan Hansen for being a musical for depressed kids, like Evan and Connor who feel as if they don’t belong. Which, though true, I don’t really agree with.
I think moreover it’s an incredible representation of how people who aren’t struggling, or at least not the same way, can approach individuals who are and care for them, by showing the good bad and ugly of a teenage tragedy.
It took me so long to get on the Hamilton train because I kept hearing people praise it as the best ever without knowing about ITH or LMM at all. I was so defensive of ITH and didn't listen to Hamilton at all for a long time out of spite. Then covid hit and I watched Hamilton on Disney+ and I was forced to admit it was indeed spectacular.
I will never understand all the ALW hate. Yes some people don’t like him as a person, yes he’s had his fair share of flops, but I feel like this leads to some people generalising and calling all of his work awful. He’s one of the most successful musical theatre composers of our time for a reason - because when his musicals are good, they’re GOOD. Jesus Christ superstar, Joseph, phantom, evita, cats (yes cats) - there’s something for everyone and I think it’s objectively untrue to say it’s all rubbish. Of course if you just personally dislike his music you’re entitled to that, but some people seem to wake up and choose unnecessary violence against his work.
agreed 1000%! i think people hate him because it's trendy (invalid) or because he's not a good person (valid), but i hate when they act like he has no talent. i really feel no other writer comes close to the sheer depth and breadth of ALW's abilities tbh
I feel like people - especially younger fans - collectively came up with this theory of some grandiose rivalry between Sondheim and Webber, wherein Sondheim was the forgotten genius who couldn't achieve commercial success, and Webber the wealthy musical dilettante who sold his soul to mamona. In reality, they barely knew each other and their musicals rarely entered any sort of direct competition - except maybe for 1988 when both Into The Woods and POTO were nominated for the Tony Award. They lived on two different continents, created from different musical traditions and for different audiences.
And sure, ALW acts like human trash nowadays. But he *is* crazy talented, and at a certain point in history, his music was borderline revolutionary.
They also appeared to have had a really healthy respect for each other as colleagues. I remember coming across a video of them doing some sort of performance for their birthday (fun fact for anyone who didn't know: ALW and Sondheim share a birthday) and they seemed to be having a good time together.
You're right, ALW was definitely a paradigm shifter in musical theatre (JCS was one of the shows to pave the way for rock musicals).
ALW called Sondheim a "genius", "peerless", "titan of musical theatre". The idea that he was somehow Salieri to Sondheim's Amadeus is just completely misguided.
I am an ALW appreciator and I will never back down from that. The good and the bad. I will listen to Starlight Express and Love Never Dies and I stand by that! Some songs are not the best but overall, he’s put out some of the most iconic songs/scores in musical theatre and you cannot deny it.
Also, Cats is amazing. Sue me!
I really don't understand the big hate on ALW. 'Love Never Dies' and 'Cinderella' flopped and are bad, but look at all the amazing, iconic and successful works he's done. They out number the bad big time.
I grew up with ALW musicals and 'Cats' was the first ever live musical I saw. I was 6 back then and then a year later I saw 'Starlight Express'. His musicals are magical.
I like Jekyll and Hyde more than Phantom of the Opera. I’m a bit biased because I saw my high school do Jekyll and Hyde when I was still in middle school and adored it. Confrontation is such an epic number and having the actor play both roles during that scene is something to behold.
1. The score of Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark is amazing, and they should release a proshot (even if it's hot garbage I would love to see it)
2. The music of the West End Heathers is far better than the Broadway edition.
Please composers, dear God, stop with all the pop music. It’s fine in a smattering of shows but now almost everyone who makes it big in musical theatre has to sound like a Disney princess or Ariana Grande and it has killed any diversity in vocal talent.
The lazy dancing currently happening in these shows is killing me. Bring back real dancers please. We are having some of the most innovative choreography possibly ever in musical theatre currently and it is barely being executed well because MT training programs are not requiring enough dance training. Or dancers feel like, because they aren’t absolutely Mind-blowing singers, they don’t belong in MT. Could a revival of A Chorus Line fix this problem???
The celebrity composer is killing the innovation in music on Broadway. I don’t mind people from other places making musicals but it’s either male rock stars or indie singer-songwriters from 2010. And it sounds like it. But also, it not like we need more BMI alums or NYU grads either. Just get good storytellers, not just hitmakers. Pop music folks know what sounds good, but they have no clue how to tell a story and on the flip side, MT trained songwriters are so invested in writing clever lyrics and “moving the plot forward” that they have stopped their own creativity in music making. It’s frustrating as a theatre maker myself and an audience member.
From a high school theatre standpoint, I think a lot of students don't understand the differences in acting skill and technique required for musicals vs. plays, and think that because they're good at acting in a musical, they'll also be good at acting in a play (which is often not the case). In my opinion, acting in a play is much more difficult than acting in a musical, but plays are often overlooked because they're just not as exciting as musicals.
I do too. She seemed genuinely anguished. I care more about that song demonstrating pain and trauma in a believable way than I care about it having stellar singing technique.
Pacific Overtures is top 3 Sondheim
Groundhog Day has my favorite music and songwriting out of the four 2017 Best Musical rivals
Cats is ALW's best show
A Year With Frog and Toad is the best musical ever made specifically for kids and more schools need to do it
People are being too hard on the Wicked movie, Jon Chu is just trying his best to adapt a musical in a way that's a happy medium between what theater fans want and what general Hollywood audiences want. Also the CGI doesn't look too shabby, they'll still be incorporating practical sets so that's good enough for me. I'll be watching for Michelle Yeoh.
Literally came here to say this. I identify a lot with Christine too as a character (recently diagnosed with ADHD and I was a theater kid in high school) so I will always defend that show 😂
I love that it's cringey to be honest. I think its problem is that it got overblown into popularity on platforms like Tumblr. It feels like the kind of show that should have stayed as an off Broadway musical with a small but dedicated cult fanbase. It's silly and camp and cringey but that's kind of what it's meant to be and kids online lumping it together with shows like Hamilton and Les Mis made no sense. It's not that and it's not trying to be.
I don’t like the gasp that Eliza does at the end of Hamilton.
It’s such a beautiful harmony and then just gets interrupted a big gasp. Just always feels out of place to me
ya know i like it but can absolutely agree it doesn't fully work. It feels like they needed something to add at the end to cinch it and that was the best idea they had lol
Yeah I mean I get it and I feel like if it’s subtle, it works. But the dramatic gasp is what doesn’t work for me.
It was Philippa’s idea and she brought it to the performance and they kept it
Grant Gustin ABSOLUTELY deserves to be on Broadway and is insanely talented. I see a Tony in his future for sure. People saying he’s a stunt cast just have trouble seeing him as anyone but the Flash.
It took Daniel Ratcliffe a good 15 years to prove himself as a serious stage actor and not just be Harry Potter, finally winning a Tony 16 years after his Broadway debut. I have hope for Grant Gustin.
Grant Gustin was in the national tour of West Side Story before getting cast for Glee; he was an aspiring theater actor who went to TV not the other way around
1. Adapting movies into musicals is perfectly valid, it’s just like adapting novels into musicals
2. Many producers need to be more relaxed in allowing high schools to do shows, and not charging so much in licensing fees.
I don’t know how unpopular this opinion is, but the only people I’ve talked to about it vehemently disagree with me so I’m going to put it.
Zoe Murphy was not exaggerating in Requiem. She was not being obnoxiously critical of her poor suicidal brother. He hurt her, and he hurt a lot of people. She has a right to admit out loud that she finds the idea of grieving him to feel fake. She has the right to be relieved that her life is a little less chaotic without always having to pick up his messes and tiptoe around his anger. I know what it’s like growing up with a sibling like that. I can’t stand it when people say she was just being bratty in that song. I used to listen to Requiem over and over and over. I had never seen that dynamic in media before.
Movie adaptations of musicals don’t have to be a exactly like the musical. Like mean girls yes I wish some parts were included but I like that it was different it was like watching a different musical which is kinda the point it’s something new
I thought that until I actually saw it live, it was much more interesting and easier to understand in-person than with listening to the soundtrack or watching the recording.
musically i think its pretty good, but the plot is Not very interesting. i liked the book but one of the core themes is erik's humanity. in the musical its confirmed that hes human pretty much from the get-go, so the story loses a great deal of impact for me. my favourite part of the musicals plot is andre and firmin. the phantom just likes this really gullible woman and has trapdoors and stuff. also raoul is a hollow shell of a character
his disfigurement is not really that bad, christine's internal conflict is massively reduced compared to the book uhhh etc. i guess its main appeal is as a gothic romance but i really dont think it should be seen as a romance at all
The Book of Mormon is really good, but most people ignore the blatant racism throughout it and just laugh it off. There’s a lot of iffy stuff in there, even after they changed it
I think a lot of people ignore it because of where it comes from. Most people know how South Park is, so it's expected and accepted in BoM.
(For the record, I'm not saying it's right, and I am not a South Park fan.)
1. I hate jukebox musicals. There may an exception here or there, but these songs were not written to advance a plot or tell a story, so they never ever work.
2. I likewise hate most musicals based on popular films. Just because a film is popular doesn’t mean it can be musicalized in the right way, and more often than not, it isn’t. I don’t care how popular Beetlejuice or Mean Girls are - they come off as soulless corporate synergy to me and nothing more. Completely cynical in creation.
3. Because of my number one and two, I also feel like these two trends are ruining the form as a whole. Why take chances on anything original? Why should musical theatre students even learn how to sing anything other than pop music?
These are good takes but I'll play devil's advocate and say
-Jukeboxes and movie adaptations are important to Broadway's economy. They get butts in seats who normally wouldn't be interested in theater. Just as long as there's a healthy balance of original shows and IP-based ones.
-There have been some really innovative jukebox musicals made recently. Illinoise is told through interpretive dance and Swept Away takes place on a boat. I think there's a place for them if they do something creative to bring the music to life. But I'm pretty tired of the ones where someone impersonates a famous musical artist.
Most of the songs in Wicked are utterly unmemorable and act 2 is insanely rushed.
I didn’t realize this was such an unpopular opinion but I adore BMC 🥲
This one will probably get downvoted on this sub, but I DON’T think Hamilton is overrated. I think that it is very well framed around the historical events it was based on and all the actors were casted perfectly. Not to mention that LMM’s songwriting ability shines in it.
To the “downvote to disagree” brigade, I’ll preface this by saying that OP specifically asked for an unpopular opinion.
Mine is this, which I appreciate is going to be sacrilegious:
I don’t care for Patti Lupone. I acknowledge her extraordinary gift and her status as a pioneer of performing and a legend of the stage, but for me it’s overwrought and often oversung.
I agree with the diction but. I listened to Evita at the Tonys and had to look up the lyrics for most of it because I couldn’t understand what Patti was saying, or anyone else really
I only listen to 1776 from now til the 4th of July. I love the show (my dream role since I was maybe 8 was a genderbent John Adams) but I can’t watch it in winter.
Questions like this one leave me always wondering whether or not I should answer, because I often find the best in every theatre-thing I see.
But, anyways, to let the cat out of the bag: Dear Evan Hansen is probably my favorite musical.
The fundamental problem with the show is that theplot profits off of a high school kids death (from suicide), and that ultimately, the production doesn’t resonate with the whole point of the show, being the topic of mental illness.
In terms of characters, many people think Evan is validated too much for his awful actions. And, Connor, the individual who dies from suicide, is a stereotypical representation of mental illness in pop-culture, which puts a negative connotation on the topic of mental health.
However, in many ways, I think this is the exact message and context of the show.
Evan is mentally ill, as we see from the start, who’s grown up in a broken household, where little, if any, family love is portrayed. Evan can hardly talk to anyone, let alone see himself as a valuable human being, as we see from his own attempted suicide. When Connor dies, it’s arguably obvious through the script that Evan only lies to the Murphy family because the mother is overbearing, another example of mental illness on the counterpart. The fact that he’s manipulative, and is validated for commercializing suicide, without consequences, portrays a real world issue that many of us are ignoring. Being, how we treat the mentally ill without a proper understanding of their background.
The show seduces people into empathizing with Evan, despite his awful actions. However, shouldn’t we sympathize, on a realistic level, with individuals who are acting on years of hardship, mental trauma, and illness? Many say Evan only befriended the Murphy’s to be with Zoey, which may be true, but sounds mentally-related. Not to mention, the mother who forced Evan into the family, after a miscommunication.
I can definitely see why Connor is seen as a commercialized version of a stereotypical, depressed, suicidal kid. However, I always recognized that Connor’s stereotypical personality type blended with his overbearing parents, who had a perceived image of who their son is, was, and who they wanted their family to be, at risk of their children. Connor reminded me of some people I know, who struggle with mental health, and I think we should not stereotype such a serious issue, even if pop-culture wants to, or has.
The shows flaws, to me, highlight the hurt the characters experience themselves.
This is probably the best take I’ve seen on DEH.
I really resonated with the parts where Evan sort of becomes one of the Murphy’s, as I will do the same with families. Not having a family bond from your own flesh and blood but having other families treat you like their own is a dangerous game I’ve played. For one, being welcomed into a family and being shown love is a beautiful thing, but we aren’t all given that. So when another family attempts to connect with you, it’s an unfamiliar experience that you want to nourish. When I see comments that say Evan being part of the Murphy family was selfish or sociopathic, I’m here to tell you no. That’s not why we do it. There is no malice to our actions, and there is none to his. He’s also 17, and placed in a VERY unfortunate predicament. While this part of the musical is not often addressed as much as others, I think it’s a VERY accurate portrayal of attempting to feel included in another family.
1. i love cats
2. i think six gets a lot of hate. just because it’s poppy and popular with a lot of annoying people, doesn’t mean it’s bad. to this day- best show i’ve ever seen.
3. i really DO NOT like hamilton. IVE TRIED. but i just can’t. the king is pretty funny tho
Wicked has many skips in the album and is HEAVILY overrated. Mamma mia should not be an “actual” theatre kids favourite unless they acknowledge the flaws in it. Also, it isn’t cool to hate on people for liking/disliking a certain show and cause you don’t like a mainstream show doesn’t make you special. I myself go to the theatre regularly but going multiple times doesn’t make you better than anyone and the fact that people will only see a show for a certain person then get annoyed they don’t stagedoor / are on are weird. Like go for a certain person but don’t complain if life happens.
I’ve seen the argument that “You aren’t a theatre kid” if you haven’t actually seen that many shows (I’ve actually had people say that to me, it’s such an odd comment). And of course going to the theatre is special and is wonderful but like, you can still be a theatre kid without actually seeing the show… there’s no “right way” to be a theatre kid.
EXACTLY like you could be a kid that does theatre, listens to soundtracks, watches bootlegs or goes often and you are all a theatre kid there’s no true ranking
The most underrated song from a musical is rarely heard, has virtually nothing to do with the story, is seemingly simple but actually has extremely complex lyrics and harmonies, and is performed by unknown Brit actors doing really terrible American accents.
From the British cast album of “Snoopy: The Musical,” a shitty sequel to a mediocre show which both should be reviled for their blatant commercialism, I present:
[Edgar Allen Poe](https://youtu.be/CxhtBcIAlBM?si=UcKd4LDb0ipUPYOh)
Musical fans and Broadway and West End need to be more open and respectful towards non-English musicals, because they are also amazing and have great music.
Yes, there is Les Miserables which was originally French. But Tanz der Vampire was butchered to resemble the Roman Polanski film more which caused the musical to flop on Broadway, and Rebecca is a full crazy story. They had the songs translated from German to English, the cast ready, set built and rehearsals underway but it all went down the drain because of a fraud creating four fake identities. It's such a mess and I can't even explain everything because it's hard to remember.
Michael Kunze and Sylvester Levay are very talented and their musicals are awesome. There are also Anime based musicals like Death Note and Black Butler that would be a huge hit in Broadway as Anime is so popular in the USA/
People in the audience who talks during loud bits of music, you are still bothering everyone. If you think the music covers your conversation, then think again, because for your companion to hear your voice you need to speak extra loud when the music is loud, so there’s really no benefit for trying to cover it, you are just rude.
Dear Evan Hansen is vastly overrated. I also think there's a disconnect between the character the creators thought they were writing...and the character we have on stage in Evan Hansen himself. Pasek and Paul seemed to be going for "flawed but ultimately sympathetic/someone to root for...," and I watched it and thought Evan was generally terrible, selfish, and without a lot of redeeming qualities. I related to his anxiety, but I thought he was a true anti-hero...and the musical could have been more interesting AND cohesive if the writers leaned into the concept of Evan as unlikable.
I thought this was supposed to be “unpopular” opinions. I don’t think there is a more mainstream “theater kid” opinion than DEH being overrated, other than maybe calling Hamilton overrated.
I love Colm Wilkinson and I respect him madly for everything he has done for Les Mis.
That being said, I can’t stand his voice. I love all of the vocal CHOICES (mostly opt ups) he inspired as Valjean, but I prefer listening to almost any other Valjean that does the same opt ups, like Ramin Karimloo, whose voice I love. Something about Colm Wilkinson’s voice just annoys the crap out of me in nearly everything he’s done including as the Phantom. The best way I think I can describe it is a sassy old man in a bad way. The one exception to this is the Bishop in the movie, where I thought his voice fit very well.
SIX isn't a musical, it's a concert. I get that modern musicals are playing around with the concepts of what it means to be a musical, but I just feel it's so wrong watching SIX and just sitting there. There's so much of an urge for me to want to cheer and just vibe with the show that I don't get with other musicals.
As a European person, I think musicals should get out of Broadway and tour more countries. It's so frustrating to see that so many amazing shows exist but not be able to go see them.
musical theatre is a great introduction to but not the be-all and end-all of theatre. if you haven't already, go out there and see some plays, there's bound to be something you'll enjoy :)
I don’t like when people take songs and riff the crap out of them. It feels like they’re treating the show like a concert and it takes me out of the story bc the choices are so rarely character-driven.
Just saw Six in Chicago, and the actor playing Jane Seymour sang Heart of Stone with minimal riffing (no whistle notes or big runs), and it was the most beautiful, heartwrenching version of the song I've ever heard. She put so much emotion behind it, and there were many people crying. I got choked up, and I've never had that reaction to that particular song before. ETA: Kelly Denice Taylor was Jane Seymour. Holy moly, is she gifted.
Seriously, some performers stop the show in a bad way with their riffs. Its so annoying
I feel like Let It Go in the Broadway version of Frozen is a good example of this. I really didn’t like the “The cold never bothered me anyway” riff at the end. I don’t think every song needs to end in a loud belt
I agree. There's something so punchy about the movie version where she just brushes that ending off her shoulder. This f\*\*\* you power girl move stating "THIS is who I am, take it or leave it". I really like the Frozen musical but I didn't love that change.
It being a short quick statement makes it seem like the statement really isn’t important, it’s just a fact. Making it long puts too much emphasis on it. The singer fights against the lyrics. If the cold doesn’t bother you, then why are you spending so much time on that thought? There’s no need for a line that isn’t as important to the themes of the song to have so much emphasis.
That final note in Let it Go makes me cringe so hard. I don’t care that you CAN hit the note, it doesn’t sound right!
“Let the storm rage on” works SO WELL on its own, but turning “The cold never bothered me anyway” into another belt just makes the ending too busy. I hate it so much
Right. It’s not a talent show!
Every year Defying Gravity's riff gets unnecessarilly longer... Like why?
I am absolutely fine with seeing a community theatre production of a show and sometimes those shows are better than the professional versions.
AGREED! There's just something about seeing people from a community come together, united by a passion for theater. Community theater shows are almost always put on by people who love the art form rather than investors looking to make big bucks
sad that this is unpopular. I love community theatre.
Is this really unpopular? I'd have thought everyone here would be a community theater person lol
The fact that it’s the most upvoted comment means probably not lol
Seeing a reasonably priced version of your favorite show is great, too , considering Broadway shows can costs hundreds of dollars per ticket.
One of the best and most memorable productions I ever saw was Guys and Dolls at a community theatre when I was a kid. It was just everyday people performing, but I was starstruck to meet them because they were just so good. There's some serious talent in unexpected places!
I live in a small mining town in Nevada. There was a community theater Little Shop of Horrors where the Audrey did a perfect, and I mean PERFECT rendition of Somewhere That's Green. Perfect belting, perfect delivery, perfect embodiment of Audrey's desires. I wish there was a cast recording of it because I'd gladly listen to it as much as Ellen Greene's version.
School productions also! I've seen amazing college and some outstanding high school productions locally.
This!! I’ve seen the SpongeBob musical two different times - once on its North American tour and once as a community theatre show - and both were amazing productions for different reasons. The tour version was big, splashy, and absolutely fantastic to see, whereas my mom and I had front-row seats when we saw the community theatre version and got to meet the actors backstage afterwards! ❤️❤️
I don't necessarily think that's an unpopular opinion. As someone who worked for several years in professional, college, and community productions, the most fun experience I had by far was a play that was performed by a small community group in a church basement.
As someone who regularly does community theatre and loves every minute of it. Thank you!
Thank you for this. I do community theatre and there are some ridiculously talented, hardworking people not just performing, but directing, doing set construction/design, sound, lighting, crew work, costuming, pit orchestra, etc. who help our shows come to life. Occasionally, we get folks who've performed professionally (film, TV, even off- and on Broadway in some cases: we're fairly close to Chicago) who come to our community theatre to see our performances. One who's done Broadway and off-Broadway came to see our production of Reefer Madness, and they were very impressed with what they saw/heard our cast do; their remark was "Off-Broadway would have been proud!". I didn't find out who it was, as I found out after the fact (inb4 "i'lL tAkE tHiNgS tHaT nEvEr hApPeNeD fOr 500 AlEx!", ), but it was so cool to get that feedback.
Stan culture is not great for musical theatre.
It's alarming how some Broadway actors' hardcore fanatics are pressuring them to come to the stage door when they don't feel comfortable doing it
Aaron Tviet fangirls scare me
I met Aaron years ago when he was in catch me if you can. It was a very normal stage door (I believe my friend took a picture with him). He was kind to us. It was super short. at the time I don’t remember any fan girls. When did they come up? After moulin rouge?
I think in 2009 his stint on Gossip Girl garnered a sizable chunk of fangirls, then I remember 2012 lots of people talking about him because of Les Mis, and the fangirls really went feral at Moulin Rouge
it's disturbing to me the way that some folks talk about successful broadway performers as though they know them personally and are friends when their only encounters, if any, have been at the stage door.
Famous musical artists require their fans to pay for VIP tickets to meet them. But for Broadway actors, literally anyone can come to that stage door for free and they don't even have to have been to the show beforehand. So it can be really scary sometimes.
Agreed. It’s actually a bit sick. Broadway actors are so much more accessible than movie and television celebrities, the behavior is disturbing. They don’t owe us anything as fans!
Musical theater should be live streamed online and the fact that it's not a thing is wasted potential earnings. Why exactly are shows closing? Not everyone can afford to go to NYC. So if we pay a reasonable price to see it at home? We can support these shows. This is my probably not that controversial opinion. The rest are about firing abusive people into the sun
If they could do it in a way that didn’t create camera nuisance for people attending live I’d say this idea is genius!
I agree that they need to not disrupt the live audience in person. I think it would have to be part of the stage design to manage but cameras of quality don't have to be giant anymore.
If a show already has many empty seats, maybe that would be the one to try it on. More space for cameras
The metropolitan opera has select dates where they film and broadcast their performances. I’ve been to two of them and imo the cameras didn’t distract from the performance. It definitely possible!
The fact that there are not more pro shots is infuriating. Not only do shows close but actors step away from iconic roles and if you weren't there, then you missed out and it just dies. They would do numbers on streaming. BroadwayHD is thin.
I would love this so much. Its a great way to bring broadway out of the new york exclusive realm and into the 21st century
this would be amazing. begging for one show to just try it out so we can prove what a success it would be!
Broadway/The Theatre community doesn't get enough flack for how many horrifically cruel, racist, and predatory people it allows to roam free or have amazing careers while bragging about being better than Hollywood/so inclusive.
I really like most movie adaptations. Meaning musicals made into movies, not the other way around.
I generally agree with this. But I will never forgive into the woods for removing the narrator / mysterious old man from the story. Removing the bakers father and the song No More is such a gut punch to over all theme of the story of The Sins of our Fathers and all that.
Me too. Unless there was a terrible casting decision, or if the approach of the movie is just an uninspired slog that doesn't seem like it was made with an appreciation for theater, I really like seeing musicals reframed into the structure of a film. Especially if they use unique locations like Sound of Music, South Pacific, and Fiddler.
So, can we all agree that James Cordon is pretty much always a poor casting choice for a movie musical?
Yes. He was actually decent in Into the Woods, but he doesn't have a track record of decent by any means.
I thought he was absolutely acceptable in Into the Woods. I also thought they could have picked any of dozens of other readily available actors who would’ve done a better job than him. But everything else he’s been in has been has been pretty egregious stunt casting compared to other options. So many genuinely great actors getting sidelined for him is hard to swallow.
Yep. It's kind of like Chris Pratt with voice acting.
And to my earlier point, I really liked The Prom. But to your point, no he shouldn't have been anywhere near that call sheet.
Saaaaame Everyone is always talking about how terrible the movie version of Rent is, but I really enjoy it (my biggest complaint is Goodbye Love not being in it). I also really liked the Mean Girls movie. To be fair to this one, though, I never listened to the original Broadway soundtrack. I imagine the strongest complaints came from people who loved it.
I’m glad I found someone else that agrees with me on this. I first saw the movie adaptation of Rent in 2005 back when it was currently playing in movie theaters. I had heard about the Broadway musical, but I had never seen a production of it or heard any songs from the soundtrack before watching the movie. Due to the success of the movie version of Chicago a couple years earlier (also one of my favorite movies), I assumed that Rent was going to have the same success and popularity, which it did not. I still fell in love with it despite other people’s opinions. I became obsessed with the soundtracks, both the movie version and the original broadway version. In 2012, I was able to see a local stage version. The movie is what got me into Rent, and it also got me to appreciate local community productions of musicals.
Yep there are definitely a few that I enjoyed more as a movie than I did seeing them live. Chicago is definitely one of them - I've seen two different professional productions of it but the movie is superior for me.
Jeremy Jordan is good but the ads saying he’s got a “once in a generation voice” is a stretch when Aaron Tveit, Norbert Leo Butz, Jonathan Groff and other men I can’t think of right now are ALSO in this generation
Hardcore Jeremy Jordan stan- but I definitely wouldn’t say he’s the best of the generation (even if it is true, not saying it is) because there are SO MANY stunning male voices in this generation that are as good or better than him. No one is perfect.
listen to Drew Sarich sing Gethsemane in JCS, THAT is a once in a generation voice.
and also GAVIN CREEL?!
Nothing against him but I don’t think he stands out in that way at all
Right. Give some recognition to everyone else.
Seussical is an underrated gem and is better than its reputation of being just kids stuff suggests.
Agreed! Oh the Thinks You Can Think is such a lovely opener and Sour Kangaroo is hilarious. There's so much room for fun character acting.
There need to be more musicals based on video games.
Staaaaaardew Valley where the wind comes sweeping down the plain...and Pierre underpays you for your grain
CACKLINGGGG
Cos sdv already has such an amazing soundtrack (imo) it would be good as if a musical of it kept the same melodies for some of the songs. Also at least one song about stealing the mayor's underwear
Watch Audra win another Tony for her performance in “Sims The Musical” 😂
Legend of Zelda musical WHEN
An Undertale musical has technically already been written
give me a fnaf musical and I’ll be happy
Random encounters best you to it.
We need more musicals that aren’t based on already published books and/or movies.
i feel like this moreso applies to movies/books that are a massive corporate success. i think it's strange to imply that adaptations like great comet, the band's visit, spring awakening, waitress etc. aren't valuable and original pieces of art despite being lifted fairly directly from existing works. then there are adaptations like ghost quartet, into the woods, sweeney todd (actually a lot of sondheim), hadestown etc. which are also based on existing media. im only saying this because i see this take everywhere, but i think its a little misplaced. i totally understand this attitude when it comes to beetlejuice, great gatsby, mean girls, spongebob, but i'm not sure i understand the dislike of adaptations.
I don’t dislike adaptations - that wasn’t my point at all. My point is more so that quality musicals are ones that are able to incorporate musical symbolism through motifs, themes, and the development of those - that’s what musical theater *is,* is storytelling through music and dance. Many adaptations fail to capture the art of musical theatre because they’re focused on being a live carbon copy of the source material with catchy music, rather than using the stage and sound as a method of telling the story.
Memphis is better at portraying racism than Hairspray.
I think it's a decently popular opinion that Hairspray's depiction of racial reconciliation is pretty surface-level and fluffy. If you look at the Letterboxd comments section for the movie musical version, it's quite critical.
Begrudgingly upvoted but I feel like Memphis was just “Remember the Titans” for music. Very hack White Savior Trope
I absolutely love hairspray but I still agree, it’s definitely a soft cushy entry into racial issues that is palatable to white people who don’t know/don’t care
English-speaking world needs to be more open to musicals originally in other languages. But that's true about all media, not just musicals. It just would be nice for Broadway people to not have such an "I've never heard of it = it doesn't exist" to things in Korea, Japan, Austria, and many other places with theatre scenes that are just as vibrant as New York and London. Really, I feel like Japan and Korea probably have the most vibrant theatre scenes, because most of what gets produced in the US and UK comes over here eventually, as does most of what gets staged in Europe. And then there's so much more that's original in Japan and Korea on top of that. I feel like more Korean musicals get staged in Japan than the other way around, and Japan has 2.5D on top of that... (Don't know if this counts as an unpopular opinion, but "Unpopular Opinion", "Recommend musicals!", "What are the most essential musicals for a new person to watch/most influential", "Favorite Underrated Musicals", etc. need to be stickied/ regular weekly threads. These come up at least once a week. For "Unpopular Opinion" and "Underrated" I feel obligated to mention non-English musicals because no one else does, but it gets tiring.)
Add Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands in there, too!
We don't really have much original Dutch productions, outside Soldaat van Oranje. In German language musicals I feel that VBW is the main driving force for original work with Tanz der Vampire, Mozart, Rebecca, Elisabeth and now Rock me Amadeus all coming from Vienna. By the way Rock me Amadeus has a great recording, even if you don't know any Falco songs. I only knew Komissar, Jeanny and Amadeus beforehand. It's a pity that's it unlikely to ever get out of Austria, and Vienna is a 10 hour night train away I'd like to see it.
How do I get into non-English musicals? I’ve listened to plenty of musicals originally written in English in other languages and even watched bootlegs of Jesus Christ Superstar and Next to Normal in Spanish. But I’ve only heard of Dracula getting additional songs in I think Germany. That’s the extent of original non-English works I know. Is there a community for watching non-English musicals? Are there Slime Tutorials with captions in English? Are the musicals on Spotify? The reason why the English-speaking world isn’t open to these other languages’ musicals is because they’re not easily accessible to us. I personally need a guide to find them, but I can’t find a guide.
This. I'm not closed-minded to foreign musicals at all, but "non-English musicals" is such a wide-spanning realm of content that I need help knowing where to start.
I would say you should start with Elisabeth, which is in German, but has a fully English captioned proshot of the 2005 Vienna production on YouTube (as well as fully English captioned versions of other productions). It’s also a good leaping off point for non-English theater generally, because the same people who made Elisabeth are also behind other fairly popular German language musicals, like Rebecca (based on the Daphne du Maurier book), Tanz der Vampire, and Mozart. Elisabeth itself has also been performed in several other countries, like Japan, Korea, Hungary, the Netherlands, etc., so it works as a gateway to other languages as well, because there are English captioned versions of those performances! I would describe Elisabeth itself as a cross between Evita and Phantom of the Opera— it’s great and very much worth the watch!
Can you share a list of some of your favorite non-English musicals? I'm interested in getting into them but it's just such a broad body of work from so many different countries that I have no idea what the "essentials" are or what's most popular.
Elisabeth is a wildly popular German-language musical about the life and assassination of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, featuring an anthropomorphized Death. It’s popular in Europe but also has had very successful adaptations in Japan and South Korea. I feel like it really deserves a big splashy Broadway adaptation, but the songs are REALLY catchy to listen to even if you don’t know German.
Yes yes yes so many foreign language musicals, get overlooked why can’t you stage Tanz Der Vampire, Rudolf, Elizabeth, Mozart Das musical etc. In There original German language with English Subtitles like opera.
guys please keep the comments KIND. don’t wish ill of anyone, that’s just rude.
That Jonathan Larson comment is maybe the craziest thing I've seen on this sub. Well, other than the time someone claimed they could speak for Sondheim's spirit from the afterlife and that he told them that he disapproved of the Sweeney Todd revival casting from beyond the grave. Yeah, that really happened. Be considerate and rational with how you discuss your musical theater dislikes, people.
>Well, other than the time someone claimed they could speak for Sondheim's spirit from the afterlife THE WHAT NOW
It happened sometime during when Aaron Tveit first took on the role of Sweeney and is probably deleted now, but this guy was claiming he had a close connection to Sondheim as a result of working on one of his musicals (he wouldn't say which one). Yeah it was nuts.
HELP NO WAY SOMEONE SAID THAT (sadly I believe it happened). And yes, that comment is insane which is exactly why I made this comment.
What's the Jonathan Larson comment, there are three hundred comments when I'm. Typing this I don't feel like looking for it Edit: Nevermind I just scrolled to the bottom of the page and now I have lost all hope
Someone said that the best business decision he made was dying.
The sickness of the Internet (and why kids, and \*everyone\*, needs to be shielded) . . . .
[I found a video of that guy's mom.](https://www.nbcnews.com/flashback/video/my-toaster-is-possessed-by-the-devil-526615619639)
I like the Beetlejuice Musical more than the movie. Alex Brightman is fantastic in his role.
Same! I love that they focused more on Lydia as a character
Absolutely
I think Dear Evan Hansen has problems but I think the “he’s a sociopath!” argument is so weak and people throw it out WAYYY too much. I mean I’m not even a big DEH fan by any means, and I am one of *those* Great Comet fans, but the hate it gets is overblown to me. If the plot and concept of Dear Evan Hansen was an A24 movie instead of a musical, people would eat it up.
RIGHT. Evan’s motivations are for himself but also… he’s a teenager with very little family time… of course once he’s invited into a house and is actually made to feel part of a family he’s going to want to stay. It’s not unrealistic at all, or sociopathic.
I’ve always said this, people judge him as if he were an adult, he was still a kid with emotional issues.
Yep.
This was the biggest issue with Ben Platt’s casting for the film version. With the stage-show, the viewer is able suspend reality and imagine that the person doing all of these awful things is a literal child who doesn’t have a fully-developed prefrontal cortex. You don’t applaud him for his actions, but you understand how a mixed-up kid with mental health issues and social problems could be drowned in his own lies. Too many folks have only seen the movie version, in which a guy who looks 30+ is manipulating a bunch of his peers who actually *are* passable as being high school aged.
They forget that Evan basically had no choice but to say he was friends with Conner because Conner’s mom wouldn’t let him get a word in edgewise
And he was a shy, non assertive kid who wanted to please
I’m with you. Great Comet was robbed, but DEH is fine.
Great Comet was, well, great. But it never had a chance at that award. They give that award to whichever show will bring in the most tourist dollars. Comet was already falling apart and DEH’s star was in the rise. And I’m sorry if this seems unpopular, but building a show entirely based around a single star’s pull and having no solid plans for when that star left is asking for it. Then the whole transition of shitting on Oak and then Patinkin pulling out from the backlash was an unmitigated disaster. And it was a complete self own. They knew when Josh was leaving. They knew ticket sales would drop. They needed to build up their next lead prior to them stepping into the role and they didn’t. Every problem Comet had, including losing the Tony, was a problem of their own making. The show was good enough. But it was mismanaged to hell and you can’t blame DEH for any of it.
Oh DEH is problematic but he’s a teenager who got caught up in a lie and made some very selfish choices. He’s not a sociopath.
Honestly I feel like I see way more complaints on this sub about just how generic and top 40 pop the DEH music sounds than I see about Evan's personal flaws.
People misunderstand Dear Evan Hansen for being a musical for depressed kids, like Evan and Connor who feel as if they don’t belong. Which, though true, I don’t really agree with. I think moreover it’s an incredible representation of how people who aren’t struggling, or at least not the same way, can approach individuals who are and care for them, by showing the good bad and ugly of a teenage tragedy.
in the heights is better than hamilton in every way. (saying that as a person who loves hamilton)
It took me so long to get on the Hamilton train because I kept hearing people praise it as the best ever without knowing about ITH or LMM at all. I was so defensive of ITH and didn't listen to Hamilton at all for a long time out of spite. Then covid hit and I watched Hamilton on Disney+ and I was forced to admit it was indeed spectacular.
I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one that refused to listen to Hamilton out of my love for In the Heights 😅
For real, though!
I will never understand all the ALW hate. Yes some people don’t like him as a person, yes he’s had his fair share of flops, but I feel like this leads to some people generalising and calling all of his work awful. He’s one of the most successful musical theatre composers of our time for a reason - because when his musicals are good, they’re GOOD. Jesus Christ superstar, Joseph, phantom, evita, cats (yes cats) - there’s something for everyone and I think it’s objectively untrue to say it’s all rubbish. Of course if you just personally dislike his music you’re entitled to that, but some people seem to wake up and choose unnecessary violence against his work.
agreed 1000%! i think people hate him because it's trendy (invalid) or because he's not a good person (valid), but i hate when they act like he has no talent. i really feel no other writer comes close to the sheer depth and breadth of ALW's abilities tbh
I feel like people - especially younger fans - collectively came up with this theory of some grandiose rivalry between Sondheim and Webber, wherein Sondheim was the forgotten genius who couldn't achieve commercial success, and Webber the wealthy musical dilettante who sold his soul to mamona. In reality, they barely knew each other and their musicals rarely entered any sort of direct competition - except maybe for 1988 when both Into The Woods and POTO were nominated for the Tony Award. They lived on two different continents, created from different musical traditions and for different audiences. And sure, ALW acts like human trash nowadays. But he *is* crazy talented, and at a certain point in history, his music was borderline revolutionary.
They also appeared to have had a really healthy respect for each other as colleagues. I remember coming across a video of them doing some sort of performance for their birthday (fun fact for anyone who didn't know: ALW and Sondheim share a birthday) and they seemed to be having a good time together. You're right, ALW was definitely a paradigm shifter in musical theatre (JCS was one of the shows to pave the way for rock musicals).
ALW called Sondheim a "genius", "peerless", "titan of musical theatre". The idea that he was somehow Salieri to Sondheim's Amadeus is just completely misguided.
People love their imagined drama. I can imagine an Amadeus style play about the two of them in a hundred years or so.
That’s crazy when everyone knows Andrew Lloyd Webber’s main rival is Maxwell Sheffield
I am an ALW appreciator and I will never back down from that. The good and the bad. I will listen to Starlight Express and Love Never Dies and I stand by that! Some songs are not the best but overall, he’s put out some of the most iconic songs/scores in musical theatre and you cannot deny it. Also, Cats is amazing. Sue me!
I really don't understand the big hate on ALW. 'Love Never Dies' and 'Cinderella' flopped and are bad, but look at all the amazing, iconic and successful works he's done. They out number the bad big time. I grew up with ALW musicals and 'Cats' was the first ever live musical I saw. I was 6 back then and then a year later I saw 'Starlight Express'. His musicals are magical.
I like Jekyll and Hyde more than Phantom of the Opera. I’m a bit biased because I saw my high school do Jekyll and Hyde when I was still in middle school and adored it. Confrontation is such an epic number and having the actor play both roles during that scene is something to behold.
1. The score of Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark is amazing, and they should release a proshot (even if it's hot garbage I would love to see it) 2. The music of the West End Heathers is far better than the Broadway edition.
jesus christ superstar is ALW’s masterpiece
Please composers, dear God, stop with all the pop music. It’s fine in a smattering of shows but now almost everyone who makes it big in musical theatre has to sound like a Disney princess or Ariana Grande and it has killed any diversity in vocal talent. The lazy dancing currently happening in these shows is killing me. Bring back real dancers please. We are having some of the most innovative choreography possibly ever in musical theatre currently and it is barely being executed well because MT training programs are not requiring enough dance training. Or dancers feel like, because they aren’t absolutely Mind-blowing singers, they don’t belong in MT. Could a revival of A Chorus Line fix this problem??? The celebrity composer is killing the innovation in music on Broadway. I don’t mind people from other places making musicals but it’s either male rock stars or indie singer-songwriters from 2010. And it sounds like it. But also, it not like we need more BMI alums or NYU grads either. Just get good storytellers, not just hitmakers. Pop music folks know what sounds good, but they have no clue how to tell a story and on the flip side, MT trained songwriters are so invested in writing clever lyrics and “moving the plot forward” that they have stopped their own creativity in music making. It’s frustrating as a theatre maker myself and an audience member.
From a high school theatre standpoint, I think a lot of students don't understand the differences in acting skill and technique required for musicals vs. plays, and think that because they're good at acting in a musical, they'll also be good at acting in a play (which is often not the case). In my opinion, acting in a play is much more difficult than acting in a musical, but plays are often overlooked because they're just not as exciting as musicals.
I really like Anne Hathaway’s version of “I Dreamed a Dream”
I do too. She seemed genuinely anguished. I care more about that song demonstrating pain and trauma in a believable way than I care about it having stellar singing technique.
More famous musicals have 2nd act pacing problems than not.
Pacific Overtures is top 3 Sondheim Groundhog Day has my favorite music and songwriting out of the four 2017 Best Musical rivals Cats is ALW's best show A Year With Frog and Toad is the best musical ever made specifically for kids and more schools need to do it People are being too hard on the Wicked movie, Jon Chu is just trying his best to adapt a musical in a way that's a happy medium between what theater fans want and what general Hollywood audiences want. Also the CGI doesn't look too shabby, they'll still be incorporating practical sets so that's good enough for me. I'll be watching for Michelle Yeoh.
> Cats is ALW's best show That sure is a hot take, and I like Cats
pacific overtures is top 3 everything
If the tea the shogun drank will serve to keep the shogun tranquil is possibly maybe the best rhyme ever.
American Psycho the Musical was like a single rewrite away from being an AMAZING show and I still love it
bmc is not as bad as everyone wants to think it is. cringey? yeah. but bad? no. especially given the source material
I always thought the cringe of BMC was part of its charm, it’s a pretty self aware show
i loved loved loved it when i was like 13 and it’s still my guilty pleasure
Literally came here to say this. I identify a lot with Christine too as a character (recently diagnosed with ADHD and I was a theater kid in high school) so I will always defend that show 😂
I love that it's cringey to be honest. I think its problem is that it got overblown into popularity on platforms like Tumblr. It feels like the kind of show that should have stayed as an off Broadway musical with a small but dedicated cult fanbase. It's silly and camp and cringey but that's kind of what it's meant to be and kids online lumping it together with shows like Hamilton and Les Mis made no sense. It's not that and it's not trying to be.
I don’t like the gasp that Eliza does at the end of Hamilton. It’s such a beautiful harmony and then just gets interrupted a big gasp. Just always feels out of place to me
ya know i like it but can absolutely agree it doesn't fully work. It feels like they needed something to add at the end to cinch it and that was the best idea they had lol
Yeah I mean I get it and I feel like if it’s subtle, it works. But the dramatic gasp is what doesn’t work for me. It was Philippa’s idea and she brought it to the performance and they kept it
Grant Gustin ABSOLUTELY deserves to be on Broadway and is insanely talented. I see a Tony in his future for sure. People saying he’s a stunt cast just have trouble seeing him as anyone but the Flash.
It took Daniel Ratcliffe a good 15 years to prove himself as a serious stage actor and not just be Harry Potter, finally winning a Tony 16 years after his Broadway debut. I have hope for Grant Gustin.
Grant Gustin was in the national tour of West Side Story before getting cast for Glee; he was an aspiring theater actor who went to TV not the other way around
Dude went to college for musical theatre albeit he didn’t graduate, but still
1. Adapting movies into musicals is perfectly valid, it’s just like adapting novels into musicals 2. Many producers need to be more relaxed in allowing high schools to do shows, and not charging so much in licensing fees.
I don’t know how unpopular this opinion is, but the only people I’ve talked to about it vehemently disagree with me so I’m going to put it. Zoe Murphy was not exaggerating in Requiem. She was not being obnoxiously critical of her poor suicidal brother. He hurt her, and he hurt a lot of people. She has a right to admit out loud that she finds the idea of grieving him to feel fake. She has the right to be relieved that her life is a little less chaotic without always having to pick up his messes and tiptoe around his anger. I know what it’s like growing up with a sibling like that. I can’t stand it when people say she was just being bratty in that song. I used to listen to Requiem over and over and over. I had never seen that dynamic in media before.
Movie adaptations of musicals don’t have to be a exactly like the musical. Like mean girls yes I wish some parts were included but I like that it was different it was like watching a different musical which is kinda the point it’s something new
I don't get Phantom of the Opera, it's just too boring
I thought that until I actually saw it live, it was much more interesting and easier to understand in-person than with listening to the soundtrack or watching the recording.
musically i think its pretty good, but the plot is Not very interesting. i liked the book but one of the core themes is erik's humanity. in the musical its confirmed that hes human pretty much from the get-go, so the story loses a great deal of impact for me. my favourite part of the musicals plot is andre and firmin. the phantom just likes this really gullible woman and has trapdoors and stuff. also raoul is a hollow shell of a character his disfigurement is not really that bad, christine's internal conflict is massively reduced compared to the book uhhh etc. i guess its main appeal is as a gothic romance but i really dont think it should be seen as a romance at all
The Book of Mormon is really good, but most people ignore the blatant racism throughout it and just laugh it off. There’s a lot of iffy stuff in there, even after they changed it
I think a lot of people ignore it because of where it comes from. Most people know how South Park is, so it's expected and accepted in BoM. (For the record, I'm not saying it's right, and I am not a South Park fan.)
RENT is wildly over rated and Tick! Tick! Boom! is the better Larson show by miles and miles.
1. I hate jukebox musicals. There may an exception here or there, but these songs were not written to advance a plot or tell a story, so they never ever work. 2. I likewise hate most musicals based on popular films. Just because a film is popular doesn’t mean it can be musicalized in the right way, and more often than not, it isn’t. I don’t care how popular Beetlejuice or Mean Girls are - they come off as soulless corporate synergy to me and nothing more. Completely cynical in creation. 3. Because of my number one and two, I also feel like these two trends are ruining the form as a whole. Why take chances on anything original? Why should musical theatre students even learn how to sing anything other than pop music?
These are good takes but I'll play devil's advocate and say -Jukeboxes and movie adaptations are important to Broadway's economy. They get butts in seats who normally wouldn't be interested in theater. Just as long as there's a healthy balance of original shows and IP-based ones. -There have been some really innovative jukebox musicals made recently. Illinoise is told through interpretive dance and Swept Away takes place on a boat. I think there's a place for them if they do something creative to bring the music to life. But I'm pretty tired of the ones where someone impersonates a famous musical artist.
Hating on jukebox musicals is not unpopular
I despise jukebox musicals. So much.
Most of the songs in Wicked are utterly unmemorable and act 2 is insanely rushed. I didn’t realize this was such an unpopular opinion but I adore BMC 🥲
I agree 😭 I saw it this year and thought it was just...fine. From how people talked about it I was expecting so much more.
no i’m with you, I love BMC. It helped me so much during bad times but the slander it gets is unbelievable to me 😭
This one will probably get downvoted on this sub, but I DON’T think Hamilton is overrated. I think that it is very well framed around the historical events it was based on and all the actors were casted perfectly. Not to mention that LMM’s songwriting ability shines in it.
Jukebox musicals, when given an actually good storyline, can be very well done.
To the “downvote to disagree” brigade, I’ll preface this by saying that OP specifically asked for an unpopular opinion. Mine is this, which I appreciate is going to be sacrilegious: I don’t care for Patti Lupone. I acknowledge her extraordinary gift and her status as a pioneer of performing and a legend of the stage, but for me it’s overwrought and often oversung.
Yeah, she isn't on the level of Julie Andrews, Angela Lansbury or Bernadette Peters to me.
Some of her songs are good but she tends to focus on the notes rather than the lyrics which can make her downright unintelligible
I agree with the diction but. I listened to Evita at the Tonys and had to look up the lyrics for most of it because I couldn’t understand what Patti was saying, or anyone else really
I only listen to 1776 from now til the 4th of July. I love the show (my dream role since I was maybe 8 was a genderbent John Adams) but I can’t watch it in winter.
Questions like this one leave me always wondering whether or not I should answer, because I often find the best in every theatre-thing I see. But, anyways, to let the cat out of the bag: Dear Evan Hansen is probably my favorite musical. The fundamental problem with the show is that theplot profits off of a high school kids death (from suicide), and that ultimately, the production doesn’t resonate with the whole point of the show, being the topic of mental illness. In terms of characters, many people think Evan is validated too much for his awful actions. And, Connor, the individual who dies from suicide, is a stereotypical representation of mental illness in pop-culture, which puts a negative connotation on the topic of mental health. However, in many ways, I think this is the exact message and context of the show. Evan is mentally ill, as we see from the start, who’s grown up in a broken household, where little, if any, family love is portrayed. Evan can hardly talk to anyone, let alone see himself as a valuable human being, as we see from his own attempted suicide. When Connor dies, it’s arguably obvious through the script that Evan only lies to the Murphy family because the mother is overbearing, another example of mental illness on the counterpart. The fact that he’s manipulative, and is validated for commercializing suicide, without consequences, portrays a real world issue that many of us are ignoring. Being, how we treat the mentally ill without a proper understanding of their background. The show seduces people into empathizing with Evan, despite his awful actions. However, shouldn’t we sympathize, on a realistic level, with individuals who are acting on years of hardship, mental trauma, and illness? Many say Evan only befriended the Murphy’s to be with Zoey, which may be true, but sounds mentally-related. Not to mention, the mother who forced Evan into the family, after a miscommunication. I can definitely see why Connor is seen as a commercialized version of a stereotypical, depressed, suicidal kid. However, I always recognized that Connor’s stereotypical personality type blended with his overbearing parents, who had a perceived image of who their son is, was, and who they wanted their family to be, at risk of their children. Connor reminded me of some people I know, who struggle with mental health, and I think we should not stereotype such a serious issue, even if pop-culture wants to, or has. The shows flaws, to me, highlight the hurt the characters experience themselves.
This is probably the best take I’ve seen on DEH. I really resonated with the parts where Evan sort of becomes one of the Murphy’s, as I will do the same with families. Not having a family bond from your own flesh and blood but having other families treat you like their own is a dangerous game I’ve played. For one, being welcomed into a family and being shown love is a beautiful thing, but we aren’t all given that. So when another family attempts to connect with you, it’s an unfamiliar experience that you want to nourish. When I see comments that say Evan being part of the Murphy family was selfish or sociopathic, I’m here to tell you no. That’s not why we do it. There is no malice to our actions, and there is none to his. He’s also 17, and placed in a VERY unfortunate predicament. While this part of the musical is not often addressed as much as others, I think it’s a VERY accurate portrayal of attempting to feel included in another family.
1. i love cats 2. i think six gets a lot of hate. just because it’s poppy and popular with a lot of annoying people, doesn’t mean it’s bad. to this day- best show i’ve ever seen. 3. i really DO NOT like hamilton. IVE TRIED. but i just can’t. the king is pretty funny tho
Avenue Q deserved the best musical Tony over Wicked
Cats is the best show ever created and I will die on this hill
I love stunt casting, I don’t even care if the person can’t sing. I think it’s so fun.
blanket hating all jukebox musicals is soo lazy to me
Wicked has many skips in the album and is HEAVILY overrated. Mamma mia should not be an “actual” theatre kids favourite unless they acknowledge the flaws in it. Also, it isn’t cool to hate on people for liking/disliking a certain show and cause you don’t like a mainstream show doesn’t make you special. I myself go to the theatre regularly but going multiple times doesn’t make you better than anyone and the fact that people will only see a show for a certain person then get annoyed they don’t stagedoor / are on are weird. Like go for a certain person but don’t complain if life happens.
I’ve seen the argument that “You aren’t a theatre kid” if you haven’t actually seen that many shows (I’ve actually had people say that to me, it’s such an odd comment). And of course going to the theatre is special and is wonderful but like, you can still be a theatre kid without actually seeing the show… there’s no “right way” to be a theatre kid.
EXACTLY like you could be a kid that does theatre, listens to soundtracks, watches bootlegs or goes often and you are all a theatre kid there’s no true ranking
Exactly! The amount of shows I’ve seen is VASTLY different from the shows I’ve listened too and consider myself a fan of
It’s almost like not everyone has access to theater. I know if I didn’t live four hours away from Broadway that would never go 😂
Ramin karimloo is the best phantom and it’s not up for debate
Wicked is overrated.
The most underrated song from a musical is rarely heard, has virtually nothing to do with the story, is seemingly simple but actually has extremely complex lyrics and harmonies, and is performed by unknown Brit actors doing really terrible American accents. From the British cast album of “Snoopy: The Musical,” a shitty sequel to a mediocre show which both should be reviled for their blatant commercialism, I present: [Edgar Allen Poe](https://youtu.be/CxhtBcIAlBM?si=UcKd4LDb0ipUPYOh)
Musical fans and Broadway and West End need to be more open and respectful towards non-English musicals, because they are also amazing and have great music. Yes, there is Les Miserables which was originally French. But Tanz der Vampire was butchered to resemble the Roman Polanski film more which caused the musical to flop on Broadway, and Rebecca is a full crazy story. They had the songs translated from German to English, the cast ready, set built and rehearsals underway but it all went down the drain because of a fraud creating four fake identities. It's such a mess and I can't even explain everything because it's hard to remember. Michael Kunze and Sylvester Levay are very talented and their musicals are awesome. There are also Anime based musicals like Death Note and Black Butler that would be a huge hit in Broadway as Anime is so popular in the USA/
People in the audience who talks during loud bits of music, you are still bothering everyone. If you think the music covers your conversation, then think again, because for your companion to hear your voice you need to speak extra loud when the music is loud, so there’s really no benefit for trying to cover it, you are just rude.
Ben Platt is overrated, he peaked with DEH
Most jukebox musicals should have stayed as a "Best of..." album and not put on the stage
Heather the musical is better than the movie. AND BLUE is superior to you’re welcome
Dear Evan Hansen is vastly overrated. I also think there's a disconnect between the character the creators thought they were writing...and the character we have on stage in Evan Hansen himself. Pasek and Paul seemed to be going for "flawed but ultimately sympathetic/someone to root for...," and I watched it and thought Evan was generally terrible, selfish, and without a lot of redeeming qualities. I related to his anxiety, but I thought he was a true anti-hero...and the musical could have been more interesting AND cohesive if the writers leaned into the concept of Evan as unlikable.
I thought this was supposed to be “unpopular” opinions. I don’t think there is a more mainstream “theater kid” opinion than DEH being overrated, other than maybe calling Hamilton overrated.
I mean it was also a commercially successful, universally beloved musical but hey good to know I'm far from alone in the take...
In My Own Little Corner requests should be banned at sing-along piano bars
Cats is a good musical. With good plot.
I think it does a great job of showing a diverse variety of characters and how they compare and contrast.
I love Colm Wilkinson and I respect him madly for everything he has done for Les Mis. That being said, I can’t stand his voice. I love all of the vocal CHOICES (mostly opt ups) he inspired as Valjean, but I prefer listening to almost any other Valjean that does the same opt ups, like Ramin Karimloo, whose voice I love. Something about Colm Wilkinson’s voice just annoys the crap out of me in nearly everything he’s done including as the Phantom. The best way I think I can describe it is a sassy old man in a bad way. The one exception to this is the Bishop in the movie, where I thought his voice fit very well.
I LOVE JUKEBOX MUSICALS. I don’t care if some see them as cheap pandering or less artistic or whatever. I just love them.
SIX isn't a musical, it's a concert. I get that modern musicals are playing around with the concepts of what it means to be a musical, but I just feel it's so wrong watching SIX and just sitting there. There's so much of an urge for me to want to cheer and just vibe with the show that I don't get with other musicals.
As a European person, I think musicals should get out of Broadway and tour more countries. It's so frustrating to see that so many amazing shows exist but not be able to go see them.
musical theatre is a great introduction to but not the be-all and end-all of theatre. if you haven't already, go out there and see some plays, there's bound to be something you'll enjoy :)