Favorite Musicals

[poetman]

What's your favorite musical? I love "Pal Joey," "Newsies," and "Guys and Dolls."

What are your favorites?

 

[Josephine]

7 Brides/7 Brothers,Victor/Victoria, Guys and Dolls... and more I'm sure!

 

[GWD]

Oh man,

As seen on TV:
My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls, Holiday Inn, White Christmas, The Sound of Music

As seen in the Theatre,

Chicago, Wicked, The Lion King, Phantom of the Opera, The Producers and Spamalot

 

[Miss Neecerie]

Wait...I have to choose?


Granted...I have an inordinate fondness/obsession for Carmen Miranda, so despite not being the -best- films ever, anything with her is high on the list.


hmmm between her and Brasil 66.....my poor mother really set me up to love Brazil and learn to speak Portuguese.....

 

[just_me]

Here a just a few.

MOVIES:

1776
Singin' in the Rain
West Side Story
Kismet
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Chicago
Cabaret
Damn Yankees
Hello Dolly
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Kismet
Any Fred and Ginger movie
42nd Street
Footlight Parade
Yankee Doodle Dandy

STAGE:

1776
Spamalot
Les Miz
Chorus Line
City of Angels
Sweeney Todd
Hair
Barnum
Me and My Girl
Will Rogers Follies
Crazy for You
Into the Woods
Golden Boy
Fiorello
Camelot

edited to add a few a forgot the first time around.

 

[Caity Lynn]

As a huge musical freak this could be interesting, in no order, both movie and stage mixed in here:

Phantom of the Opera
Wicked
RENT
Guys and Dolls
Hello Dolly
My Fair Lady
Evita
(semi like) Avenue Q
Chicago
A Little Night Music
Sunday in the Park With George
Into the Woods
Annie
Bye Bye Birdie
The Wild Party
Beauty and the Beast
Little Mermaid
Cats
(Any LLoyd Webber....except Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat)
(Any Steven Sondheim)
Putting It Together
Jekyll and Hyde
Sweeney Todd (I refuse to acknowledge Johhny Depp and Tim Burtons massacre of that show, so I'm referring to the stage version on 80's version of the movie)
Hairspray
Oliver
Sunset Boulevard
Jesus Christ Superstar
Take Me Out To The Ball Game
Anything Goes
Rocky Horror Picture Show (lol, I'll count it)
Les Miserables
Maybe Little Shop Of Horrors (haven't decided my opinion on that really)
Little Women The Musical
A Christmas Carol
Cabaret
Yankee Doodle
Candide
Mama Mia
NEWSIES!!!! (one of Disneys BEST!!!!)
...Thats all I can think of for now, and I like them all.... Theatre freak lol. It's my life.

 

[dhermann1]

I can't believe nobody's mentioned "SOUTH PACIFIC" yet! My all time fave!

 

[Joie DeVive]

Ditto for The King and I. I heart Yul Brynner.

 

[Imahomer]

I can't believe nobody's mentioned "SOUTH PACIFIC" yet! My all time fave!

Amen to that!

 

[maggiethespy]

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Kiss Me Kate
Calamity Jane
South Pacific
Sound of Music
The King and I
My Fair Lady


Just to name a few...

 

[scotrace]

I generally dislike musicals. But I love Guys & Dolls.

 

[Miss Golightly]

I'm not crazy about musicals but I do love the following:

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Funny Face
Singin' in the Rain

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm partial to the earliest film musicals -- things like "Rio Rita," adapted from a Ziegfeld stage success, and "Sunny Side Up," which despite the fact that few of its performers can actually sing manages to be wonderfully entertaining, and not for the wrong reasons, and "The King of Jazz," a 1930 Technicolor masterpiece that must be seen to be believed.

A bit later on, I like the mid-thirties Fox musicals of the Jack Haley/Alice Faye era -- simple, unpretentious things that always have exceptional songs. And of course, I'll not turn down a chance to watch any of the Berkeley films or the Astaire/Rogers pictures.

 

[CherryRed]

My favorite is "Nancy Goes To Rio"
I liked them more as a kid then I do now.

 

[carter]

Stage Performances

What, no mention of The Fantastiks? Jerry Orbach would be mortified.


Hair (It's hard to believe this one hasn't been mentioned.)
Sunset Boulevard
RENT
A Little Night Music
South Pacific (Has anyone seen the Broadway Revival?)
West Side Story
All American
Wicked (Pop-pu-u-lar!)
My Fair Lady
Camelot
Spring's Awakening
Guy's and Dolls
Chicago
Evita
The Phantom of the Opera
Cats
Les Miserables
Beauty and the Beast
Damn Yankees
The Lion King
Jesus Christ Superstar
On the Twentieth Century

It's not a musical but: Leonard Berstein's Mass

Light Opera: Any Gilbert & Sullivan, especially the Full Frequency Range (ffrr) recordings on the London label of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Co. under the direction of Bridget D'Oyly Carte.

Opera: Turandot

 

[Edward]

I'm a big fan of South Pacific ; that show has a lot of sentimental value to me as I was Captain Brackett in our school production a Very Long Time Ago. (I was also Doc Pierce in Calamity Jane ).

There are many, many musicals I like, though the very top few are (in no particular order):

The Rocky Horror Show, and it's screen cousin, The Rocky Horror Picture Show,

Cabaret (definitely the stage version - the film is, despite several rather good performances and a great soundtrack, weak - they cut back far too far on the political content for my liking, and I hated the liberties they took with the characters. Making Clifford the English one, for example, making the Jewish couple young, and I really am not much of a fan of Liza Minelli....).

The Producers

Spamalot (especially during Tim Curry's run as Arthur.

The recent West End production of Brief Encounter, which intermixed Noel Coward's songs with the plot and script of the original play upon which the film was based.

I really enjoyed Hairspray on stage, though again I had mixed feelings about the film. Christopher Walker was superb - the last person I'd have thought of for the role, but perfect in everyway in his performance - but Travolta was, I felt, weak, overly hammy, and he looked like a man in a fatsuit, rather than a large lady. Definitely not a performance that ever came close to stepping out of Divine's shadow. If only Harvey Fiernstein hadn't turned it down...

Another one I adore on stage but feel lost it on screen was Little Shop of Horrors. I actually don't much care for Ellen Green's performance in it (her Audrey annoyed me, rather than evoking sympathy - contrast to Sheridan Smith's run in 2007's West End Revivial - I saw that show over a dozen times, and every single time Sheridan's rendition of Somewhere that's Green made me bawl). The film also suffers terribly from the shoe-horned in happy ending, hastily written to appease the studios after test audiences Didn't Get It.

The Drowsy Chaperone is a work of genius, and probably the most creative new musical since at least The Producers, if not Rocky Horror. Absolute work of genius - see it if you can. Tragically, it had only a two month run in London, so I'm really hoping for a revival.

I'm open to most concepts for a musical, though I do love to see a great revival of a classic (such as the 2006/07 West End run of Cabaret). What I find depressing is the current trend for juke-box musicals which was spawned by the success of Mamma Mia. That something as wonderful as Drowsy, along with many great productions has a very short run and closes early when abject excrement such as We will rock you, a show so creatively bankrupt and poorly written that it made me want to scream, runs forever, should be a crime.

Another musical I'm very fond of on screen is Cry Baby. John waters has promised a Broadway stage version of that show, hich I'm absolutely gagging for. Ut's one of a handful of films that I habitually watch over and over again.

 

[Paisley]

I generally like stage musicals. As for movies, I like The Sound of Music, Yankee Doodle Dandy and The Wizard of Oz. The rest of them literally put me to sleep. And as much as I love dance, movies with Fred and Ginger and Gene and the rest of them are just dreadful, IMHO.

 

[carouselvic]

Fiddler on the roof

 

[just_me]

Edward - I agree about the Drowsy Chaperone. Ingenious concept, great music, story, dance, sets, and so forth. In fact, I'm going to get my CD right now and listen to it.

 

[AmateisGal]

My absolute FAVORITE: State Fair with Dana Andrews and Jeanne Craine.

I also love Oklahoma!, The King and I, Singin' in the Rain, South Pacific, West Side Story, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and tons of others I can't remember right now.