Ah, fall. When a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of showtunes. Or at least, one not-so-young man's fancy. And his captive audience of 32 bewildered students.
Every semester, I start my musical-theater history course at the Boston Conservatory by asking my students to write down the three best musicals of all time. We then tally the votes on the board and embark on a discussion of what characteristics, if any, these shows might share. We then take a giant step backward in time to begin our chronological survey of musical theater. ("How did you get to be here, Mr. Shepherd?")
The list we create is always an interesting glimpse at the waxing and waning of shows and their popularity. Because that's what we're really discussing here: what's currently popular. My goal in the course is to help my students establish a set of aesthetic criteria for discerning what makes for a quality show. So we start with what they like, then slowly transition into discussing why those shows are good. Or perhaps why they're not quite as good as they may have initially thought.
So here's the list for this semester, along with the number of votes that particular show received:
9 West Side Story
8 Sweeney Todd
7 Ragtime
7 Les Miserables
4 The Phantom of the Opera
4 Wicked
3 Anything Goes
3 Gypsy
3 Into the Woods
3 Parade
3 Rent
2 Carousel
2 Hair
2 Show Boat
2 Spring Awakening
Not a lot of surprises, really. West Side Story and Hair have clearly benefited from their current Broadway revivals. West Side Story almost always shows up on the list (see the lists from the fall and spring of last yea.), while Hair tends to come and go. Anything Goes makes a strong resurgence: there hasn't been a Broadway revival in 20 years, although it's one of the most popular shows on the community and school circuits.
Ragtime has been pretty consistently present on the list, after years of anonymity. I must admit that I was surprised when Ragtime became so popular regionally: I would have sworn that the need for African Americans in the show would have limited the number of productions, as African Americans have not historically been very involved in community theater. Thankfully, that has begun to change, as witnessed by the swelling ranks of black student sin the theater department at the BoCo. I'm likewise amazed and pleased that Parade has caught on. It's a strong show, but it's a real downer, and not your typical summer stock fare. Perhaps it's a testament to the broadening tastes of theatergoers that both Ragtime and Parade have become, if not quite staples, at least a welcome foray into substance. And it bodes well for the upcoming Ragtime revival.
Here are the shows that received one vote each:
Cabaret, Carrie, Cats, A Chorus Line, Chicago, The Color Purple, Company, Curtains, Dreamgirls, Fiddler on the Roof, The Frogs, Funny Girl, Guys and Dolls, Hello Dolly, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Last Five Years, A Little Night Music, Little Shop of Horrors, Miss Saigon, My Fair Lady, Next to Normal, Naughty Marietta, Once on This Island, Oklahoma, The Roar of the Greasepaint/The Smell of the Crowd, The Sound of Music, Sunday in the Park With George, Thoroughly Modern Millie, [title of show], The Wild Party (Lippa), Urinetown, The Wiz
A number of surprises here. (We'll get to Carrie in a second.) First, it's interesting that My Fair Lady and Oklahoma, two of the best and most important musicals of all time, should receive such a poor showing. Admittedly, My Fair Lady appeals to a more mature crowd, and doesn't receive quite as much regional play as it should, perhaps because the central roles are so demanding. But Oklahoma has always been pretty ubiquitous, although it has recently fallen off the radar in terms of the most produced high school musicals.
Every year semester we see a few quirky choices, and this semester we get Naughty Marietta and Roar/Crowd. It's very likely that the students that chose these shows recently appeared in them, so we have the top-of-mind factor. It's likely that Next to Normal has a similar recency effect, in that it's currently running in New York. And The Frogs likely came from a Sondheim aficionado, or perhaps someone trying to impress.
And then there's Carrie. I think this might be someone's little joke. I often start the first class of my course by showing a video of the opening number to Carrie, which I follow with a comment like "By the end of this course, you'll understand why that sucks." In fact, I end the course with a discussion of three bad shows: Carrie, Victor/Victoria, and Jekyll and Hyde. We watch a scene from each, and I encourage the students to use what they've learned to discuss what's wrong with these shows. So I get the feeling someone's putting me on here.
At least I hope so.
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