Any plays or musicals you care to mention - favorites or surprisingly not your favorite. The performers and location if you care, anecdotes of note welcome too.
Grease. Opening week. 1973? Broadway. Stayed at the Americana hotel. First play. First time in nyc. First train ride. Went with mom and brother shortly after Father’s death. I was 7 or 8. Brother was 6 or 7. I remembered they swore. And I got one of those balloons with another balloon inside type thing.
Caberet. 2016. Broadway. Alan Cummings. It was awesome. Went backstage after and met him and had a nice conversation. My wife got a selfie with him. Really good show. Never had seen it before.
Pajama Game. 2015? Broadway. Harry Connick Jr. A close family friend was director. Want and met cast afterwards and had a late drinks with Harry and friends. Nice regular guy. Awesome play. First time seeing it. Hernando’s Hideaway is one of my favorite show moments.
Wicked. 2012? Broadway with original cast. Sensational.
American Idiot. Boston 2016. Great music. Loved it.
Harry Potter. London 2016? With d and fil. Two parts. Was really fun with the hype and d22 so excited to be there.
Carousel- Broadway. It deserved a much longer run. Some of the best acting I’ve ever seen.
Hamilton - Broadway. Original cast. I wanted to leave at intermission. We saw it in previews before anyone knew about it. I didn’t know to freshen up on my US history prior to seeing it. Please don’t judge. The unfamiliar score was too fast for me.
Hamilton - Chicago. I knew the score this time. And the history lesson. I became a fan like the rest of the country.
Dear Evan Hansen - Broadway. Original cast. Minus Ben Platt - Which was disappointing going into. We saw his understudy who was amazing, as was the entire show.
Beautiful - original cast. Loved seeing Jessie Mueller perform. We waited at the stage door for far too long but daughter wanted to meet her. Turns out the wait was so long because she was visiting with Hilary Clinton who was in the audience.
Once - Broadway. Absolutely loved it.
Wicked - Broadway. Got to go backstage. Cast was incredibly nice. Iconic show. Saw it there twice and probably will again.
The Humans - Broadway. A play that won a lot of awards. I didn’t enjoy it. It was about a family that got together and argued a lot. I didn’t need to pay a lot of money to see that happen. Lol.
Something Rotten touring at an outdoor venue. Despite severe thunderstorm warnings and having to take shelter it was fantastic. Cannot wait to see it again. The Play that Goes Wrong. The funniest thing I have seen in years. When I was a kid seeing Pearl Bailey and Cab Callaway in Hello Dolly on Broadway. Also when I was a kid seeing Half a Sixpence on Broadway but the lead, Tommy Steele, wasn’t in it and we saw the understudy Joel Grey.
Best ever was seeing Les Mis opening weekend on Broasdway (1987). I have since seen it twice in London and one national tour revival (which was local). The best play ever and unquestionably the best first act of any show. I can still listen to the soundtrack non-stop.
I saw Phathom opening weekend on Broadway (1986). It was a matinee and Sarah Brightman didn’t perform. Very disappointing, I did not like it. I think it is today the longest running musical on Broadway, so I guess my opinion is not shared by the general population.
Loved seeing Hay Fever (Noel Coward play) with Judi Dench in the West End (2006). She was wonderful and her performance must have exhausted her (lots of running around and up and down stairs).
My first Broadway show was Pippin. It was a trip for my French middle school class. We were supposed to see a production of Gigi but it unexpectedly closed and we saw Pippin instead. I saw the original cast - Ben Vereen and Jill Clayburgh (before their getting famous).
From favorite to disappointing
Something Rotten-Broadway-original cast-AMAZING! Every bit of this musical made us happy! So fun! Talk back afterwards was great and also got photos with Christian Borle who was incredibly nice to my daughter!
Hamilton-on tour-Phenomenal! Went into it thinking it couldn’t live up to the hype-I was oh so very wrong! We sat high up in the balcony but could see the amazing stage work of the actors/dancers on the revolving set. WOW!
Wicked-on tour- first big stage musical I had ever seen and it didn’t disappoint me. Bigger than life in so many ways.
Kinky Boots-Broadway-So much fun and a great cast of talented people! DIdn’t expect to like it as much as I did.
An American in Paris-Broadway-A beautiful show with such talented dancers.
The King and I-NYC, Lincoln Center-We had very uncomfortable seats and it was hard to sit through this show-The King was hard to understand and Kelli O’Hara was absolutely the best part of the whole show. I wanted to love it but just didn’t.
Les Mis-on tour-(don’t hate me)-I truly disliked this show. Long and boring, maybe if I saw it again, I would change my mind?
My daughter is studying Musical Theatre in college now so it’s interesting to look back at how she reacted to the various musicals. Her take on these is probably very similar to mine. She has recently seen Mean Girls (which she absolutely adored) and Anastasia (which she also loved). She is in London now and will be seeing Waitress and we will be seeing Dear Evan Hanson (on tour) in July.
I’ve never been to Broadway, but have seen some tours and plenty of community theatre productions.
Alltime favorite: Les Miz
Other favorites: Thoroughly Modern Millie, Wicked, Hairspray, Showboat and many others
Least favorite: 1776. Omg. Like @HalfMoon22 said, I didn’t need to spend money to see men argue for two hours. And there is about a 45-minute stretch with no music at all!
I love musicals, and I have seen many of them as community theater productions. I think my favorite was Jesus Christ Superstar. We took our son, who had attended many plays, and his friend, who had never attended a play. They were in maybe 4th or 5th grade. We thought the friend would be bored, but he was on the edge of his seat. It was so much fun to watch him fall in love with theater!
One of my biggest regrets is that I have never seen a Broadway musical; I left the East Coast over 20 years ago.
I do see a lot of community theatre plays and have seen many productions at Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Into the Woods still resonates with me partly because my daughter was in the ensemble in a community production when she was 13. I loved watching each of the actors and the roles evolve during months of rehearsals. The lyrics are branded into my memory.
I grew up in St. Louis, and my parents had season tickets to the Muny. That is where I learned to love, love, love musical theater. While friends were listening to the Beatles, I was listening to sound tracks. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten to see as many as I might have liked since becoming an adult. However, some of my favorites —
Something Rotten!! I adored this show. I saw it on Broadway, and I must say that everyone walked out of the theater smiling. Christian Borle was amazing. I am glad that so many people who saw it liked it.
The King and I --with Yul Brenner – the Muny even at a young age, I knew I was seeing greatness
Hello Dolly with Carol Channing – her last tour – it was wonderful
The Producers – I laughed until I cried
Phantom – in London
Wicked – love it
Starlight Express in London – fantastic
Lion King in London – I finally saw it this Christmas-- Loved it
Guys and Dolls – have seen several times. One of my all time favorites
Les Mis – in London – it was great
Reduced Shakespeare – in London – Fabulous
Fanny Hill the Musical…anyone else see it? Bet not!
And…Dr. Zhivago (the musical). We saw it on a Saturday not long after it opened. At dinner, I said I didn’t give it much life and felt sorry for the talented cast who were in a less than terrific show. It closed the following weekend.
When I was a kid, we used to drive to New Jersey every year to visit relatives and would go into the city to see plays, dine, and shop. So I know I saw numerous top stars (like Streisand in Funny Girl) and have the Playbills to prove it, but no real memories. The stage musicals I remember best would be the ones that played in Chicago over the decades.
My favorite musical over all the years would have to be Chorus Line. I can’t say which stars I’ve seen, but I have seen it four times in various locations.
I also admit we saw Donny Osmond in Joseph and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Favorites, that I’d be happy to see again and again, in no particular order:
Le Miserable
Hamilton
Wicked
Chorus Line
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat
Putnam County’s 25th Annual Spelling Bee (D2, dyslexic and, at that point, couldn’t spell, was brought on stage and lasted longer than anyone else so it became a family favorite)
Least favorite
Roman Holiday
Cats
One thing that helps make a favorite for me is, once I know the music, the show can become like a sing-a-long (in my head) for me and that familiarity enhances my enjoyment. My high school put on Oklahoma and I knew every word to every song by the age of 17. So, while I didn’t list Oklahoma as a favorite because the story isn’t my favorite, I can listen/sing to the soundtrack over and over. Same with Phantom of the Opera, Chorus Line, Joseph, Spelling Bee and others.
I’ll never forget seeing “Hair” on Broadway with the original cast as a 14 year old. The “blink or you’ll miss it” nude scene was a big deal at the time. Great soundtrack, too. Have seen most of the others above, but a couple that haven’t been mentioned yet that were a lot of fun: Spamalot & Book of Mormon.
I love musicals, and so do all my family members. Here are some of my all-time favorites:
Fiddler on the Roof
My Fair Lady
Les Miserables
South Pacific
All the Rodgers and Hammerstein classics
Maybe not one of my all-time favorites, but wonderful, clever, and patriotic in the best sense:
Hamilton
Favorite movie versions of musicals:
The Sound of Music
My Fair Lady
The King and I (for Yul Brynner’s performance)
Grease (for John Travolta’s performance)
Favorite family memories:
My four year old son leading the whole family, including grandparents, in an in-house performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Remembering, with my parents when I was little, spontaneously bursting out into a snippet of a song from a musical whenever it applied to something about which we were speaking.
Oh my! We laughed our heads off. It was at one of the tiny local theaters that Happykid designs for, so of course the lighting was brilliant But the costuming was marvelous and inventive, and managed to integrate the king lemur’s broken hand into the story-line. The actor’s cast was wrapped in gold fabric, and presented as evidence of a monster attack.
Also excellent productions: La Cage Aux Folles on Broadway with Kelsey Grammer, and again last fall in Baltimore at ArtsCentric.
But the costuming was marvelous and inventive, and managed to integrate the king lemur’s broken hand into the story-line. The actor’s cast was wrapped in gold fabric, and presented as evidence of a monster attack.