I am tempted to not write today but I’m not going to write tomorrow so I should. I have a good reason to not go tomorrow. I’m going on a Cannoli Crawl with Alison Scola in the morning. You can join me, New York Cannoli Crawl – Experience Sicily.
I’m listening to the original off-Broadway cast album of Hedwig and the Angry Inch as I write this. It’s been too long since I have. Hedwig always makes me happy. It’s a Pavlovian reaction. It also inspired me to write about my favorite musicals. These are the ones that made the biggest impressions on me. I sing the songs. I make references to them. They inform my world view. There are some great musicals that I saw that I enjoyed that don’t cut the mustard. I loved The Producers, it dominated the Tony Awards, but what I remember is the movie. I don’t remember any of the original songs. That’s my usual complaint about even great musicals, I don’t hum the score on the way home. Not even Les Misérables which everyone loves and is based on one of novels that made the biggest impression on me. This is not open debate. I’m discussing how these musicals affected me, not something objective. These are shows that I saw live. I have not seen West Side Story, or it would probably make the list. I love the story and score of Man of LaMancha and enjoyed the production I saw with Raul Julia and Sheena Easton, yes that Sheena Easton, but it was not a classic. I’m guessing the original production would make the list if I had seen it. I’m not restricting this to Broadway, one of the greatest I saw off-Broadway and another off-off-Broadway.
Fiddler on the Roof: My first Broadway show. My parents saw it when it first came out; it might have been opening night. I listened to the cast album countless times. When I was 11 or 12 my parents took me to see it. Zero Mostel was long gone by then, I think it starred Larry Lipton. No matter, it was still everything I hoped it would be. My father kept on saying how much better Zero was, I’m sure he was, but this was my introduction to Broadway. It was enough. I will still spontaneously sing songs from it.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. I saw an article in the Times on it long before it came to Broadway. I cut it out and knew I had to see it. It was the most expensive show on Broadway, $22! I couldn’t afford that. I waited for it to come to the TKTS booth. As soon as it did Carey and got to the booth early and got our half-price plus a dollar tickets. It was at the largest theater on Broadway, the Uris, now the Gershwin. Out seats were pretty good. We sat a few rows behind Bella Abzug. She took her hat off. I was worried when she came in. Sweeney can be considered an opera. It’s almost sung through. I saw it performed by the New York City opera. I saw many productions after the original. But nothing can hold a candle to Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury. I have never seen better casting chemistry in any show. The glance they give each other at the end of the show was worth the price of admission. This is Sondheim at his best, the best of the best. It’s reinvented the musical. I bought the album and listened to it repeatedly. I raved so much that I got my friends to see it. It won the Tony Award shortly after we saw it so we got in the narrow window where you could see it discounted with the original cast.
Little Shop of Horrors: I read a tiny blurb in the Times about it and cut it out. I loved the movie and couldn’t wait to see what they would do with it as a musical. It started off-off-Broadway at the WPA theater. It only ran on weekends. Lauren and I went to see it the second Saturday night. Why did we wait? It was Halloween; there was a midnight performance. How perfect is that? More than perfect. The theater was tiny. We were in the front row. When Audrey II started walking towards us we reflexively moved back in our seats. When the vines came down from the ceiling we jumped. But this was not just gimmicks. The music is great. The performances were great. I fell in love with Ellen Greene. The puppeteer for Audrey II was the same guy that played Snuffleupagus. During intermission we walked around the theater and found the spare Audrey II! I saw it again when it reached off-Broadway and several times thereafter, but none could compare to that first time. What is it with me and musicals where people are eaten? I just checked the dates. It did not play on Halloween; it ran from May 6 until June 6 at the WPA. My memory deceived me.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch: I first heard of Hedwig from Vin Scelsa. He was obsessed. He had the cast come into the studio and perform the music. It did not blow me away. Carey saw it and raved about it. I was not moved to see it. Then Ever came to visit me from Buffalo and I knew that they would love it. I got us tickets. It was off-Broadway and affordable. Within the first minute I was hooked. Like Sweeney, it re-invented the musical. How could I have been so deaf when I heard it on the radio? I have no idea, but I’m grateful that I saw it anyway. How much did we love it? We went to see it again two days later. I then saw it two more times. The third time was with its creator, John Cameron Mitchell. That took it to an entirely different level. He felt free to adlib throughout the show. I saw the original production one more time before it closed. That made four times in all. I went with different people every time and would have continued to go back if it hadn’t closed. Vin was right, this was a show that you needed to keep coming back to. A friend told me that it was too gay. I’m not gay, not even curious, and that didn’t’ make a difference. It’s not too gay. It isn’t gay at all. It’s universal. It’s about self-fulfillment.
Come from Away: This was the first Broadway show I saw created by people I knew, David Hein and Irene Carl Sankoff. David was a folk singer I met at the Susquehanna Music and Arts Festival. I met his wife Irene when LORi and I traveled up to Toronto to see their previous show, My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding. That’s a true story and we sat with David’s mothers. As great as that was, Come from Away was even better. Though neither David nor Irene is from Newfoundland they captured the feel of its music. I got the same uplift I’d get at a Great Big Sea show. It was, still is, a great production that you need to see. There are road companies, go see one of them. Just see it. You’ll be ready to kiss the fish and become a Newfoundlander.
Hadestown: This is the show I waited the longest to see. I am a long-time fan of Anaïs Mitchell and heard about the show when it was just a few songs and a gleam in her eyes. I heard numerous concert performances of it. When I saw it off-Broadway it already earned a place on this list. Then it came to Broadway. I bought a ticket on pre-sale for people on Anaïs’s mailing list. I couldn’t afford it, but I bought it anyway. It was well worth it. It makes this list. It might be the best show I’ve ever seen. It was built for me. I love Greek mythology and I love the music. It’s sung through and I’m sure I will some day see it as an opera. It deserves to be performed on that scale.
Hamilton: It took me years, Lin-Manuel Miranda was long gone. No matter, this is another revolutionary musical. I was a skeptic when I first listened to the cast album. A quarter of the way through I knew this was a work of genius. I’m not a fan of rap, I hate rap, no matter. Rap works as recitative. It’s better than recitative. The lyrics are brilliant. People don’t praise the music enough. The songs are beautiful and exciting. It succeeds on every level. Every school child should see it and get a sense of history. I say this even though I totally disagree with its portrayal of one of my heroes, Thomas Jefferson. It intelligently explores the events and the people that made them happen.
The strange thing on this list for me is the gulf in time between Little Shop in 1982 and when I saw Hedwig in 2000. I’ll finish with a list of Tony Award Winning Musicals that did not make the list. I didn’t see them all in the original productions, those get an asterisk. Some of these I thought great, others not so much.
- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum* (1962)
- Man of La Mancha* (1965)
- Cabaret* (1966)
- Two Gentleman of Verona (1971)
- A Chorus Line (1975)
- 42nd Street (1981)
- Les Misérables (1987)
- Rent (1996)
- The Producers (2001)
- Hairspray (2003)
- Spamalot (2005)
Now I have to rush and make breakfast before I go to therapy. That’s how much I love My Gentle Readers; I had to get this written first.
Wise Madness 