musicals!! (stage, movies, concept albums...)

[owlhari]

musicals are one of my favorite art forms in existence! though i love movie musicals and story concept albums, there's something about stage musicals that i will forever love. i've been a theatre kid since i was twelve, but i've loved musicals ever since i watched wizard of oz and mary poppins for the first time as a toddler.

what are your experiences with musicals? do you have a favorite? any niche ones that you love but no one else has ever heard of? have you seen any stage musicals in person? or just ramble about how much of a theatre kid you are!

personally, i couldn't pick a favorite musical! but some of my most beloveds are beetlejuice, newsies, hadestown, amélie, and 35mm. the latter is more of a concept album but it still counts, and it's probably the nichest thing i love. speaking of concept albums, steam powered giraffe's the vice quadrant is a two-hour sci-fi opera with a lot of underlying lore. starkid's musicals are very good as well!

i've seen beetlejuice and back to the future on broadway (both at the winter garden!) which were incredible, life-changing experiences in different ways. i'd been a fan of beetlejuice since i first listened to a bootleg audio (before the cast recording even released), and finally seeing it in person was wonderful. i saw bttf recently as part of a college field trip. because the tickets were very cheap for broadway, i thought it wouldn't hurt to just buy it and "go in blind." i didn't look up anything except a trailer, didn't listen to any songs. it was amazing, and the whole experience reignited the dormant theatre kid in me.

i'm a backstage person forever and always. practical effects, lighting, the logic of staging, i love it all! my favorite hobby is to watch stage musicals and figure out how they tick. stuff like "they made this character run offstage in this scene so they could do a quick change" or "the ensemble is doing a big dance number to distract from someone setting up the practical effects in the back"

[MrsMoe]

I love musicals! Especially horror-centric ones. My favorites are Hadestown, Sweeney Todd, Ride the Cyclone, Little Shop of Horrors, and Beetlejuice. I absolutely agree with you about how cool practical effects and staging are. Broadway shows with unique and creative set designs are my absolute weakness. It's the kind of stuff that makes me want to work in theater myself.

I'm so glad you've brought up concept albums, since I love those as well. My absolute fav will always be The Wall by Pink Floyd (my fav album period), but I also love Hospice by The Antlers, Self-ish by Will Wood, The Black Parade by MCR, Kid A by Radiohead, and Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie.

[glitterpigeon]

im not a super knowledgeable about musicals person, but my favourite is chess! it's very special to me and though i think tbh it's not that good, theres like a little part of the story that is very very important to me and could be amazing if expanded on properly. but maybe that's just the "I could fix it" curse talking. I love it, I love how different all the different versions are. idk im tired an my hand hurts but tell me if you want to hear more!

[night-at-the-musian]

I used to do musical theater as a young'n! I remember having roles in Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Seussical. I've been trying to get back into theater as a whole, and I've been experimenting with drag to get comfortable with performance again. I was cast as the villains or as the big and hammy types. Pros of knowing how to properly project!

My heart always goes to the backstage crew. Tech, lighting, costuming, everyone. The actors are the face, but without everyone else, the show cannot go on. I always made sure to grab a dozen donuts for the backstage crew when I did my shows. I'll keep that tradition alive when I get my show schedule dealt with.

My favorite musicals include Chicago, Newsies, Beetlejuice, and (if rock operas count) Pink Floyd's The Wall. This list will also expand to feature the upcoming NatM Musical, whenever it comes out. Alan Menken's the composer!

[owlhari]

This list will also expand to feature the upcoming NatM Musical, whenever it comes out. Alan Menken's the composer!

woah, i had no idea they were making a musical of night at the museum! i haven't watched the movies since i was a kid but from what i can remember, it seems like it'd make sense as a musical.

im not a super knowledgeable about musicals person, but my favourite is chess! it's very special to me and though i think tbh it's not that good, theres like a little part of the story that is very very important to me and could be amazing if expanded on properly. but maybe that's just the "I could fix it" curse talking. I love it, I love how different all the different versions are. idk im tired an my hand hurts but tell me if you want to hear more!

i have a mutual on tumblr who loves chess! i've absorbed the general gist of the show from them, but please share more if u want!!

something that's relatively unique to theatre i think, is that there can be so many interpretations of the same story. chess is a more extreme example i think, but even two different theatres putting on the same show with the same script will tell slightly different stories. different props, actors, scenery, etc. it's really cool.

[boyrotting]

my favorite musical is definitely ride the cyclone but i really enjoy heathers as well  . I quite literally cannot shut up about musicals    the number of bootleg Broadway shows i have saved is concerning    i'm actually going to see ride the cyclone on october seventeenth which is really exciting!!! other than that the only musical ive seen live was beetlejuice on broadway in around 2019. i am so vfjbfvbhrggbfvj for musicals i could nonsensically rant for hours and hours if you let me

[dotmidi]

I recently reignited my love for Ghost Quartet after viewing the entire thing on YouTube for the first time. I used to be a fan of this musical years ago, but I had no idea Dave Malloy had posted the entire thing during quarantine. I've virtually convinced every one of my loved ones to watch it with me, thus I now have an ARMY! There's something special about it for me, especially the way my relationship with it has evolved over time. I used to solely listen to the album for it and had a few favorites, but after viewing the whole experience and understanding the context for these songs, I started building new favorites on top of my previous ones.  "Hero" was one that I hadn't given much thought until this year and now I am absolutely enamored by it.

[georgemoody]

not a big fan of stage or movie musicals, but concept albums? oh yeah, gimme!

Floyd's The Wall is the obvious answer (and it also does have a movie, but i wouldn't consider it a musical, just a really long music video), besides that, their Dark Side of the Moon is also considered an album interestingly enough

aside from Floyd I've only listened to one other concept album through and through, that being Miracle Musical's Hawaii Part II, it's a great mix-up of genres if you ask me

[bby]

i definitely want to get into more musicals. my favorite that i've watched on youtube is the book of mormon! and i enjoyed the wicked movie immensely. i also really liked little shop of horrors.

some others that i want to check out are: legally blonde, beetlejuice beetlejuice, mean girls, avenue q, carrie, and heathers to name a few but i'm sure i'm forgetting a ton.

i used to do drama in high school, but it was just lighting because i'm shy. 

[appleAlc]

I really keep meaning to get back into musical theatre and, moreso, into opera.
In terms of concept albums, I can heartily recommend The Mechanisms’ oeuvre!
In terms of stage musicals, I think Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812 is a superb fucking work. We Are The Tigers and Sweeney Todd are also amidst my favourites!
In terms of opera, I would really recommend Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Last I checked, I was able to find a full recording of it on YouTube, but that may not be available anymore. Don Giovanni is also wonderful, in my humble onion.
I did tech work in high school despite being interested in acting, as I’m a transsexual woman with a bit of a deeper voice and not a lot of singing aptitude, and the only show we actually performed while I was in high school was Seussical (blame COVID). I was a wardrobe mistress, and I ruled the dressing room and closet with an iron fist and an iron.

[brightbluebug]

I recently reignited my love for Ghost Quartet after viewing the entire thing on YouTube for the first time.

ghost quartet! i ran across a recording of "starchild" a few months ago and watched the proshot a few times and i love it so much. my favorite track is still starchild, with hero at a close second. saw someone else mention the great comet; i'm surprised to see so many dave malloy fans in one place :B

my school's doing little shop of horrors this year and i'm so unbelievably excited. my singing and acting are absolute trash so i'm on tech and i really really really cannot wait. i have a blu-ray of the film and rewatch it every so often

[dotmidi]

In terms of stage musicals, I think Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812 is a superb fucking work.

ghost quartet! i ran across a recording of "starchild" a few months ago and watched the proshot a few times and i love it so much. my favorite track is still starchild, with hero at a close second. saw someone else mention the great comet; i'm surprised to see so many dave malloy fans in one place :B

I was hoping to find other Malloy fans!!! Ghost Quartet's "Starchild" is probably my 2nd fav song in the musical right next to "Bad Men"  Malloy's work is so intensely unique it is hard not to love.. Although when I presented Ghost Quartet to my friends they were.. NOT QUITE FOND OF MALLOY'S SINGING VOICE HAHAHA  Such a shame as I *WISH* I had his voice. I know Great Comet of 1812 by heart after being a religious fan for over like 5 or so years now? maybe more? I can't recall.
I am also a huge fan of William Finn's musicals and Stephen Sondheim :-) surprised to see no one has mentioned the Falsettos trilogy yet! Chip Zien's role as Marvin from William Finn's "In Trousers" is one of my favorite takes on Marvin as a characterrr! My all-time favorite musical is actually Stephen Sondheim's Company which probably is a boring pick but I have a super heavy emotional attachment to it as it has gotten me through so so SO many years and embarrassing phases. I am a big time 70s musical boy if that hasn't been made clear by now, it was so severe that it spiraled into listening to some very niche 50s musicals in my adolescence 

im not a super knowledgeable about musicals person, but my favourite is chess! it's very special to me

Chess is a really good choice too I might add, I recently had finished a movie where Murray Head played a lead role in it.. in the MIDST of my Chess hyperfixation too hahaha, totally unintentional! "Sunday Bloody Sunday" was really good and ahead of it's time honestly for the 70s, but it also made me feel like I lived through 3 lifetimes.

[dima]

i go back to Children of Eden a lot, it's by Stephen Schwartz and has a lot of the Wicked charm without all the polish. great soundtrack.  Chess is banging, I mean, it's got the ABBA composers so you know the musics gonna be amazing.

the subtle charm of The Fantastics is a favorite for me, but parts of it haven't aged well and got updated over time, but songs like Try to Remember and I Can See It get me every time.

Legally Blonde is a great more modern one I love, and there's an amazing MTV proshot version of it floating around on YouTube!

[greyskieshappymind]

I have a lot of love for the concept album Death Valley High by Zombina and the Skeletones. Horrorpunk band wanted to make a horror movie but ran out of budget for special effects and these songs are "the only sounds that survived". I love so many tracks from it and would love to see an animatic of it someday, I even have ideas for taking other ZATS tracks and inserting them in at certain points to bridge some plot points.


A concept album about flying machines and the spectacular world they exist in. I love the dedication to abstraction, like some songs are about the spectacle of airplanes like Flight of the Knife pt I and Imitation of the Sky, then you get tracks like The Zero Light which I personally interpret to be about a man who sees a UFO (from below it must look like a light in the shape of a zero) and how a cult forms around his obsession with them. Even though it's not my favourite album I do think every track is beautiful.

As far as musicals go, I did watch some in highschool. I watched Hamilton, Heathers, and Dear Evan Hansen. Even though I'm not super-fans of them I do look back on watching them at 15 fondly. DEH especially because of the discussion that's been prompted since the movie came out and Jenny Nicholson made a video about it.

There are other musicals and concept albums I'm interested in but either don't know where to watch or if it's a concept album idk what mood I need to be in to listen

• Hadestown
• Epic
• Daffy's Elixir
• Shame Shame Burn It