Hah, good post. I was thinking about this recently. I'm a fan of some musicals (including Gilbert & Sullivan), and I saw recently that Phantom of the Opera, one of the most popular musicals of all time, just closed on Broadway.
Phantom was the longest running show in Broadway history. 1988 to 2023. Tens of thousands of showings.
(It's slightly amusing that the last Christine was played a black actress for the first and only time -- this was a big deal with much crowing in the media, etc. And then Phantom closed after less than a year with this Christine. Did black Christine kill the Phantom??)
Anyway, it got me thinking about how many older musicals were about love stories and about normal people and understandable themes. They were not made to appeal to the uppercrust, but to popular forms of entertainment.
Andrew Lloyd Weber made two musicals about Bible stories. Would that happen today without being a harsh commentary on the stories?
Grease...Music Man...so much of Rodgers & Hammerstein WAS working class, popular, understandable plot lines, and story that don't only appeal to upperclass aging cat moms.
Today? I don't know wtf is going on. Looking at the shows on Broadway, they seem to be largely weird as fuck shit, musicals based on nostalgia TV shows, and old musicals going through a revival.
Cultural rot and lack of creativity is everywhere.
Completely agreed. Don’t go on the Broadway sub, or indeed any Broadway-related media, though…
It’s just depressing at this point. They’re fully brainwashed… 😑
Ngl, when I first saw a local production of Urinetown a few years ago (one of these new musicals you speak of), I was like, “So that’s where musicals are at now?”
It was bad…
We have an oddly successful original “chamber opera” scene, here, though, so weirdly, that seems to be where the creativity is, here, now, at least locally…
Of varying and dubious quality, but nonetheless, lol!
But yeah, we’ve “come a long way” from working-class, accessible stories about normal people (I forgot South Pacific, too), to $300+ tickets to shitty musicals about wizards and Disney characters, that most people have to say up six months to see, lol…
Oh and Hamilton, which is… Even worse.
As you say, it’s bizaree how captured this “art form” has become. 😑
Hah, good post. I was thinking about this recently. I'm a fan of some musicals (including Gilbert & Sullivan), and I saw recently that Phantom of the Opera, one of the most popular musicals of all time, just closed on Broadway.
Phantom was the longest running show in Broadway history. 1988 to 2023. Tens of thousands of showings.
(It's slightly amusing that the last Christine was played a black actress for the first and only time -- this was a big deal with much crowing in the media, etc. And then Phantom closed after less than a year with this Christine. Did black Christine kill the Phantom??)
Anyway, it got me thinking about how many older musicals were about love stories and about normal people and understandable themes. They were not made to appeal to the uppercrust, but to popular forms of entertainment.
Andrew Lloyd Weber made two musicals about Bible stories. Would that happen today without being a harsh commentary on the stories?
Grease...Music Man...so much of Rodgers & Hammerstein WAS working class, popular, understandable plot lines, and story that don't only appeal to upperclass aging cat moms.
Today? I don't know wtf is going on. Looking at the shows on Broadway, they seem to be largely weird as fuck shit, musicals based on nostalgia TV shows, and old musicals going through a revival.
Cultural rot and lack of creativity is everywhere.
Completely agreed. Don’t go on the Broadway sub, or indeed any Broadway-related media, though…
It’s just depressing at this point. They’re fully brainwashed… 😑
Ngl, when I first saw a local production of Urinetown a few years ago (one of these new musicals you speak of), I was like, “So that’s where musicals are at now?”
It was bad…
We have an oddly successful original “chamber opera” scene, here, though, so weirdly, that seems to be where the creativity is, here, now, at least locally…
Of varying and dubious quality, but nonetheless, lol!
But yeah, we’ve “come a long way” from working-class, accessible stories about normal people (I forgot South Pacific, too), to $300+ tickets to shitty musicals about wizards and Disney characters, that most people have to say up six months to see, lol…
Oh and Hamilton, which is… Even worse.
As you say, it’s bizaree how captured this “art form” has become. 😑