Poll of the Day > I've seen Phantom of the Opera 8 times on Broadway. AMA

(+) Yeah! (+)

Before you ask for my definitive ranking of broadways shows, Ill do it for you

1) Avenue Q
2) Book of Mormon
3) Phantom
4) Legally Blonde
5) Lion King
6) How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
7) Ghost: The Musical
8) Thoroughly Modern Millie

This is where they go from maybe being kinda bad, to mostly bad.

9) Beauty and the Beast
10) Pippin (I really dont even remember this one, and I saw it twice)
11) Mary Poppins
12) idk, if you held a gun to my head, Id probably say Spring Awakening
13) the dirt under my shoes
14) Rent, and I saw it three times and was forced to watch the movie a dozen more because I was a theatre kid. THE worst musical Ive ever seen that wasnt Love Never Dies (which was a movie and doesnt count)


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In the past, you frequently complained about your parents but some of your recent posting makes you seem just like them. How does that make you feel?

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Avenue Q is the only one I've actually seen on Broadway (well, technically off-Broadway, but still in New York). It was pretty great.
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SunWuKung420 posted...

In the past, you frequently complained about your parents but some of your recent posting makes you seem just like them. How does that make you feel?

You gonna talk shit on him again for being afraid of coming out as gay to his parents, Sunny?
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Phantom is the only show Ive seen on Broadway. Was okay. Kinda nonsense story tho

MrMelodramatic posted...

Phantom is the only show Ive seen on Broadway. Was okay. Kinda nonsense story tho

It is a nonsense story, but its made for the stage and is a spectacle to watch

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Legally Blonde has some very good songs and some very middling ones. Maybe it should be lower on my list

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PK_Spam posted...

14) Rent, and I saw it three times and was forced to watch the movie a dozen more because I was a theatre kid. THE worst musical Ive ever seen that wasnt Love Never Dies (which was a movie and doesnt count)

Let me ask you a question:
Why are you a horrible person.
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Everyone in Rent is a horrible person. The narrative just frames them as being right when it REALLY shouldnt.

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No, his inspiration for Phantom came from his relationship with that woman who was WAY too young for him. I truly believe thats where he got it all from.

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PK_Spam posted...

No, his inspiration for Phantom came from his relationship with that woman who was WAY too young for him. I truly believe thats where he got it all from.

That's not what the """"""controversy""""" is about.
https://youtu.be/KBca3xf-j3o?t=223
Listen to that guitar riff. A back and forth scale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5z_l6NE3qs
And listen to that organ. Also a scale.

The lead singer of Pink Floyd is convinced that his work was stolen and put into this musical's opening number. Why didn't he sue? He said that "life's too short to try suing Andrew Lloyd Weber".
The real reason? A scale isn't a work of musical genius that can be stolen.

PK_Spam posted...

Everyone in Rent is a horrible person. The narrative just frames them as being right when it REALLY shouldnt.

The only person who's ever really framed as being "right" is Angel. Angel is a loving, giving person who helps out just about everyone she meets.
No one's really "framed as being right when they shouldn't be". Everyone does good things and bad things. The show treats them like real people who, at the end of the day, make mistakes, have regrets, and have to grow as a person because of it.
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Angel got a dog killed for money and then sang a dainty little song about it.

while were at it, Mimi tries to get Roger to do drugs with her, and we're supposed to feel bad about him telling her no.

Mark is an asshole without a single redeeming quality

Maureen is a dickhead who thinks she can do whatever she wants at the expense of her girlfriend whos supporting her at every possible turn m

I dont think anyone else really learned any lessons either. Theyre all just entitled kids who dont want to pay rent because they think theyre artistes. The show might play them off as hacks (occasionally) but the movie plays it DEAD fucking straight, like theyre just these avant garde visionaries.

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I'm jealous. I've only seen Phantom on Broadway twice, maybe three times tops.

PK_Spam posted...

Before you ask for my definitive ranking of broadways shows, Ill do it for you

1) Avenue Q
2) Book of Mormon
3) Phantom
4) Legally Blonde
5) Lion King
6) How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
7) Ghost: The Musical
8) Thoroughly Modern Millie

This is where they go from maybe being kinda bad, to mostly bad.

9) Beauty and the Beast
10) Pippin (I really dont even remember this one, and I saw it twice)
11) Mary Poppins
12) idk, if you held a gun to my head, Id probably say Spring Awakening
13) the dirt under my shoes
14) Rent, and I saw it three times and was forced to watch the movie a dozen more because I was a theatre kid. THE worst musical Ive ever seen that wasnt Love Never Dies (which was a movie and doesnt count)

Guessing this is based solely on what you've seen. All the same, Mormon over Phantom is heresy.

While I'm big into cast recordings, I *think* I've only seen a handful of shows on and around Broadway. Offhand, it's Phantom (at least twice), Mormon (although I watched it on YT like a month before I wound up seeing the show... so that kinda sucked), The Addams Family, Spider-Man (which I was arm-twisted into seeing instead of Wicked, which in itself was very wicked), and... I know I'm missing a bunch.

Counting Broadway + adjacent shows I've watched on YT, the most noteworthy ones are probably Hamilton and Young Frankenstein. Plus the MTV recording of Legally Blonde, if that counts.

Out of everything I've seen so far, I'd definitely put Hamilton at the top. Likewise, I'd rank it the highest for musical numbers, although it's cheating because the damn thing is pretty much nothing *but* musical numbers which is why it flows together so beautifully. Granted, some other musicals also tell a pretty complete story just from the music -- Young Frankenstein, for instance. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is another. Maybe Bring It On as well, since I'm pretty sure I heard the soundtrack before wiki'ing anything. Ragtime was reasonably complete as well.

MrMelodramatic posted...

Phantom is the only show Ive seen on Broadway. Was okay. Kinda nonsense story tho

Uhhhhh....?

PK_Spam posted...

Legally Blonde has some very good songs and some very middling ones. Maybe it should be lower on my list

"Blood in the Water" is incredibly catchy. "Whipped into Shape" was also great, as was "Positive" and "What You Want."
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@Zeus youve seen The Spider Man musical? Id trade 5 of my trips to see that monumental shitshow. How was that?

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As bad as you'd expect, although apparently not as bad as the zany version they had originally gone with (and I kinda wish I'd seen instead). Some of the Green Goblin numbers were great ("Freak like Me" and "Pull the Trigger") and they had some cool effects. However, they also rewrote character origins (Cletus Kassady (aka Carnage), Kraven, and the rest were Norman's old research team who he forces to transform via the same process that created him) and introduced a completely new minor villainness (Swiss Miss) for absolutely no fucking reason instead of using an established villainness (and somebody like Black Cat would have been an easy one)

Oh, and the OBC Recording is a fucking mess. The songs are out of order, they're missing some (notably "Bullying by Numbers", which was kinda catchy; the opening numbers "The Myth of Arachne" and "Behold and Wonder" were also cut but that was a *little* more understandable whereas there was no reason not to include some of the others), and Bono's involvement can be distracting since we get a few songs that are just background stuff instead of the characters singing. (Which aren't necessarily bad, just a little distracting.) I've *never* seen a recording this bad. That song order by itself is fucking insane.

And in general, the rewrite of the play felt almost like a remake of the first Spidey film. Granted, Green Goblin had his Sinister Six, but I think that was because they'd already made the costumes (since they had a larger role in the original) so it was a sunk cost and made for good filler (and the best song in the damn show). Actually, that was kind of a running theme with the musical. Pretty much *all* of the Arachne shit they had already created and planned out in the first version -- where she served as the Act 2 villain -- but then they cut back her role while leaving her in because... well, they had made the costumes, etc. So in the version I saw she was introduced when Peter tells her myth and then pops up in a minor capacity now and again.

The effects were more superfluous than cool (except maybe when the other parts of the set came swinging out as well) and the choreography was... interesting. Some of the scenes were kinda neat, others were kinda just there.
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