Favorite Broadway Show

[ErieBear]

Inspired by a couple different threads... What is your favorite Broadway show? Can be current or a show that's no longer around.

 

And what is it that you like about it?

 

Mine? Would probably be Wicked. I love the fact that people aren't always what they seem.

[+ Cash4Trash]

My favorite would be the Lincoln Center production of The Threepenny Opera starring Raul Julia and Ellen Greene. It was directed by Richard Foreman.

I really like that show and it's rare when a production gets it right.

 

If anyone is interested, the 1931 film of Threepenny starring Lotte Lenya and directed by George Pabst is available on Netflix. That's the definitive German production.

[+ purplekow]

Sweeney Todd with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou. Was the first real musical i saw. I think I may have seen a show with Dudley Moore prior to that.

[jgoo]

I fell in love with Les Miserables the first time I saw it and to this day it is still my favorite, with Wicked a very very close second.

[skynyc]

I couldn't pick just one...but I can pick one theater-going day, where I saw two shows which are on my all-time favorite list.

I saw a matinee of Sunday in the Park with George, which I loved; and then an evening performance of Nine. The latter was later in the run, when Raul Julia had been replaced by Sergio Franchi. I had seen Julia and liked him, but the production was what drew me back and I don't think I will ever see a better Guido. I wish Franchi had recorded it. (Although, there's probably a bootleg out there somewhere, LOL)

[+ beethoven]

I hate to go low-brow on you (especially with the perceptive review of "Death of A Salesman" today), but "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum," with its fabulous original cast, is now 50 YEARS OLD, and remains fresh in my memory as a wonderful, wonderful evening in the theater.

[+ deej]

Too many to choose.

 

One of my favorite theater experiences was "Avenue Q" at the Ahmanson in LA. The show was good, but I was sitting next to a cute young straight couple and watching them was almost as much fun as the show. She was clearly thrilled to be at the theater. He was clearly dragged along, quite possibly as payback for an argument. As the lights went down he sat stiffly, arms folded across his chest, prepared to absolutely hate everything about it.

 

By the end of the first number he'd completely melted. At intermission he couldn't shut up about how much he was enjoying himself.

 

Avenue Q may have saved a marriage that evening.

[+ Lucky]

Usually the last great show I saw is my favorite! There are so many shows that I have loved seeing, it is pointless to try to suggest a best.

[skynyc]

I am hardly high-brow... I LOVE Funny Thing. A favorite movie, and when last on stage with Nathan, then Whoopi, then David...I saw it seven times.

[+ sf westcoaster]

Almost impossible to pick one, however, I will go with "Company" because it spoke to relationship.

[+ WilliamM]

Broadway and Off-Broadway

 

I can not pick just one.

 

"Gypsy" (1959), Original cast: Ethel Merman, Jack Klugman...liked parts of the various revivals, but not as much as Merman

 

"Nine" (1982), Original cast: Raul Julia...also liked the revival with Antonio Banderas

 

"Sunday in the Park with George (1984)," Original cast: Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters...also liked parts of the recent revival

 

Off-Broadway

 

"March of the Falsettos" (1981) Perhaps the best off-Broadway show (musical or play) I have ever seen, with the possible exception of "Entertaining Mr. Sloan" with Maxwell Caulfield...approximately the same year. Two excellent gay shows.

 

I saw the OC "Gypsy" at age 15.

[jackhammer91406]

I hate to go low-brow on you (especially with the perceptive review of "Death of A Salesman" today), but "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum," with its fabulous original cast, is now 50 YEARS OLD, and remains fresh in my memory as a wonderful, wonderful evening in the theater.

That's pretty weird. I woke up this morning with the tune Impossible running in my head. I think Forum is a great show. Performed in one production and directed and choreographed another.

[uwsman2]

Actually, the first professional show I saw was The Threepenny Opera at the old Theatre de Lys on Christopher Street in the original Marc Blitzstein English-language version back in the 1950s. I was just a kid living on L.I. and my Dad took me in to the city for a weekend treat including theater. It made an indelible impression.

 

In terms of my grown-up experiences since living in NYC, I would have to say the original Broadway production of Pacific Overtures - It just took my breath away.