All tagged Aspects of Love

When the West End and Broadway Came Together for Christmas

This week I was thinking about a holiday special that ran on Britain’s ITV that captured the beauty and spectacle of musical theatre in the late 1980s. Save the Children was the name of the program, and the piece was created as a benefit for the Save the Children Foundation, an organization dedicated to make the lives better for children the world over. It brought together the stars and casts of the West End and Broadway musicals that were the hits of the day, and, with the performers in costume and playing on the impressive sets of their respective shows, they sang beloved Christmas carols with a splendor and glory that stuck with this Broadway enthusiast for three decades.

A Crotchety Person’s Broadway Valentine’s Day Playlist: 14 Broadway Songs to Celebrate a Shot from Cupid’s Arrow

If you are like me, a bitter, sarcastic Muppet-like creature, Valentine’s Day isn’t exactly your cup of tea. We of this ilk condemn the holiday as a commercially created reason to spend money on cards, flowers, sweets, and for the most entrenched of us, jewelry. We bemoan the coming of old February 14 and pray to God that Cupid’s arrow misfires and lands squarely between his own cherubic eyes.

High Flying, Adored: Ranking the Musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber

My piece ranking the musicals of Stephen Sondheim was very popular and it incited some great dialogue on how opinions differ depending on our experiences, emotions, and the criteria that draws us to musicals in the first place. Several of you wrote to me asking that I unleash my same ranking process on the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber. I will gratefully oblige, though I must warn you that my opinions on Sir Andrew are more extreme than those I have for Sondheim. Webber tends to only be as good as his lyricist at the moment, an ever-changing array of collaborators who have come and gone. Stephen Ward aside (which I don't know enough about yet to weigh-in), here are my opinions of his work, from worst to the best.

Ten Flop Musicals that Deserve a Second Chance on Broadway

It's always sad when a musical flops, especially when you consider all the time, talent, heart and cash that are poured into bringing a musical to Broadway. Every once and a while a musical that failed to ignite at the box office the first time around is given a second chance to show off its merits. Consider that the classic Candide was not a hit the first time around in 1956 but found great acclaim in a 1973 revival and the case is made that a revival of a failed property can be merited. Some other musicals have had this opportunity: a revival of Side Show, a 1997 flop that hoped to make a new case for itself with a 2014 revival, met with mediocre ticket sales and reviews. Some musicals are destined to be loved in concept only, never quite yielding in popularity what their proponents see as the hidden or untapped potential of its ingredients. This is okay. Not every revival of a once successful musical is a hit, so it stands to reason that not every first go around with a piece is going to be a success. Many components besides book, music and lyrics come together to make a production, so altering those ingredients (director, budget, performers, even the written material itself) can possibly add up to a new production that works. 

Here are ten musicals that I believe, with the right ingredients and a little hope, could add up to a hit if they were given a second chance.