All tagged Jesus Christ Superstar
The Grammy Awards are set to air this Sunday, February 10th, and with all the pop superstars about to take center stage to receive accolades on national television, I thought it might be nice to recognize the nominee for “Best Musical Theater Album”. A category that both pertains to our musical theatre interests and one that will not be awarded on the network broadcast, “Best Musical Theater Album” has some strong nominees this year. All five of them are great albums, but only one can be named the victor. Here are my thoughts on each nominee.
Last week, I wrote a piece on Broadway musicals that were hits in the United States, but that just didn’t have the staying power in London. This week, I thought I would look at the musicals that were hits on Broadway, but ran even longer on the West End. Obviously, musicals like 1776 and Fiorello! were going to have a limited appeal with British audiences due to their inherently American themes, but just what shows did outrun their American productions when they crossed the ocean?
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.
For my last entry I featured the first twenty-five of my favorite showtunes celebrating my 100th blog entry which is just around the corner. Here is the continuation of that piece, featuring my NEXT 25 entries.
