What's your favorite musical?

First, I want to thank everyone who took the time to check out my blog. I received a lot of really positive feedback. As a result of the blog, we began a discussion about how much we miss live orchestras; we learned that as a community, we need to show our appreciation to everyone who works on our shows, not just the actors; and we found out that show reviews are really welcomed by the community. It feels like the community really appreciates having a voice or a place where their voice can be heard and where we can begin thoughtful and/or fun discussions about theatre AND help to promote community theatre shows. I hope we can turn this blog into more than just my own ramblings (although I really do like to ramble). I would love to hear back from more of you.

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For the sake of keeping the momentum going, what musical, that you have seen live, is your favorite? Mine is Ragtime. This show really caught me off guard when I saw it way back in the 90’s. Ragtime made its premier in Toronto and then came through Los Angeles for a pre-Broadway run at the old Shubert Theater in Century City (the theater was torn down a short time later (insert mad face emoji))

My wife at the time, Colleen, and I heard about the show on TV on the nightly news. The show looked good, so we decided to get tickets. We bought a copy of the Toronto cast recording and listened to the show on the drive to the theater. The music sounded great and we were excited to know that we would be seeing at least some of the actual people who recorded the music in the roles they were originating.

The musical itself was an emotional roller coaster. By the time the show came to intermission, after hearing Brian Stokes Mitchell sing the lyrics, “Look what they left of her left of her, left of my girl”, most people in the audience were wrecked. We walked to the lobby in silence, unable to speak from the powerful performance we were witnessing. Finally, I said to Colleen, ”What do you think so far?” Always very emotional when seeing great theater, she was barely able to get out the words, “It’s so good.”

In the case of Ragtime, for me, what made this show my favorite is that the actors were so good and the story so moving and the songs so soaring and emotional. I’m pretty sure the actors could have performed this on a bare stage in regular street clothes and it would have had the same effect. We were so fortunate to see not only Brian Stokes Mitchell on the brink of Broadway stardom but also LaChanze and Judy Kaye as well as John Rubinstein (who, coincidentally, played Pippin in the original Broadway cast).

Ragtime has really stuck with me. Because we saw it during the out-of-town run before anyone in New York had seen it, we felt like we discovered the show. To this day, it remains the musical by which I judge all others.

"Give the people A day of peace. A day of pride. A day of justice We have been denied. Let the new day dawn, Oh, Lord, I pray... We'll never get to heaven Till we reach that day."

Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, Music by Stephen Flaherty, Book by Terrence McNally

What’s your favorite musical?

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Finally, there's lots of theatre in the Antelope Valley this weekend. If you're looking for something to do, please consider supporting a community theatre show.

GASLIGHT plays at the LPAC Black Box. FINAL WEEKEND!!

Tickets available at the LPAC box office or 661-723-5950 or cedarstreetheatre.com

Check back here on Friday night for my review.

PIPPIN plays at the Palmdale Playhouse. FINAL WEEKEND!!

Tickets available at the Playhouse box office 2 hours prior to show time or AVPRT.org

Check out my review on the previous post.

Also.... Auditions at Antelope Valley College!!