On this day in 1960, The Fantasticks, a musical adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s Les Romanesques, by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, opened Off-Broadway at the Sullivan Street Playhouse. No one could have predicted that this modest little show would become the longest-running musical in the world, playing for a remarkable 42 years in its original run and capturing hearts across generations.
Rita Gardner and Jerry Orbach in the original production of The Fantasticks
It certainly captured mine.
The Fantasticks tells the story of Matt and Luisa, two young lovers whose parents scheme to bring them together by pretending to keep them apart. With the help of a mysterious narrator named El Gallo, the couple learns that real love must survive disillusionment. A poetic fable with minimal staging and a timeless score, the show explores love, loss and the bittersweet path to maturity.
In 2002, while completing my Bachelor of Arts Honours in Drama at the University of Cape Town, I had the chance to work as an assistant director and choreographer of a student production of The Fantasticks. Directed by Geoffrey Hyland and staged at The Little Theatre, it was the debut musical for the Drama Department’s new and soon-to-be-discontinued musical theatre stream. It was a modest production — but a magical one — and it became a turning point in my creative life.
Until that point, my experience of musical theatre had always been big and flashy. I’d grown up watching productions like Les Misérables and The Sound of Music and performing in shows like Evita and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. But The Fantasticks, with its small cast, piano, small raised platform and moon, was different. And it taught me more than I expected — not just about making theatre, but about living life to the full.
Charles Tertiens and Candice van Litsenborgh in UCT Drama’s The Fantasticks
Lesson #1: It’s the Small Things That Count
There is no spectacle in The Fantasticks. There’s no elaborate set or chorus line to hide behind. All you have is a group of performers, a few props and the challenge of making every single moment matter. It was one of the first shows I worked on behind the scenes, and the built-in intimacy of the show made it feel incredibly personal. I remember the thrill of finishing “Never Say No,” one of my first choreographic assignments, and the sheer delight of working on “Plant a Radish” with Candice van Litsenborgh and Charles Tertiens, who played Bellomy and Hucklebee, Matt and Luisa’s scheming parents. Those vaudeville-style numbers were a joy to create, and every time we rehearsed them, they left a big, silly smile on my face. They reminded me that humour and heart don’t need embellishment; they just need to be true. Then there was “Round and Round.” I struggled with the idea that the odd-numbered company would make things asymmetrical, but Geoff gently pushed me to move away from the expected. “Not everything needs to be symmetrical,” he said. That opened something up in me and I found myself thinking about stage pictures, metaphor and movement, in a whole new way – all because of the attention we gave this small show to help it have a big impact. Small shows taught me that you can say something huge in a whisper. That’s probably why the cast albums of shows like Fun Home and Maybe Happy Ending live permanently on my Spotify playlists — and why I’m really excited to have the chance to see the latter next month.
Lesson #2: Every Time You Grow, You Get Growing Pains
When I worked on The Fantasticks, I was right in the middle of the “first act” of my life — full of dreams, vision and possibility. I was chasing my own “I Can See It,” imagining a future full of creative adventures. But as we all know, life doesn’t stick to the script. Like Luisa and Matt, I had to leave my garden. I had to stumble through my own version of “Round and Round.” I’ve lived through years of questioning, redirection, and — yes — pain. Sometimes, I tried to help others realise their dreams while losing touch with my own. Like El Gallo, I learned that even with the best intentions, it’s impossible not to get bruised along the way. And yet, those experiences are what teach you to see clearly. The Fantasticks understands this. It knows that love without loss is fantasy, and maturity means coming to terms with imperfection — in others and in yourself. Now, looking back, I find joy in the simpler things. In writing on my own terms. In carving out a quieter kind of creativity. The show planted those seeds. It’s only now I see how deeply they’ve taken root.
Marie-Louise Honeyman and Adam du Plessis in UCT Drama’s The Fantasticks
Lesson #3: Music Opens the Heart (and Keeps It Open)
The score of The Fantasticks has a way of slipping under your skin. “Try to Remember” is one of those rare songs that feels like a prayer. It haunts you, making you ache for the moments you perhaps didn’t know you were supposed to treasure when they happened. That’s what I love about musical theatre at its best. It doesn’t just offer escape; it offers reflection. Years later, I returned to another great song from the show, “They Were You,” in a revue I curated, A (Sorta) Love Story. Performing it with Amy Trout, I had to trust its simplicity and resist the urge to oversell it. That’s what gives it its magic. It says everything without needing to shout it out loud. Musicals, and the kind of music in them, let you lose yourself in someone else’s story and somehow find your own too. That’s the compass I follow in my writing now. What story will let someone feel seen? What’s the truth that someone else might be waiting to hear? And how can music help us all hear it better?
Lesson #4: Collaboration Is an Act of Faith
One of the greatest gifts of The Fantasticks was being trusted. Geoff allowed me to take creative ownership of the musical numbers I staged. The cast worked with me. We played. We made things together. It was the best kind of collaboration, a form of collective discovery — of growing something none of us could create alone. Indeed, watching Geoff’s vision unfold – one that was not imposed on the production but discovered through it – was its own lesson. You don’t have to go into a piece knowing everything. You’re going to come out of it changed, having learned things you didn’t know you needed to learn. I’ve lost touch with that feeling, at times. Work gets busy. The pandemic drained my energy and focus. But recently, I’ve started to find my way back — carving out time for creativity again and rediscovering the joy of the creative process. Because creativity heals, and collaboration, when built on trust, humility and care, is a sacred act in the church of the theatre.
Brennan Holder and Mandi Manson in UCT Drama’s The Fantasticks
Lesson #5: Theatrical Wisdom Wears a Mask
The Fantasticks is full of artifice: stock characters, allegory, direct address and stylised movement. Like all musicals, within its heightened framework, it reaches for something deeply human. I’ve always been drawn to old stories retold for new times, something The Fantasticks does elegantly. It borrows from commedia and Shakespeare, from poetry and folk tales, and uses those influences to talk about real emotion. That’s the power of stylisation. It doesn’t block the truth, but invites it in. It’s why I love musicals. Like opera, Greek tragedies or Shakespearean dramas, they reveal something essential that you might not recognise if it were steeped in Realism. It’s a lesson that has stayed with me. It certainly shaped Over the Rainbow, the first musical I wrote, collaborating with Jacqui Meskin (then Kowen) to make it happen. A modern, gay spin on The Wizard of Oz, Over the Rainbow was built, like The Fantasticks, on a small scale — a single piano, a handful of actors — but filled with big feelings about identity, disillusionment and human connection. Like The Fantasticks, it wore its sentiments proudly, undercutting anything that might be too sweet with a little comedy, and audiences responded to its unapologetic heart.
The Fantasticks taught me that we all have stories to tell. Though our stories may have happened before — and will almost certainly happen again — our voices make them unique. This little show reminds us how to live: with open hearts (“Try to remember when life was so tender / That dreams were kept beside your pillow”), with good boundaries (“Leave the wall. You must always leave the wall.”), and with a sense of wonder (“Those shining sights inside of me.”)
More than twenty years on, I still try to remember.
Marriage is complicated – and so is Company. When Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s landmark musical debuted in 1970, it was a definitive moment in Broadway history. Showcasing the messy realities behind wedding vows, it was a startlingly modern show that shone a spotlight on emotional ambivalence and the particular kind of urban loneliness that emerged as the twentieth century sped along towards its final quarter. Over five decades later, Company remains a cornerstone of the musical theatre canon. Even though some of its ideas have aged gracefully, others creak under the weight of changing times. To celebrate the anniversary of its opening on Broadway, we’re proposing five reasons Company still says “I do” to its audiences — and another five that might just see it headed for divorce court.
Dean Jones as Bobby in Company
1. Divorce Court: Marriage as a Default Life Goal Feels Outdated
Once upon a time, people viewed turning 30 without a spouse as a minor tragedy. In 1970, the crisis of Bobby being single at 35 was culturally resonant. At the time, people were, on average, 22 when they got married; a half-century later, the average age is 29. Perhaps this statistic makes things seem like they haven’t changed much — but numbers are one thing and attitudes, another. Today, marriage is an option, not a mandate, with some people delaying it or skipping it entirely. Indeed, Bobby’s words earlier in the show, viewed then as an excuse, now feel more authentic as a reason for not getting married than some of the reasons presented to him in the show as reasons for tying the knot.
JENNY: Do you think, just maybe I mean subconsciously you might be resisting it?
ROBERT: No. Negative. Absolutely not! I have no block, no resistance. I am ready to be married.
JENNY:(Quietly) Then why aren’t you?
(Pause)
ROBERT: I’ve always had things to accomplish. That’s the main reason. First I had to finish school. Then I wanted to get started, to get some kind of security. And, uh-just things I wanted to do before I could even begin to think in terms of marriage. Oh, I know that can sound like rationalization, but it’s not.
From a twenty-first-century perspective, the neuroses running throughout the show about Bobby being unmarried feel more like a period artefact than a universal heartbeat.
2. I Do: Emotional Honesty About Connection Still Hits Home
While marriage may be where it’s been, but not where it’s at. Bobby’s deeper anxieties — his fear of vulnerability, longing for connection and self-protective detachment — are timeless. Everyone wrestles with the messy tension between needing love and fearing it. In Company. Bobby’s friends illustrate various consequences of putting yourself out there, some deeply affirming and others more searing. “The Little Things You Do Together” starts out innocently enough —
It’s the little things you do together, Do together, Do together, That make perfect relationships…
— soon take a cynical, even violent, turn:
It’s people that you hate together, Bait together, Date together, That make marriage a joy. It’s things like using force together, Shouting till you’re hoarse together, Getting a divorce together, That make perfect relationships.
Whether we’re considering our longing for romantic love or deep friendship, or simply to be truly seen by another person, Bobby’s fears and hopes speak to anyone choosing intimacy over isolation.
Susan Browning as April and Dean Jones as Bobby in Company
3. Divorce Court: Some Gender Roles Feel… Terribly 1970s
The depiction of women in Company — the kooky stewardess, the bossy wife, the crazy bride — risks feeling dated today. Truth be told, the cringe is felt in Furth’s book rather than in Sondheim’s songs; as is often the case with comedy, and particularly the sit-com style comic stylings of Company, it reflects (on) the norms of its time very specifically. Take this character-defining speech of April’s, for instance.
APRIL: I didn’t come right to New York. I went to Northwestern University for two years but it was a pitiful mistake. I was on probation the whole two years. I was getting ready to go back to Shaker Heights when I decided where I really wanted to live more than any other place was — Radio City. I thought it was a wonderful little city near New York. So I came here. I’m very dumb.
It’s left to the brilliant performances we often see in Company to renegotiate material that occasionally pigeonholes its female characters into stereotypes that modern audiences, with decades more of feminism under their belts, find harder to swallow without side-eye.
4. I Do: Sondheim’s Lyrics Still Sparkle with Psychological Truth
No matter how the social backdrop changes, Sondheim’s lyrics cut straight to the bone. Take the tough emotional truths so precisely expressed by David to Bobby in “Sorry-Grateful” as an example.
You’re always sorry, You’re always grateful, You hold her, thinking, “I’m not alone.” You’re still alone.
This paves the way for the safe, boundaried yearning Bobby begins to harbour in the once-cut, then re-interpolated “Marry Me a Little.”
Marry me a little, Body, heart and soul, Passionate as hell But always in control.
Contrast this with Joanne’s savage wit of “The Ladies Who Lunch.”
So here’s to the girls on the go — Everybody tries. Look into their eyes And you’ll see what they know: Everybody dies.
A toast to that invincible bunch, The dinosaurs surviving the crunch — Let’s hear it for the ladies who lunch! Everybody rise!
None of these is a quaint period piece. Sondheim’s lyrics are living emotional x-rays, as revealing today as ever.
Elaine Stritch as Joanne in Company
5. Divorce Court: Furth’s Book Locks It to Its Era
Audiences and critics felt that George Furth’s original book for Company was charming, funny and daring in its day. While some parts are just as effective today, other elements sometimes make the show feel like a sociological time capsule, and many people will argue this is the raison d’être for some works of art once they’ve reached a certain age. Focusing the show’s structure on ideas rather than a narrative throughline reflects a moment in musical theatre history. As cutting edge as it was, it may well be the show’s conceptual nature that makes people feel it is dated. If Company had a more traditional narrative that showed its ideas rather than a structure that expressed them, audiences might be able to experience its relevance more keenly, with greater power to make meaning of the show themselves in true post-modern fashion. As things are, without creative reinterpretation, the vignettes can feel a little museum-like.
6. I Do: The Concept Musical Structure Still Feels Radical
Musical theatre has caught up to Company, but hasn’t left it behind. Its fragmented structure, prioritising thematic cohesion over linear storytelling, still feels bold and influential. Shows like Come From Away and A Strange Loop build on foundations laid in Company, which in turn owed something to earlier shows like Lady in the Dark and Allegro. Sondheim himself acknowledged:
‘Somebody said to me once, ‘Your whole life has been fixing Allegro. That’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been trying to fix Allegro all my life.”
Beth Howland as Amy and Dean Jones as Bobby in Company
7. Divorce Court: Cultural Assumptions Are Frozen in Time
The idea that marriage equals fulfilment and that failing to marry means someone is caught is some kind of existential crisis feels very much like a 1970s anxiety. Modern audiences, accustomed to chosen families, more fluid relationship models and diverse pathways through life, may find Bobby’s existential dread and his friends’ complicity in it a little narrow. In Bobby’s world, the worst possible fate is solitude; in today’s world, we recognise that solitude can be a conscious and fulfilling choice. The show rarely imagines models of life outside traditional coupling, the scene between Robert and Peter in which they skim over the topic of men who love men being one rare case.
PETER: Robert, did you ever have a homosexual experience?
ROBERT: I beg your pardon?
PETER: Oh, I don’t mean as a kid. I mean, since you’ve been adult. Have you ever?
ROBERT: Well, yes, actually, yes, I have.
PETER: You’re not gay, are you?
ROBERT: No, no. Are you?
PETER: No, no, for crissake. But I’ve done it more than once though.
ROBERT: Is that a fact?
PETER: Oh, I think sometimes you meet somebody and you just love the crap out of them. Y’know?
ROBERT: Oh, absolutely, I’m sure that’s true. PETER: And sometimes you just want to manifest that love,that’s all.
ROBERT: Yes, I understand. Absolutely.
PETER: I think that sometimes you can even know someone for, oh, a long, long time and then suddenly, out of nowhere, you just want to have them — I mean, even an old friend. You just, all of a sudden, desire that intimacy. That closeness.
ROBERT: Probably.
PETER: Oh, I’m convinced that two men really would, if it wasn’t for society and all the conventions and all that crap, just go off and ball and be better off for it, closer, deeper, don’t you think?
ROBERT: Well, I — I don’t know.
PETER: I mean like us, for example. Do you think that you and I could ever have anything like that?
ROBERT:(Looks at him for a long and uncomfortable moment. Then a big smile.) Oh, I get it. You’re putting me on. Man, you really had me going there, you son of a gun.
(Laughing, Robert points at Peter and exits. Peter, alone, opens his mouth to call after him but doesn’t. Peter exits. Blackout.)
While moments like this seem to widen the scope of what Company has to say, it is also a reminder of the debate about whether Bobby’s issue with marriage is that the character is actually gay, which Furth and Sondheim refute absolutely. This recalls a perceptive observation made by Adam Feldman in Time Out ahead of the New York Philharmonic’s staged concert of the show.
It’s not a question for me of Bobby, the character, being secretly queer — if his commitment problems with women could be so easily explained, the show would crumble — but rather of the entire show being, in some sense, a product of the closet.
The effect of a scene like the one quoted above is counterintuitive. It reminded us that the show is narrower than the expansive landscape of relationships we recognise today. This narrowing of possibilities heightens Bobby’s paralysis: he is trapped not just by fear of growing close to someone else, but by a limited vision of what love and relationship, whether romantic, platonic or communal, has the potential to look like.
8. I Do: Songs Like “Being Alive” Still Stop the Heart
Some musical theatre songs live beyond the context of the show in which they originate, and “Being Alive” is one of them. Its plea, not just for companionship, but for change, discomfort and growth, remains gut-wrenchingly immediate. Lyrics like these make a song like “Being Alive” feel as fresh today as it did in 1970.
Somebody hold me too close, Somebody hurt me too deep, Somebody sit in my chair and ruin my sleep And make me aware of being alive, being alive.
“Being Alive” doesn’t belong exclusively to a single generation; it belongs to anyone who chooses to share the adventure of being alive with another person. Its urgency changes as we do: I felt its rawness when I was twenty, its heartache at thirty-five, and I imagine its bittersweet quality will feel even greater when I’m seventy. It’s a song that grows alongside the lives we lead. It doesn’t matter whether you’re single, married, divorced or happily complicated: that desperate hope for a bond with someone else never gets old.
Dean Jones and the cast of Company
9. Divorce Court: Urban Alienation Has Mutated
Company captures a world of urban isolation, with crowded parties where you feel alone and empty apartments interrupted by the ringing of late-night phone calls. The specifics of connection and disconnection have changed, and Company sometimes feels like a vintage snapshot, as in these lyrics which are a bit of a mystery for modern day audiences.
Did you get my message, ’cause I looked in vain? Can we see each other Tuesday if it doesn’t rain? Look, I’ll call you in the morning or my service’ll explain…
We get it, I think, even though we don’t recognise it. That said, today’s loneliness looks different. We feel it on dating apps, in response to ghosted text messages and as we doomscroll social media feeds.
10. I Do: Company’s Capacity for Reinvention Proves Its Genius
Despite the passage of time, Company endures. From Dean Jones’s Bobby through Katrina Lenk’s Bobbie, the show has proven over and over again that it can adapt, transform and speak to new audiences. By changing the lens through which it sees the world — shifting the protagonist’s gender, for example, or adjusting the social framing — new productions of Company can show us that it’s not just a product of the 1970s. We still live and love today, so it’s all about finding a way to use the show as a key to unlock reflections on what it means to live and love over time. Twice in the show, we hear a kind of mantra for which the show has become famous:
AMY: It’s just that you have to want to marry somebody, not just somebody.
Which later becomes:
AMY: Blow out your candles, Robert, and make a wish. Want something, Robert, want something.
Together with Bobby’s friends’ other encouragements, these words form a thesis that enables Company to be a vital commentary on connection, risk, and hope.
Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Company may carry the trademarks of the era that birthed it on Broadway, but its emotional truths still shine through. Each revival reconsiders these ideas, who we are alone and who we are together, as new generations expand our collective human experience. In that sense, Company evolves with the times. It remains a thrilling, aching, fiercely funny portrait of human need — a musical that celebrates people who, despite the odds, still choose to say “I do” to being alive.
Ten years ago today, Fun Home opened on Broadway. Although it had already hit a home run Off-Broadway, the transfer of this memory-fuelled chamber musical to the Main Stem reminded us of something important: an innovative and intimate musical could hold its own against bigger, flashier and broader shows like Matilda, Kinky Boots and The Book of Mormon. Although it wasn’t the first smaller, more introspective show to have a big impact on Broadway — Once, for example, won the Tony Award for Best Musical just a few years earlier — Fun Home feels like a tipping point in the realm of contemporary musical theatre, paving the way for The Band’s Visit, A Strange Loop, Kimberly Akimbo and Maybe Happy Ending. A decade later, Fun Home hasn’t just held up — it’s still setting the bar. Here are five things worth celebrating in Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s deeply moving musical.
Sydney Lucas and Michael Cerveris in Fun Home (Photo credit: Joan Marcus)
1. Fun Home Unapologetically Focuses on a Lesbian Protagonist.
Remarkably, Fun Home was the first Broadway musical with a lesbian character, Alison, at the centre of its story. It’s also refreshing that it’s neither framed as a simple coming-out story nor treated as a narrative that uses trauma as a consequence of queerness. That’s not to say those themes aren’t present — Alison’s queer awakening, the inherited culture of silence and emotional repression in the Bechdel family and Bruce’s death by suicide are central aspects of Fun Home — but the show weaves them into the narrative as subtly as the floating thread that makes damask the linen Bruce uncovers in “It All Comes Back (Opening).” This allows Fun Home to help us engage, through Alison’s journey, with the idea of connecting the dots between identity, memory, love and loss, universal ideas that her individual story illuminates. While Alison reflects on queerness as something that can be claimed joyfully, as in “Ring of Keys,” or grappled with generationally, in considering Bruce’s closeted life, it places her at the centre of the story in a way that isn’t aesthetic or superficial, but in a way that imbues the show with a deep sense of emotional complexity.
Beth Malone and Emily Skeggs in Fun Home (Photo credit: Jenny Anderson)
2. Fun Home Shatters Linear Time — With Purpose.
When people talk about musicals that manipulate time, they will likely mention Merrily We Roll Along or The Last Five Years. The spiral structure of Fun Home is often overlooked in these conversations. Its three timelines, each represented by different versions of Alison, shift fluidly as Alison considers her past and what this potentially means for her future. Alison encounters the younger versions of herself in the way we all meet our memories in real life. In the opening number, both she and Bruce sing:
I can’t abide romantic notions of some vague “long ago” I want to know what’s true Dig deep into who And what, and why, and when Until now gives way to then.
After Alison repeats Bruce’s sentiment, it becomes the show’s vision statement. What follows isn’t chronology but collage, with episodes flashing past us like the panels of Bechdel’s graphic novel. We don’t just learn Alison’s story; we map it alongside her.
Beth Malone and Michael Cerveris in Fun Home (Photo credit: Joan Marcus)
3. Fun Home Lets Quiet Moments Speak Volumes.
So much of the power in Fun Home lies in what’s not said. “Telephone Wire,” for example, may be one of the quietest emotional climaxes in the musical theatre canon. It has to be, given that it deals with the heartbreak that a missed moment of connection can cause, and it is all the more devastating as a result. While many climactic moments rely on confrontation, Fun Home depicts the agonising experience and consequences of avoidance. As Bruce and Medium Alison sit in the car, frozen mid-drive, the dramatisation of the emotional distance between them speaks to the show’s restraint, tone and intent. It’s a fantastic counterpoint to “Days and Days,” a moment where Helen finds words to everything she has left unsaid over the course of her marriage to Bruce and her mothering of Alison. It’s the quietest of detonations, representing the roles wives and mothers have played in queer family dynamics. Are the supposed virtues of duty and silence worth the cost of not living truthfully? In an era when many musicals feel the need to spell out subtext, Fun Home trusts its audience to sit in the discomfort of what is unspoken — a rare case of theatrical maturity that rewards attentive viewing and makes return visits to the show all the more rewarding.
Sydney Lucas and Michael Cerveris in Fun Home (Photo crefit: Joan Marcus)
4. Fun Home Resists Neat Closure — and That’s What Makes It Linger.
One of the great joys of Fun Home is that even though it is emotionally fulfilling by the time the curtain ends, there is a sense we’re on a journey that never really ends. While there is resolution, there isn’t finality, leaving the audience in the same space as Alison. With some things worked out, there are journeys that can never come to an end. One of the strongest factors in creating this sense of open-endedness is the story’s focus on Alison’s fundamental psychological drives rather than using Bruce as a stereotypical or oppositional foil for her. Bruce is no simple villain. His internal and human tragedy stops us short of thinking about him as a mere monster. Like the books in his library, like the book Alison is creating, he is filled with subtleties and secrets. Even towards the end of the show, Alison reflects:
Caption. Caption. Caption. Caption. Caption. I’m the only one here. This is what I have of you. You ordering me to sweep and dust the parlor. You steaming off the wallpaper. You in front of a classroom of bored students. Digging up a dogwood tree. You working on the house, smelling like sawdust and sweat and designer cologne. You calling me at college to tell me how I’m supposed to feel about Faulkner or Hemingway. You standing on the shoulder of Route 150 bracing yourself against the pulse of the trucks rushing past. You succumbing to a rare moment of physical contact with me.
Her only conclusion?
Caption: Every so often there was a rare moment of perfect balance when I soared above him.
Because Fun Home resists reducing things into simplistic moral binaries, its exploration of generational trauma and the cost of silence when it comes to working out who we are is all the more effective.
Sydney Lucas in Fun Home (Photo crefit: Joan Marcus)
5. Fun Home makes “Ring of Keys” a Cultural Moment.
When discussing the legacy of Fun Home, “Ring of Keys” deserves its own spotlight. As Small Alison experiences a truly joyful queer awakening, with no shame or fear, her recognition and awe of a delivery woman she feels she somehow knows gives us a queer anthem that rings true.
I thought it was supposed to be wrong But you seem okay with being strong….
Do you feel my heart saying hi? In this whole luncheonette why am I The only one who sees you’re beautiful – No, I mean… handsome….
I know you.
In some ways, it’s a generational awakening that represents the spark of revelation felt by queer people everywhere, no matter how old they might be when it comes. And while we love queer anthems that give us the opportunity to sing out, the way that “Ring of Keys” almost whispers its way into your heart is the perfect way to dramatise a universal memory, that moment of knowing. In many ways, “Ring of Keys” redefines how musicals can frame queer identity.
There is a great deal to celebrate about Fun Home. A chamber musical that feels epic, it delivers emotional weight on a grand scale with a small ensemble of actors and a handful of musicians. Outside of the show, another triumph worth mentioning is the collaboration between Kron and Tesori as a rare female writing team whose work is so symbiotic that their voices feel like one. What they create in Fun Home is a show that ages like all the best literature: we’re still finding pieces of ourselves in its map and discovering the map of our hearts and souls in the show. A decade after its Broadway bow, Fun Home is still a musical gem — quietly radiant and endlessly resonant.
April 12th is the International Day of Human Space Flight, the annual celebration of the first human space flight by Yuri Gagarin established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2011. It’s also Yuri’s Night, also known as the World Space Party, where many people around the world raise a glass to Gagarin’s single orbit around the Earth in his Vostok space capsule. I thought this would be a stellar opportunity to have a bit of fun and launch myself into the universe of space musicals, only to find that they’re as scarce as complex extraterrestrial life. Talk about a “Rare Earth” phenomenon! Nonetheless, today we’re going to get into the spirit of Yuri’s Night and list a veritable solar system of musicals – actually, just five – which take place in space or directly involve space travel. All right, all right – one of these shows has very little to do with space travel other than the mere mention of it. If you can’t guess what they are, you’ll find one of them the number one spot – but for now, let’s begin the countdown!
5. Starmites
There are no divas like space divas in Starmites.
What if Peter Pan went to space? While this is no Neverland tie-in, the answer to that question gives you the bare bones of the Starmites story. At its heart is shy teenager Eleanor, who wants to be a “Superhero Girl” and finds herself in a universe where the Starmites serve as the guardian angels of Innerspace. More than just a musical theatre maker’s fever dream, Starmites is the ultimate underdog story: what might have been a pretty inconsequential Off-Off-Broadway show hustled its way via Off-Broadway to a Broadway stage for the 1988–1989 season. Admittedly, this was hardly Broadway’s golden year. In fact, it’s often cited as one of the weakest seasons ever for new musicals, so much so that the Tony Awards scrapped the categories for Best Score and Best Book altogether that year. In a more robust season, Starmites would never have claimed either prize, but you have to admire the sheer audacity of its journey. The score (with some bops like “Hard to be a Diva” and “Love Duet”) is endearingly sweet, steeped in a 1980s vernacular with a few retro flourishes that add to its charm. It’s true that this is probably more of a comic book musical than a space adventure, which bumps it down to the bottom spot on the list – but there’s enough intergalactic action to warrant a little generosity. Over the years, Starmites has built a modest cult following and it’s a fun choice for school productions too. Barry Keating and Stuart Ross refined the piece on its way to Broadway, and it’s since been polished further in various editions for performance. Overall, it’s cute and sweet, but just a little bit naïve, which, of course, is all part of its charm. It might lean more into comic book fantasy than pure space epic, but for Yuri’s Night, we’re embracing the intergalactic fun of Starmites with open arms.
4. Space Dogs
People meet puppets in Space Dogs.
A rocking tribute to the early days of the space race, this off-Broadway hit tells the extraordinary true story of Laika, the first dog in space, and the Soviet scientists behind her mission. The concept feels instantly engaging – quirky, unexpected and full of potential. The rock score is lively, even if it doesn’t stick in your head long after you’ve given the cast album a spin, but it’s clear that the live show leant into the concept’s eccentricity with gusto, using puppetry and a chorus line of soft toys. Who wouldn’t be tickled pink by the tongue-in-cheek hilarity of “A Russian Canine Beauty Pageant?” There are genuinely sweet moments too, with songs like “Blessed by Two Great Oceans” catching the ear. It’s easy to imagine Space Dogs being a riot to watch live, full of offbeat energy and visual inventiveness. Am I the only one who can imagine this material jumping seamlessly from the stage into a Phineas and Ferb-style cartoon series? Its offbeat humour seems well suited to the medium of animation. At any rate, even if the show still needs time to find longevity beyond its initial blast into the musical theatre universe, it still makes for great entertainment thanks to its playful theatricality. With its roots in the Soviet space programme and the story of Laika, it’s hard to imagine a more fitting musical companion for Yuri’s Night festivities.
3. Starship
It’s a bug’s life in Starship.
Starkid Productions is guilty pleasure territory of the very best kind. Wild, free, and utterly freewheeling, Starkid’s musicals have delivered countless earworms and inside jokes for musical theatre lovers everywhere – and Starship is no exception. Set on Bug-World, an alien planet teeming with giant insects, it follows the journey of one particularly curious bug, aptly named Bug, who dreams of joining the elite Starship Rangers. His chance arrives when a human crew lands on his planet with colonisation in mind, and what unfolds is a high-energy space adventure brimming with heart. With music and lyrics by Darren Criss, and a book by Matt Lang, Nick Lang, Brian Holden, and Joe Walker, Starship feels like a madcap Pixar sci-fi movie, complete with an A Bug’s Life aesthetic and a narrative mash-up of The Little Mermaid and Aliens – a comparison Darren Criss himself once made. What’s always so impressive about Starkid’s productions is their sheer ambition: these are big, bold visions brought to life with passion and ingenuity, fuelled by an infectious love of musical theatre. Starship is a wild ride from start to finish that doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is exactly what makes it such a blast. For a night that celebrates bold dreams of cosmic exploration, Starship keeps the wild ambition and joyful creativity of space exploration alive and well in the universe of the stage.
2. Return to the Forbidden Planet
Shakespeare’s Ariel is a robot in Return to the Forbidden Planet.
Return to the Forbidden Planet is the kind of madcap sci-fi romp that feels like a bespoke celebration of Yuri’s Night – full of zany space adventures and rock ’n’ roll energy. It’s the quintessential cosmic musical. Is it brilliant? Is it terrible? Yes. A West End phenomenon that leaves you half-baffled and half-impressed that it works at all, the show is the textbook example of “what am I watching?” theatre. It’s a mad pastiche of Shakespearean verse, 1950s sci-fi and jukebox rock ‘n’ roll – and somehow, it found an audience and even managed to snag the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical in 1989, beating out Miss Saigon, The Baker’s Wife and Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story. The Shakespearean text-play is arguably the show’s most successful trick, weaving familiar lines into its wild narrative with surprising wit. The musical numbers, while cleverly chosen, tend to fade quickly after their introduction, and you can’t help wondering if an original score might have been more engaging – though, truthfully, the whole concept is so off-the-wall that it’s hard to say. At its best, the show flirts with being the perfect combination of quirky fun and good theatre, and you’re left wishing it consistently reached that higher orbit.
1. The Rocky Horror Show
Dr Frank-N-Furter camps it up in THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW.
The Rocky Horror Show is obviously the musical we hinted at in the introduction! Yes, the alien-from-outer-space angle only reveals itself late in the game (spoiler alert?), but The Rocky Horror Show is such an icon that it absolutely earns the top spot on our list today. With book, music, and lyrics by Richard O’Brien, this cult classic is a hilarious and loving tribute to the B-movies of the 1930s to early 1960s – a gleeful blend of sci-fi, horror, and rock’n’roll rebellion. It follows a newly engaged couple who, caught in a storm, stumble upon the lair of the mad scientist Dr Frank-N-Furter, just in time for the unveiling of his latest creation: Rocky, a Frankenstein-style muscle man brought to life. I’ve found myself enjoying this show more as I’ve grown older. Where once it was the quickness and irreverent energy that drew me in, now I also appreciate the flashes of pathos that lurk beneath the surface and emerge in some of the later songs. The show’s subversiveness guaranteed its legacy, and that irresistibly entertaining score certainly helps keep audiences coming back. From “Science Fiction Double Feature” and “Dammit Janet” all the way through to “I’m Going Home” and “Super Heroes,” the hits just keep on coming. Watching it today, The Rocky Horror Show is still a breezy, high-energy night out, especially when there’s a great Frank at the helm to steer the ship. Or should that be the starship? Anyway, once you add in the audience participation, the props, the call-backs, and the sheer communal joy of the whole Rocky Horror cult, you’ve got a show that’s truly out of this world. With its starry-eyed send-up of sci-fi tropes, this cult classic is the ultimate party piece for Yuri’s Night – and we absolutely encourage you to get your “Time Warp” on and get the party started!
It seems that musicals have explored just about every theme under the sun – and beyond – but space travel remains oddly underrepresented in the musical theatre canon. If the history of human space flight has taught us anything, it’s that even the most improbable journeys can take flight. Space musicals seem to be the realm of camp, fun, pastiche and parody, never really dipping its toes into the philosophical Milky Way we see in, say, Star Trek. So let’s look out for the Yuri’s Night Wishing Star tonight and use that chance to ask for the totally mind-blowing theatrical space opera we’ve yet to see take flight.
Today is the International Day of Conscience, the fifth anniversary of this global day of awareness established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2019 and first observed in 2020. In honour of this remarkable day, Musical Cyberspace is curating a list of ten musicals that delve deep into the moral and ethical dilemmas that individuals and societies face. After all, if we accept that musical theatre is a medium capable of exploring complex themes, is any theme more profound at this moment in history than the human conscience as people worldwide grapple with their own values and the complexities of what’s right and what’s wrong.
Noxolo Dlamini in Sarafina! (Photo credit: Sanmari Marais)
10. Sarafina!
Mbongeni Ngema and Hugh Masekela’s Sarafina! is likely the most unconventional musical to appear on this list. On Broadway, it ran for 597 performances, but in South Africa, where it was created and first performed, it is almost ubiquitous, with several revivals having dotted the almost four decades since its premiere. At the time of writing, auditions are taking place for another major revival of the show being produced by Joburg Theatre later this year. Set against the backdrop of apartheid-era South Africa, Sarafina! portrays the courageous uprising of Soweto students. Their collective stand against systemic oppression is a tale of courage and resistance. While Sarafina! follows a fictional group of students, with the eponymous Sarafina inspiring her classmates to commit to the struggle against apartheid, their story recalls and commemorates the Soweto uprising of 16 June, 1976. It is a testament to the power of conscience in the face of institutionalised wrongdoing, with an inspirational battle cry:
What would you do to secure your happy ending? Have you thought of the consequences of your actions? Was it even apparent to you that your desired ending is not the end of your story, and that life goes on? Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods uses classic fairy tales, the ultimate harbinger that a happy ending is on its way, to force us to ask these questions of ourselves. After leading Cinderella, Jack and Little Red Riding Hood, along side a Baker, his Wife, a Witch and a couple of Princes on quests that culminate in a happy “Ever After” the first act, the second act serves as a meditation on accountability, communal responsibility and the moral ramifications of personal — often selfish — choices. Ultimately, we learn that “No One is Alone” and that “Children Will Listen.” A precursor to the latter song was the original version of “Second Midnight.”
BAKER’S WIFE: How do you say to your child in the night Nothing’s all black but then nothing’s all white? How do you say it will all be all right, When you know that it mightn’t be true? What do you do?
PARENTS: What do you leave to your child when you’re dead? Only whatever you put in its head. Things that your mother and father had said, Which were left to them, too. Careful what you say.
CHILDREN: How do you show them what you want to see, Still being true to what you want to be? How do you grow if they never agree To your wandering free In the wood?
Was there any greater loss to the show in the material that was cut and reworked as the show moved towards its Broadway incarnation?
Lencia Kebede in Wicked (Photo credit: Joan Marcus)
8. Wicked
Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz’s Wicked offers a reimagined perspective on the classic tale of the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, presenting Elphaba as a misunderstood figure challenging corrupt authority. The musical delves into themes of perception, morality and the sacrifices one makes when standing up for one’s beliefs against societal norms. With the first of two films based on its hit stage production released last year, Wicked captures the zeitgeist of contemporary life in an incredibly accessible manner. What it lacks in subtlety and nuance is perhaps the very thing that makes it “Popular,” a song that grapples obliquely with the concept of populism in politics. More direct is the second-act number that those familiar with the stage show will already know well, “Wonderful,” in which the Wizard explains to Elphaba just how things work back in Kansas:
Elphaba, where I’m from, we believe all sorts of things that aren’t true. We call it — “history.”
A man’s called a traitor — or liberator. A rich man’s a thief — or philanthropist. Is one a crusader — or ruthless invader? It’s all in which label is able to persist. There are precious few at ease With moral ambiguities So we act as though they don’t exist.
It might be a little glib and on the nose, but I bet those words will resonate strongly with Donald Trump gearing up to finish the first year of his second term not long after Wicked: For Good hits cinemas.
7. Dear Evan Hansen
In Dear Evan Hansen, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul and Steven Levenson explore themes of identity, loneliness and the universal human need for connection. A web of deceit ensnares its eponymous protagonist, a teenager who has to face up to the moral dilemmas that arise when personal desires conflict with ethical integrity. Caught in a lie about being close friends with Connor, a classmate who has died by suicide, Evan finds himself pulled into the grieving family’s life — and closer to his crush, Connor’s sister Zoe. His own struggles with anxiety and depression complicate his ability to come clean, especially when the adults around him refuse to hear him clearly. A lot of people dismiss Dear Evan Hansen, arguing that the show is immoral because it doesn’t dramatise Evan getting his comeuppance or making enough reparations for his actions. That’s certainly one take on things, but would the show be any better if it did? Either way, the adjustment that Levenson has made in the final scene of the book is a great compromise.
EVAN: They never told anyone. About Connor’s, about the note. About… who really wrote it. I mean, I — I kept waiting and it just… ZOE: They knew what would happen to you if people found out. They didn’t want that. EVAN: I couldn’t let them just… I had to say something. I had to tell the truth. ZOE: The things that people said about you after? The way everyone at school… EVAN: I deserved it. ZOE: Still…. It’s been … hard. It’s been a hard year.
This empowers Dear Evan Hansen to offer, in lieu of an easy moral parable, a genuine ethical dilemma that gets people talking after the show — and that’s where its real value lies.
John Conrad in Spring Awakening (Photo credit: Claude Barnardo)
6. Spring Awakening
Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s rock musical adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s classic play sheds light on the tragic consequences of a repressive society that withholds crucial information from its youth. It couches this lofty theme in its characters’ experiences of sexual awakenings and mental health crises, highlighting the ethical responsibility of societies to educate and protect their younger generations. Indeed, the complications brought about by this generational lapse of conscience are at the heart of Spring Awakening, the original play of which was a precursor to the Expressionist movement in theatre. Wendla’s payment of the cost of her mother’s silence on sex and Moritz’s isolation as a result of the institutionalised pressure represented by his schoolteachers and his father’s emotional neglect find expression in Sater’s songs, which give the musical a comparable metaphorical domain. Take, for example, the contradictions in this lyric from “Don’t Do Sadness” about the image teenagers are expected to present versus what’s actually going on when you peel back the layers:
Awful sweet to be a little butterfly — Just winging over things And nothing deep inside — Nothing going, going wild in you.
Spring Awakening is not a comfortable show by any means — I’ve experienced first-hand the effects of listening to it for days on end — but one that leaves audiences with a lot of food for thought.
5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s dark take on the nineteenth century penny dreadful serial, The String of Pearls, examines the corrosive effects of vengeance on the human soul. Sweeney Todd’s descent into murderous obsession, less aided and abetted than facilitated by Mrs Nellie Lovett, is a grim reminder of how negotiating an amoral world can obliterate one’s moral compass and lead to devastating consequences. While well-justified arguments framing Mrs Lovett as the true villain of the piece litter the Internet, it is just as well to consider Haymitch Abernathy’s advice to Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games:
Remember who the real enemy is.
When Sweeney Todd arrives back in London, he imparts similar wisdom to Anthony Hope.
There’s a hole in the world Like a great black pit And the vermin of the world Inhabit it, And its morals aren’t worth What a pig could spit, And it goes by the name of London.
At the top of the hole Sit the privileged few, Making mock of the vermin In the lower zoo, Turning beauty into filth and greed. I too Have sailed the world and seen its wonders, For the cruelty of men Is as wondrous as Peru, But there’s no place like London!
What appears noble to one person, may appear treacherous to another. We all state opinions as fact and leap to make ethical judgements in a world that has been characterised, at times, by cancel culture — but do we always do so knowing the whole story? Are we sometimes swayed by a narrative spin someone puts on something? What does justice look like in a world where injustice is the order of the day? How differently would Sweeney’s journey have been had he known the secret Mrs Lovett omitted in her telling of the tale of the barber and his wife? Or was it inevitable? This early lyric already shows Sweeney’s ability to dehumanise the society whose systems enabled Judge Turpin to cast him out: they’re vermin and the population of a zoo, and their behaviour is worth less than a pig’s spit. When that’s what you’re seeing when you lay eyes on the person walking ahead of you in the street, sitting opposite you in a pub, living next door to you in your flat, how difficult is it to have an “Epiphany?”
Matthew Morrison and Li Jun Li in South Pacific (Photo credit: Joan Marcus)
4. South Pacific
Stepping back a little further in time, one of the earlier musicals to confront racial prejudice head-on was Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan’s South Pacific. Hammerstein was, of course, no stranger to grappling with this theme, having done so just more than two decades earlier in Show Boat. There was a great deal of controversy at the time about one particular song that was written for South Pacific, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” which proposed the idea that racism was modeled by one generation and learned by the next. There was a great deal of pressure to drop the song from the show, with lawmakers of the time, who made the following argument:
A song justifying interracial marriage was implicitly a threat to the American way of life.
In the show, Joe Cable, who sings the song, has had an affair with Liat, the daughter of a local vendor, Bloody Mary, while Emile de Beque, to whom he sings the song, was previously married to a local woman, having had children with her. Nellie Forbush, around whom the narrative of South Pacific is built, has just recently broken off an engagement to Emile because she cannot get over her prejudice about his previous marriage and his mixed-race children. The show ends with Nellie returning to Emile, having reconsidered her views and apparently overcome her racism, an ending that many modern-day critics of the show feel is too easy and unearned. It’s certainly indicative of Hammerstein’s optimism:
What we’re saying is that all this prejudice that we have is something that fades away in the face of something that’s really important.
Perhaps we’d be better off reading it as meaning that Nellie is like many white people, a recovering racist who is simply taking a first step in a journey towards dismantling white supremacy and anti-racism. Everyone has to start somewhere — but its starting that means something, and seeing it through that matters.
3. Caroline, or Change
There is a vocal group of Broadway fans who will die on the hill that neither Wicked nor Avenue Q should have won the Tony Award for Best Musical and that it should have gone to Jeanine Tesori and Tony Kushner’s Caroline, or Change. With Kushner writing the book and lyrics, Caroline, or Change was poised to stimulate the same kind of awareness and complex conversations about race, social justice, access and transformation that Angels in America had done in its exploration of the AIDS crisis, homosexuality, politics and religion. Set in 1963 Louisiana, Caroline, or Change delves into the life of Caroline Thibodeaux, an African American maid facing personal and societal upheavals. Caroline works for the Gellman family and things get tricky after young Noah’s stepmother, Rose, tells him that any money he leaves in his pants pockets will be Caroline’s to keep. A forgotten $20 bill quickly strips away the facade that holds racism at bay in the Gellman household. Meanwhile, Emmie, Caroline’s daughter, has no illusions about the same facade in wider society, clear in her convictions that Kennedy never fulfilled his promises to uplift the African American community. Conversations between the characters about Martin Luther King, Jr, and the disappearance of a statue of a Confederate soldier from the local courthouse shape the show’s conflict and Caroline’s journey through the final curtain. While the show was admired, it failed to resonate with audiences and closed after 136 performances. I thought that — perhaps — Caroline, or Change was ahead of its time, not in its social commentary, but in its complex structure and composition, making it a difficult sell on Broadway in 2004. When the show returned to Broadway in 2021, post-pandemic and with the Black Lives Matter movement fresh in our minds, I thought the show would resonate more widely. Having also followed the Rhodes Must Fall movement in South Africa in 2015, I felt audiences might be more receptive to grappling with the themes of decolonisation, institutional racism, and the role history has played in shaping today’s social problems. But the curtain fell on Caroline, or Change after 85 performances. As “Moon Change” tells us:
Change come fast And change come slow — But change come.
Sometimes being the voice of conscience on Broadway isn’t profitable; at the same time, the failure of Caroline, or Change to take tells us something about the way people consume art in the space that is the symbolic home of the musical theatre genre.
Adam Lambert in Cabaret (Photo credit: Julieta Cervantes)
2. Cabaret
No list detailing the theme of human conscience in musical theatre would be complete without John Kander, Fred Ebb and Joe Masteroff’s Cabaret. Set on the eve of the 1930s in Berlin, as the sun set on the Jazz Age and each new day saw the Nazis take a greater stronghold in Germany, the show dives into how apathy, complicity and postured neutrality paved the way for Hitler’s tyranny. In the timeline covered in Cabaret, as Sally, Cliff, Fräulein Schneider and Herr Schultz are put through the paces of this classic musical’s plot, support for the Nazi Party grew sixfold — the first step in an exponential rise that would see, just a couple of years later, Hitler in control of the sole legal party in Germany. Quite a lot, it seems, can be achieved in four years and change, and this is one of those times when Cabaret is frighteningly relevant. We’re quite accustomed to seeing plays that reveal the personal effects of political policies, but Cabaret attempts something more sophisticated by showing how personal policies have political effects, using the framework of the Kit Kat Klub to do so. What starts out as something seductive in “Willkommen,” drawing audiences further into the world of the club with its commentary on sexual repression in “Two Ladies,” soon becomes more threatening with the promise of “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” before lulling us into the self-congratulatory space of “Sitting Pretty” or “Money.” After all, we can see the bad things the Emcee and his crew are pointing out, can’t we? It’s a very difficult dynamic to get right. Never has this been more apparent than in the current revival of the show, during a performance of which the 2024/2025 Emcee, Adam Lambert, interrupted a performance to scold the audience for their reaction to the number “If You Could See Her Through My Eyes,” in which the theme of antisemitism is explored and exposed. Speaking on The View, Lambert commented:
Sometimes it gets a laugh as if it were a joke and there have been a few shows — one in particular — where this person commented, and I stopped, and I just looked at the audience, and said, ‘No, no, no, no, This isn’t comedy. Pay attention.
Lambert’s impulse is right, but the situation and this kind of reaction raises questions about whether the current production of Cabaret is getting the job done when it comes to its presentation of the show’s themes and how the Emcee relates to these. In some ways, the show is built so that audiences reveal themselves in this way, shifting from only being the audience of Cabaret into a complicit role as the audience of the Kit Kat Klub, with the audience members themselves acting as one another’s consciences if they are not being lulled into complicity, and the show’s ending, if realised well, catching out those of us who have been. The show’s power lies in this uncomfortable recognition: when audiences respond to the provocations of the Emcee, they unwittingly mirror the very moral failures the musical seeks to expose.
1. Les Misérables
Possibly the most redemptive of the shows on this list is Claude-Michel Schönberg, Alain Boublil, Jean-Marc Natel and Herbert Kretzmer’s Les Misérables, a show which started off as a French concept album before being adapted for the stage in France in a version quite different from the English-language production that most people know today. At the heart of the story is the profound transformation of Jean Valjean, who evolves from a hardened ex-convict to a paragon of virtue. His journey, juxtaposed with Inspector Javert’s unwavering adherence to the law, offers a compelling exploration of justice, mercy and redemption, all as a consequence of one act of grace early on in the show when the Bishop of Digne pretends to have given Valjean some silver that Valjean had stolen, so Valjean can not only avoid imprisonment but also start a new life.
And remember this, my brother — See in this some higher plan. You must use this precious silver To become an honest man.
By the witness of the martyrs, By the Passion and the Blood, God has raised you out of darkness — I have bought your soul for God!
It’s a gamble, to be sure, but it is merely the beginning of a rich narrative that compels audiences to ponder the true nature of morality.
These are just ten of many musicals that aim to both entertain and provoke introspection, challenging us to examine our beliefs and the moral complexities of the world around us. As we observe the International Day of Conscience today, let us draw inspiration from these fabulous shows so we may too foster empathy, understanding and integrity in our own lives — because the most powerful acts of conscience are those that begin in the everyday choices we make.
The 1940s and 1950s were a golden era for Broadway, a time when the Best Musical Tony Award recognized some of the most iconic shows ever staged. But not all winners are created equal. In this weekend’s Saturday List, we’re ranking all the Best Musical Tony Award winners from these two decades, from the most forgettable to the truly timeless, taking into account their cultural impact, musical innovation and audience reception over time.
Scenes from Redhead, The Music Man and The Pajama Game
11. Kismet (1954)
A musical with a grand setting and an ambitious score, Kismet is unfortunately as dated as they come. Drawing on the music of Russian composer Alexander Borodin and based on Edward Knoblock’s 1911 play of the same name, the show was adapted by Charles Lederer, Luther Davis, Robert Wright and George Forrest into a Middle Eastern fantasy that feels more like a relic than a classic. Set in ancient Baghdad, a wily poet (known as Hajj thanks to a case of mistaken identity) talks his way in and out of a series of escapades, while his daughter, Marsinah, becomes the object of the Caliph’s affection. The show’s portrayal of what some might describe as exotic is uncomfortable by today’s standards, making it hard for modern audiences to connect with the material, despite a trio of songs that have become standards, “Baubles, Bangles and Beads,” “Stranger in Paradise” and Änd This is My Beloved.” A complete reimagining would be needed to breathe new life into this one.
10. Redhead (1959)
Redhead is a show that, despite its Tony win, feels like it barely left a mark. Set in Edwardian London, the musical revolves around Essie Whimple, a young woman embroiled in a murder mystery – a plot that sounds like it should be more engaging than it is. Without diving into spoiler territory, book-writers Dorothy Fields, Herbert Fields, Sidney Sheldon and David Shaw provide all the requisite twists and turns – but the show never truly hits the mark in its overall tone. The score by Albert Hague and Dorothy Fields is serviceable but lacks the spark to make it truly memorable. Without Gwen Verdon and Bob Fosse’s star power, this one might have faded into obscurity altogether. It’s a show of its time, but not one for the ages. (We’ve looked at Redhead in a bit more depth in our Forgotten Musicals Friday series, so if you’re keen to find out more about the show, then look no further.)
9. The Music Man (1957)
Meredith Willson’s The Music Man is a quintessential piece of Americana, brimming with charm and optimism. The story of Harold Hill, a con man who turns a small Iowa town upside down, and Marian Paroo, the local liberation with whom he falls in love and who sees right through him, is full of heart and humour. However, its strong ties to a specific time and place in American culture often leave international audiences feeling somewhat distanced from the way it says what it has to say. While songs like the ebullient “Seventy-Six Trombones” and its sweet counterpart, “Goodnight, My Someone,” as well as the groundbreaking “(Ya Got) Trouble” and the breakaway hit “Till There Was You” are undeniably catchy, the show’s cultural specificity keeps it from placing higher on this list.
8. The Pajama Game (1954)
The Pajama Game is a delightful romp through labour disputes and romance at the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory, where the new superintendent, Sid Sorokin, and Katherine “Babe” Williams, the leader of the factory workers’ Union Grievance Committee, fall in love from opposite sides of the picket line. The music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross provide plenty of memorable moments, from the plaintive “Hey There” to the sultry “Steam Heat.” Yet, while the show is thoroughly enjoyable, it doesn’t quite hit the heights of some of its contemporaries. Adler and Ross had a brief but brilliant partnership, and this show hints at what might have been had they had more time to develop their craft beyond their second big Broadway success, which is next up on the list.
Scenes from Damn Yankees, Wonderful Town and Kiss Me, Kate
7. Damn Yankees (1955)
Baseball, Faustian bargains, and musical comedy might seem like a strange mix, but Damn Yankees pulls it off with style. The show tells the story of middle-aged Joe Boyd, who sells his soul to become the young star slugger of the Washington Senators, someone who can lead his team to victory. Richard Adler and Jerry Ross struck gold with songs like “Heart,” “Whatever Lola Wants,” and “A Little Brains, A Little Talent” and “Those Were the Good Old Days.” While some of the dramatisation is a little basic, the characters and the music elevate it to a level that transcends its all-American roots.
6. Wonderful Town (1953)
Set in the bohemian quarters of 1930s New York, Wonderful Town follows Ruth and Eileen, two sisters from Ohio, as they try to make it big in the big city. Leonard Bernstein’s vibrant music, combined with Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s witty lyrics, captures the hustle and bustle of city life with infectious energy; the score yielded several classic songs like “Ohio,” “One Hundred Easy Ways,” “A Little Bit in Love” and “Conga.” The show stands out for its sophistication, offering a sharp, comedic take on the classic “small-town girls in the big city” narrative. It’s a gem that has aged remarkably well, its source material having been adapted in many different ways – on stage, for the radio, on film and on television.
5. Kiss Me, Kate (1948)
A backstage musical comedy inspired by Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Kiss Me, Kate is a dazzling showcase for Cole Porter’s talents as one of the great songwriters of his time. The score is packed with hits like “So in Love” and “Too Darn Hot,” and the show-within-a-show structure provides plenty of opportunities for theatrical fun as the real-life bickering between the stars, Fred Graham and Lilli Vanessi, threatens to upstage the production. Despite some narrative oddities – like the mysterious writers working behind the scenes that the audience never gets to see and the gangsters who suddenly become performers in the classic “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” number – the sheer entertainment value of Kiss Me, Kate makes it a perennial favourite. (The film adaptation, while by no means perfect, managed to smooth out both of those rough spots.)
4. The King and I (1951)
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s The King and I is a grand, sweeping musical that grapples with cultural clashes and personal connections. Set in the royal court of Thailand, the story follows a British schoolteacher, Anna Leonowens, who challenges the traditions of Mongkut, King Rama IV of Siam, while forming a bond with him and his children. The score is lush and evocative, with songs like “Hello, Young Lovers” and “Shall We Dance?” standing out as highlights and sequences like “The Small House of Uncle Thomas” setting a benchmark for the time in theatrical innovation. Despite some problematic elements in its portrayal of Thai culture, partly because it blends together influences from all over Eastern Asia, the show remains a powerful exploration of change and understanding. Productions like Bartlett Sher’s revival show that, with careful direction, the show can still captivate modern audiences – but the fact that such great care has to be taken in staging this material in this day and age reveals something about the material itself.
Scenes from My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls and South Pacific
3. My Fair Lady (1956)
My Fair Lady is often hailed as the perfect musical by the critics and its fans, and it is indeed a significant one, despite some less than meticulous lyrics from Alan Jay Lerner, who collaborated on the show with composer Frederick Loewe. Their adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion is a triumph of style and substance, exploring themes of class, gender and transformation. The story of Eliza Doolittle’s metamorphosis from a Cockney flower girl to a refined lady is brought to life with a sparkling score that includes classics like “I Could Have Danced All Night” and “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly.” Even with its few missteps, My Fair Lady remains a landmark in musical theatre, adding to a theatrical conversation started by A Doll’s House many decades earlier and continuing with Top Girls a couple of decades later.
2. Guys and Dolls (1950)
Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls is musical comedy at its finest. Set in a world of gamblers, showgirls, and missionaries, the show weaves together multiple storylines with wit and charm. When Nathan Detroit bets fellow gambler Sky Masterson that he can’t get virtuous Sarah Brown to go on a date with him, unexpected romantic entanglements have to be unravelled – including Nathan’s own fourteen-year engagement to Miss Adelaide. The characters are unforgettable, from the adenoidal Miss Adelaide to the smooth-talking Sky. The score is packed with hits, including swinging “Luck Be a Lady,” the emotionally complex “I’ll Know” and the show-stopping “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat,” making it a joyous celebration of the golden age of Broadway. Its blend of humour, romance, and irresistible tunes secures its place near the top of this list.
1. South Pacific (1949)
South Pacific is not just a musical; it’s a cultural touchstone. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s masterpiece tackles serious themes of racism and prejudice while delivering some of the most beautiful music ever written for the stage. The story, set against the backdrop of World War II, explores the love affair between an American nurse, Nellie Forbush, and a French plantation owner, Emile de Becque, and the conflict that arises when she finds out that his deceased ex-wife, was Polynesian. The score includes unforgettable songs like the classic “Some Enchanted Evening,” the profoundly romantic “This Nearly Was Mine” and the socially significant “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.” Its relevance, dealing with the kind of thing that happens when nobody talks about race or racism and just emulates the attitudes of the world they grew up in, has only grown over time, making South Pacific not just one of the best musicals of its era, but one of the greatest of all time.
Final Thoughts
The 1940s and 1950s were transformative decades for Broadway, a time when the Best Musical Tony Award celebrated shows that would come to define the American musical theatre canon. As we’ve seen, not every winner has aged gracefully, with some musicals struggling to find their place in the modern repertoire. However, those that have stood the test of time continue to captivate audiences with their memorable scores, compelling stories, and rich characters. Whether tackling profound social issues or offering lighthearted escapism, these musicals reflect the diversity and creativity that have made Broadway an enduring cultural force. Our ranking is subjective, of course, but it’s clear that even the most dated of these shows have played a significant role in shaping the history of musical theatre. As we look back on these iconic works, we can appreciate not only their individual achievements but also the broader legacy of an era when Broadway was at the height of its powers.
As musical theatre fans, we all know that not every promising show makes it to Broadway. Some musicals, despite having intriguing concepts, talented creators and even developmental productions, never quite manage to reach the Main Stem. This week’s Saturday List dives into five such musicals – shows that had the potential to be Broadway hits but ultimately fell short. Join us as we explore the stories behind these ambitious productions and what kept them from making their Broadway bows.
Some scenes from Jospehine: Jelani Alladin, Illon Cassidy and Julian Ramos dance up a storm, Deborah Cox in the title role and the cast in action on stage,
5. Josephine
Josephine Baker was a sensation in the music halls of Paris, an American entertainer who, during World War II, secretly served her adopted country in the French Resistance. Some people might say that her heroic work during the war, which was rooted in her love for France and her opposition to fascism, brought her the self-worth she so vainly sought in fame, money and arms of royalty – she allegedly had a liaison with Crown Prince Gustav VI of Sweden. The real-life events inspired Josephine, which featured a book by Ellen Weston and Mark Hampton, music by Steve Dorff and lyrics by John Bettis. Producer Ken Waissman hoped to have the show on Broadway in a production directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely, with Canadian pop star Deborah Cox – who was Broadway’s last Aida in the Disney Theatricals production of the same name – in the title role. An initial production of the musical was mounted at Florida’s Asolo Theatre in 2006, where it was praised for its strong production values, including excellent costumes, sets, and choreography, as well as for Deborah Cox’s performance. On the other hand, the musical’s book was criticised for being superficial and not delving deeply enough into Baker’s complex life. A lack of emotional depth and character development sunk the show and it closed, its hope of a Broadway run shut down.
4. 1916 – The Musical
There’s a lot less information about 1916 – The Musical, a show based on the Easter Rising in Ireland that made a splash at the 2010 edition of West End Live and hoped to open in Dublin the following year before heading further afield. It’s true that not every show that opens on the eastern shores of the Atlantic aims for a Broadway run and who’s to know if 1916 – The Musical had those sorts of ambitions. What we know for sure, is that the man who came up with the idea, Sean Ferris, had high hopes for his baby. He had nurtured the idea for more than fifteen years and worked actively on it for almost a third of that time, stating:
My mother grew up Derry and we have family in Galway and Cork. I started to do some research and realised that the story of the Rising would translate wonderfully to stage and that there was an amazing historical tale to tell – effectively a struggle of a nation, 900 years of oppression and in terms of emotion – getting all that on stage. As I read into the history of Thomas Clarke, Pádraig Pearse and the others, they absolutely fascinated me.
The idea was to use the backdrop of the Easter Rising – a pivotal event in Irish history that occurred in April 1916, when Irish republicans launched an insurrection against British rule with the aim of establishing an independent Irish Republic – to tell an epic love story. Harry, a naïve English soldier sent to Ireland would meet Bridie, whose younger brother, Ciarán, was a staunch member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and their story would see them interacting with historical characters in a show that aimed to have the same scope as something like Les Misérables. Aiming to appeal to an international audience, the score was to have had a philharmonic pallete, mixing a raw Irish contemporary sound with elements of authentic folk music. After the announcement that it would premiere in 2011, a further announcement revealed 2012 as a new target date and hopes were high for an international television broadcast. In 2012, it seemed things were on track, with open auditions being held – X Factor-style – for the show. But after that – radio silence. We’ll never know the ins and outs of what happened, I suppose, but 1916 – The Musical represents a fair number of unproduced musicals, I expect – big dreams that just couldn’t find their way into reality.
3. Harps and Angels
Harps and Angels was the name of Randy Newman’s twelfth studio album as well as the proposed title for a jukebox musical based on the beloved musician’s hits. News of this production surely delighted Newman’s fans and it made its bow in a production at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Under the direction of Jerry Zaks, with musical staging by Warren Carlyle, the show was conceived by Jack Viertel to be a complex, witty, bittersweet and satirical commentary on hat it is like to be born, grow up, fall in love, and live and die in America – a tall order! Some of the Newman songs that were featured include “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today,” “Sail Away,” “Marie,” “Louisiana 1927,” “Feels Like Home,” “I Love L.A.” and “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” The production drew mixed notices. The cast’s performances were praised, but the show’s structure and pacing – especially in the less dynamic second act – were criticised. While there were suggestions that a condensed version might be more effective in making the show the compelling, honest and humorous production it was intended to be, the production wasn’t tweaked for a Broadway transfer and pretty much disappeared from the public’s consciousness.
Katy Sagal, Adriane Lennox and Ryder Bach in Harps and Angels
2. Pure Country
Hands up if you remember the 1992 film Pure Country! Anyone? Oh, all right. Well, I’m sure even fewer of you remember that an adaptation of the film was meant to premiere as a Broadway musical first in the 2008-2009 seasons and after those plans fell a part, two seasons later. With a book by Peter Masterson (of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas fame) and Rex McGee (who wrote the film), music by Steve Dorff and lyrics by John Bettis, Pure Country would have brought the story of country music superstar Rusty (Dusty in the original film) to the Main Stem. As in the original, the high-stakes pressures that come part and parcel with a career in the music industry take their toll on Rusty, who abandons his overblown concert tour in favour of finding himself and, as the press release phrased it, the love he left behind. Two songs from the film’s hit soundtrack, “Heartland” and “I Cross My Heart,” would have appeared alongside an otherwise original score composed for the show. At the time, Pure Country had an official website indicating Masterson would direct the show. Seán Curran (who had been responsible for James Joyce’s The Dead was initially slated to choreograph the show, but he was replaced by Warren Carlyle, who had recently directed and choreographed a revival of Finian’s Rainbow. Will Chase, Carlin Glynn, Cady Huffman, James Moye and Danny Rutigliano had appeared in developmental readings and workshops of the show, but by the 2010-2011 season, Joe Nichols had been announced to play Rusty, while Lorrie Morgan would have taken the part of his manager, Lula. The one-liner concocted to sell producers and audiences on the musical – ‘Pure Country is about the price of fame and one man’s journey home.’ – didn’t have anyone screaming “Yee-ha” and the show never opened on Broadway. In a twist of events, this wasn’t the end of the road doe Pure Country, which would have resurfaced a decade later at Houston’s Theatre Under the Stars in a season that also featured Spring Awakening and A Chorus Line, having had an earlier run in 2017 in Dallas. Alas, it was scheduled to open in April 2020, which meant it was tragically sidelined due to the COVID-19 pandemic – and that, as they say, was that. Sometimes, an uphill climb is just too steep to summit.
1. Operation: Mindcrime
Imagine the tagline:
In the wake of Rock of Ages, RENT meets Jesus Christ Superstar to see the creation of… Operation: Mindcrime!
In 2009, Adam Pascal spearheaded a project to bring Operation: Mindcrime, the 1988 concept album by metal group Queensrÿche to stage. Recognised as a significant work in the heavy metal genre, the album uses song skilfully to dramatise the story of Nikki, a drug addict who becomes involved in a political revolutionary as an assassin, following her personal personal disillusionment with the government. Pascal envisioned a show similar in size to the one in which which he originated the role of HIV-positive wannabe rocker Roger. Operation: Mindcrime had another similarity to RENT, at least before it settled into the casting that would come to define it and help shape the background of its characters. According to Pascal:
These characters can be any age, any ethnicity, they can have any backstory you want to give them.
The timing of Pascal’s announcement coincided with the success of Rock of Ages, which received a Tony nomination for Best Musical in that season, so if there was ever a right for this project to move forward, that was it. I remember hoping that Pascal would take further inspiration from Next to Normal, which like RENT, has a rock-based score but which distills things like narrative clarity more successfully into the production. Pascal set a timeline of a year to pull together a reading of the show and we all waited… and waited… and we never heard about it again.
Final Thoughts
The journey from first concept to a final Broadway show is a challenging one, fraught with obstacles and uncertainties. The musicals we’ve highlighted today – Josephine, Harps and Angels, 1916 – The Musical, Pure Country and Operation: Mindcrime – each had unique stories and significant potential. Yet, for various reasons, they never made it to the Broadway stage. These productions remind us that even the most compelling ideas and talented theatre-makers sometimes encounter insurmountable hurdles. Still, even the stories behind the stories continue to captivate us, proving that one of the greatest things about the world of musical theatre is that it’s full of surprises, both on and off the stage.
Back in 2001, Gerard Alessandrini took a swing at revising a forgotten Irving Berlin musical, Mr. President, a 1962 show that featured a book by writing duo Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, who had previously collaborated with Berlin on Call Me Madam, and scripted musicals like Hooray For What!, Happy Hunting and The Sound of Music. Alessandrini’s revisal took its inspiration from the then-recent 2000 presidential elections, during which George W. Bush and Al Gore competed for the number one spot in the United States government. The past fortnight in American politics saw some interesting shifts in the road to the country’s upcoming elections that make one wonder whether the time is ripe to revisit Mr. President once more. With Kamala Harris set to face off against Donald Trump this November, is this the kind of satirical show that would be a pertinent reflection of the times? For this week’s Forgotten Musicals Friday, let’s put together a campaign for this politically-tinged musical to see whether it gets our vote.
Robert Ryan in Mr President
When Mr. President opened on Broadway, Berlin was nothing short of an institution when it came to musicals, both on stage and on screen, with an Oscar (for “White Chirstmas”) and a Tony Award (for the score of Call Me Madam) to his name. That he was teaming up once more with Pulitzer Prize winners Lindsay and Crouse, whose play State of the Union was recognised in 1945 as the kind of original distinguished play dealing with American life that the Pulitzer committees love, was something that further heightened its profile. The fact that State of the Union dealt with the personal and political challenges faced by a fictional presidential candidate, similar narrative territory to their proposed collaboration with Berlin, must have been a compelling lure to get producers to open up their chequebook. We hear a lot about Oscar bait. Could this have been Pulitzer bait? That’s probably a stretch; the point is that this show was teeming with potential when it was conceived.
As a glimpse into the Oval Office, Mr. President promised a lot. The story follows fictional US President, Stephen Decatur Henderson, who faces professional troubles after a disastrous trip to the Soviet Union and some personal turmoil with his children. Romance, intrigue and humour abound as the first family negotiates the Cold War and Henderson’s political faux pas, which cost him his re-election when his term in office ends. After Henderson loses the steps away from his political work, he becomes bored with civilian life post-presidency and decides to jump back into the political fray. Will he redeem himself? That’s the question that drives the show to its jolly finale.
Nanette Fabray and Robert Ryan in Mr President
Sounds intriguing, right? In the end, it wasn’t. Things were rocky for Mr. President right from the start and when the show first tried its luck out of town in Boston, the reception was as cool as a New England breeze. Even so, the creative team didn’t give up. After extensive revisions, Mr. President ran again at the National Theatre in Washington. While President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy said they thought Berlin had a hit on his hands, the reviews were lukewarm at best. In fact, let’s be brutally honest: the buzzword for this show was “corny” – not exactly a ringing endorsement from the critics.
When the show transferred to Broadway, it opened after four previews at the St. James Theatre. Directed by Joshua Logan and choreographed by Peter Gennaro, Mr. President somehow managed to stagger through 265 performances in a season where it was pitted against heavyweights like Oliver!, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Stop the World – I Want to Get Off. The musical received unenthusiastic reviews from the New York press and while Berlin’s score was said to have some highlights, the consensus was clear: Mr. President felt old-fashioned and out of touch.
Today, Mr. President is mostly remembered by its original cast album, although a rare production pops up here and there. (If you’d like to take a crack at it, the rights are available through Concord Theatricals.) Listening to the cast recording, it sounds like this show would have gone over like gangbusters in the 1940s, with some great numbers like In “Our Hide-Away” and “I’m Gonna Get Him” dotting the score. Songs like “Let’s Go Back to the Waltz,” with its gorgeous nostalgic melody, surely make some people wistful for the days of elegant ballrooms and sparkling chandeliers. By the 1960s, though, Mr. President simply lacked the vitality needed to compete with the other shows of the season, making it a sad swan song for its creators. As things turned out, it was the final original score Berlin would write for the Broadway stage and the final collaboration for Lindsay and Crouse.
Irving Berlin rehearses for Mr. President
The cast recording reminds us that Mr. President had some big names on the bill, including Robert Ryan and Nanette Fabray. By all accounts, Ryan was miscast, but Fabray was definitely one of the bright spots in what was considered a largely bland production. She sells a song like “The First Lady” with such charm that it almost makes you forget how tired some aspects of this show feel. Truth be told, the cast works hard to put across the material. For instance, Anita Gillette, a favourite Main Stem ingenue of the 1960s, delivers “The Secret Service” and The Washington Twist”,” where Berlin tries to be hip and it doesn’t quite land, in a way that makes the songs work in spite of themselves. Wisa D’Orso also leaves a better impression singing “The Only Dance I Know” than the song itself does, given that it sees Berlin getting up to the same type of culturally problematic shenanigans he employed in “I’m an Indian Too.” Overall, the score feels like it is trying very hard to be liked, which makes it all the more difficult to enjoy in some ways. It takes a couple of listens to the cast album to appreciate fullywhat the score has to offer.
If Mr. President felt dated in the 1960s, it feels even more off the mark now. Alessandrini’s 2001 Off-Broadway revisal drew some appreciation for its zippy staging, but it is clear that the material was just too flaccid to carry Alessandrini’s satirical intentions effectively. And while it’s true the score could work better with a revised book, does Mr. President have much to say a quarter-century later?
Mr President was not the hit Berlin hoped for. While it is a book musical, it feels more like This Is the Army than Annie Get Your Gun, a collection of pleasant, hummable and sometimes even memorable songs rather than a show with a cohesive score. Having reviewed the campaign materials, I’m sad to say that Mr President is not going to win our vote today. To my mind, we’d be better off with a revival of Of Thee I Sing.
How about a little niche frivolity? For this week’s Saturday List, I thought it might be fun to take a look at songs with people’s names in the title. Of course, there are likely to be many hundreds of songs like this, from “Our Polly is a Sad Slut” (The Beggar’s Opera) to “Lucy’s Song” (Suffs), so perhaps we need to bring in the parameters a little. In fact, let’s bring them in nice and tight and look at the songs with people’s names in the title written by Stephen Sondheim to other people’s music. This presents us with just three scores – those Sondheim wrote with Leonard Bernstein for West Side Story, with Jule Styne for Gypsy and with Richard Rodgers for Do I Hear a Waltz? Is the orchestra of your imagination striking up the introduction of your favourite number from those shows? Great – then let’s dive right in – and just for the sheer joy of it, let’s consult Finishing the Hat to see some of Sondheim’s thoughts on each of these songs too!
Matt Doyle in Paper Mill’s production of West Side Story, Angela Lansbury in the 1970s revival of Gypsy on Broadway and Elizabeth Allen in the original Main Stem Do I Hear a Waltz?
6. “Everybody Loves Leona” from Do I Hear a Waltz?
It’s true that no songs with a name in the title made it through to the opening night of Do I Hear a Waltz? Sondheim felt that “Everybody Loves Leona” was too on the nose for the show he wanted to write and for the character it was depicting.
I had to write “Everybody Loves Leona” and hear it performed before I could see it was too bald a statement and made her sentimentally self-pitying. Leona’s unhappiness expresses itself in self-deprecating humour and anger, which is why she’s worth caring about and why the audience likes her. Indirection is her mode.
Listening to the song, you get what he means. It might have been interesting to hear someone else sing the song about or to her, an angle Sondheim would pursue in the similarly titled “Everybody Loves Louis” from Sunday in the Park with George. The issue of balancing a character’s self-discovery with their emotion is also something he came back to, delivering the classic “Being Alive,” which brings Company to its conclusion. “Everybody Loves Leona” was reincorporated into the show when it was revised and staged in revival in New Jersey in 1999. Although Arthur Laurents revamped the book and Sondheim revised some of the lyrics, Do I Hear a Waltz? played and went, continuing to be the kind of show that was, in Sondheim’s words, ‘pleasant, but no showstopper.’
5. “Baby June and Her Newsboys,” “Dainty June and Her Farm Boys” and “Madame Rose’s Toreadorables” from Gypsy
Sondheim doesn’t have much to say in Finishing the Hat about this trio of numbers, other than to say the concept is less on the nose than “Mother’s Day,” the song he and Styne first wrote for this motif and running gag in Gypsy. He also mentions that the “Cow Song” from the “Farm Boys” sequence was one of the baker’s dozen of trunk songs Styne passed along to him when they began writing the show. The final tidbit he has to offer is that he really struggled to write the all-important “Let Me Entertain You” lyric, which brilliantly tracks the development of Louise’s character through the show’s narrative.
I whined to (Jerome Robbins) that the hardest kind of lyric to come up with is a lyric with no specific situation, the kind which has so many possibilities that there is no basis for choosing one. He glared at me impatiently and said, “Just do what it’s about.” “Like what?”I challenged.” “I don’t know. Something along the lines of ‘Let us entertain you.'”
Even with that bit of advice, Sondheim procrastinated and only wrote the lyric in December 1958, a couple of months before rehearsals for Gypsy commenced, when he found a way to transform an idea he had originally thought to be ‘blunt and flavourless’ into something that helped to shape the dramatic structure of Gypsy from beginning to end. One of the things that’s so delightful is seeing Sondheim come up with a voice for Rose, who has ostensibly written the songs for the act, as a lyricist. It’s full of the kinds of things he preaches against in Finishing the Hat, like emphasising the wrong syllable of a word for the sake of a rhyme as in ‘historical news is being made‘ and ‘biggest scoop of the decade.’ (If Rose didn’t write the songs and they’re meant to be old vaudevillian songs, it adds up to the same thing.) At any rate, these three numbers offer great joy in the show as well as on the many cast recordings of the score, camp hilarity at its best.
4. “Have an Egg Roll, Mr Goldstone” from Gypsy
Ah, the dependable list song! Songs like “Have an Egg Roll, Mr Goldstone” are euphoric if they’re good enough, and this one’s a bop! It’s interesting reading what he was to say about the technique of writing a number like this.
List songs are comparatively easy to write, because they don’t require developing ideas, but if the song has little to say and the songwriter doesn’t keep filling the list with witty or surprising examples, the result is an increasingly monotonous waste of time.
Sondheim himself indicates that one of the jokes in “Have an Egg Roll, Mr Goldstone” is Rose’s generosity, which contrasts her thrifty behaviour everywhere else in the show – that’s how excited she is. It’s also full of references to her favourite kind of food – Chinese – and things get even more fun when Rose becomes so exhilarated that she starts mixing up her words. There’s another Gypsy anecdote that is a perfect example of an actor putting their own stamp on the lyric. In the original production, Ethel Merman played the song’s middle section – ‘There are good stones and bad stones’ and so on – as an extension of her delight. The Rose of the first revival – and a Rose of the first class – Angela Lansbury, added another layer by having Rose think up the different kinds of stones in this part of the list, which showed the character trying to top herself – a perfect statement of who she is. While Sondheim was concerned whether “Have an Egg Roll, Mr Goldstone” was too hollow, he needn’t have worried. It’s great – and in the show’s context, it has even more to offer: besides bringing the scene to its climax, its ebullience sets up “Little Lamb” brilliantly.
3. “Maria” from West Side Story
Sondheim doesn’t often write an unabashedly romantic lyric, but “Maria”, set to Bernstein’s music, certainly fits the bill. A glorious testament to a young woman met in a few magical moments at a dance and the unforgettable sound of her name, the song is heard early on in West Side Story as Tony, a former member of a gang known as the Jets, expresses his newfound love for Maria, the sister of the leader of a rival gang, the Sharks. The song makes credible the sudden, yet profound love that connects Tony and Maria – an impressive feat, expertly achieved. Characteristically, Sondheim was critical of his work here, implying in Finishing the Hat that some of his writing on the song was rather feeble.
Originally, Tony was to have been a blond Polish-Catholic…. This gave the name “Maria” a religious resonance, which I pushed with the line ‘Say it soft and it’s almost like praying.’ Of course, once we withdrew the Polish-Catholic connection, the line made little sense and merely contributed a kind of overall wetness to the lyric – a wetness, I regret to say, which persists throughout all the romantic lyrics in the show….
Be that as it may, his collaborators loved the words he crafted for “Maria,” as did Oscar Hammerstein II. With the show first opening in 1957, then breaking through into popular culture in a huge way thanks to its 1961 film adaptation, there are scores of takes on this song from various productions, studio recordings and covers by musical theatre and musical theatre-adjacent artists. With Larry Kert setting the bar high on the original Broadway cast recording as he acts this pivotal moment of the drama through song, one of the more recent recordings is Ansel Elgort’s in-role take on the song in the 2021 film adaptation of the show. In between, the likes of Michael Ball, Jeremy Jordan, Aaron Tveit and Colm Wilkinson have all performed the song – and there’s even a live recording of Ariana DeBose singing the song at a concert at Birdland. We’re spoiled for choice.
2. “Gee, Officer Krupke” from West Side Story
“Gee, Officer Krupke” is an absolutely brilliant social satire in the form of a frenetic vaudeville act. Incidentally, this was the only song written for West Side Story where the entirety of the music was complete before the lyric was written. It had been written for Candide and was titled “Where Does It Get You In the End?” in that show. In its new form, Bernstein’s music and Sondheim’s lyrics document a possible and all too probably probable downward spiral for boys who have taken up with what might have been “bad influences” in the 1950s. A sharp, comic role play that develops out of the manic tension that has mounted up after the killings of Riff and Bernardo, the song was shifted to an earlier spot in the film version where it is just as comic, but less disturbing. The number’s movement from the second act to the first was Sondheim’s suggestion when the show was in tryouts, as he struggled to believe that ‘a gang on the run from being accessories to a double murder would stop on the street to indulge in a sustained comic number.’ The shift was not possible in the stage show due to the mechanics of its stage design. After seeing the film, Sondheim wasn’t as certain of his convictions.
I’m no longer sure it if was for the better or not, and ever since then I’ve been haunted by the feeling that I shouldn’t have opened my mouth.
Tony Kushner and Steven Spielberg obviously felt the way Sondheim had felt back in the 1950s and once again moved up “Gee, Officer Krupke” in the 2021 film. This time, it was set at the police station and the gang’s role-play builds up to a manic trashing of the kind of space that represents the system in which they are trapped.
1. “Rose’s Turn” from Gypsy
Is anyone really surprised this is number one? It’s probably the best female solo number in the musical theatre canon. An extensive poll by Marc Bonanni, aka BwayGhostlight (give him a follow here), seems to corroborate this.
We have a WINNER!! And everything is indeed coming up roses for Stephen Sondheim and Jule Styne's Gypsy as Rose's Turn takes the #1 spot! I'm not too surprised, are you? https://t.co/PA4tWUs8kZpic.twitter.com/SRcaPJaQpd
It’s also the song Sondheim calls ‘the high point of [his] theatrical life. The story begins behind its creation is legendary. Originally, this moment in the show was to be the kind of dream ballet that popped up in many a musical play in the 1940s and 1950s, with Rose coming face-to-face with the characters in the show who had left her. There was just one problem: Jerome Robbins didn’t have time to choreograph the number. (Would we have had a Dream Rose, or would Ethel have popped on a pair of character shoes and let rip?) With Styne having gone off to a party, Robbins and Sondheim met at the theatre where they were rehearsing at 7pm to work out what they were going to do. By 10pm, they had cobbled together and conceptualised the staging of what would become “Rose’s Turn.” When it was presented to Styne the next day, he fell for it hook, line and sinker and the number was fleshed out so they could present it to Ethel Merman. Merman was less certain, but she soldiered on through a number that gave her more acting to do than had been required of her from her entire catalogue of roles – and she triumphed, as did all the Roses who would follow her, from Lansbury to Imelda Staunton. I can’t wait to hear Audra McDonald’s take on the number in the upcoming Broadway revival later this year.
Final Thoughts
There’s something inherently magical about songs with names in their titles, especially when they spring from the mind of Stephen Sondheim. Whether it’s the unbridled joy of “Have an Egg Roll, Mr Goldstone,” the sharp satire of “Gee, Officer Krupke,” or the sheer theatrical triumph of “Rose’s Turn,” these songs encapsulate the brilliance of Sondheim’s lyrical prowess and the emotional depth he brings to musical theatre. They remind us of the power of names, the stories they hold, and the moments they immortalize on stage. As we revisit these musical gems, we celebrate Sondheim’s contributions and the timeless impact of the characters he names, who continue to resonate with audiences, generation after generation. So next time you hear a familiar name in a show tune, let it transport you back into the magical world of musical theatre, where every name tells a story and every story is worth singing about.
Welcome back to another edition of Forgotten Musicals Friday, where we dive into the quirky, overlooked or downright bizarre shows that have graced (and sometimes swiftly exited) Broadway stages. This week, we’re turning our spotlight onto a more recent and unusual entry in the annals of musical theatre history: Head Over Heels. Yes, it’s a bit of a stretch to call something that opened and closed only a few years ago “forgotten,” but with a mere 164 performances, this musical barely had time to etch itself into Broadway’s collective memory to earn itself the title.
Peppermint as Pythio in Head Over Heels (Photo credit: Joan Marcus)
Head Over Heels was a daring blend of elements that at least a few people thought was a surefire recipe for success. Picture it: a jukebox musical featuring the punky-pop hits of The Go-Go’s meshed with a 16th-century pastoral romance based on Sir Philip Sidney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia. By including a non-binary oracle played by the first transgender woman to originate a principal role on Broadway, the fabulous Peppermint as Pythio, the producers of this show had something on their hands that was sure to be anything but conventional – and perhaps even something very special.
The plot of Head Over Heels, first conceived and adapted by Jeff Whitty before James Magruder took over the process after creative conflicts in the production team, follows the royal family of Arcadia as they attempt to keep their kingdom’s famous “Beat” alive. Following the communication of a set of riddle-fueled prophecies that King Basilius wishes to avoid, the royal court embarks on a journey filled with disguises, intrigues, mistaken identity and all of the typical foibles traditionally seen in the comic romances of the Elizabethan era. By the final curtain, Basilius gives up his crown to his wife, Gynecia, while his daughters, Pamela and Philoclea, resolve all the romantic dilemmas they had faced at the top of the show. All of this takes place while the characters rock out to tunes like “We Got the Beat,” “Our Lips Are Sealed,” “Head Over Heels” and “Turn to You.” Even a couple of solo hits from Go-Gos member Belinda Carlisle, “Heaven is a Place on Earth and “Mad About You,” were thrown in for fun.
Bonnie Milligan as Pamela in Head Over Heels (Photo credit: Joan Marcus)
Despite an entertaining story and toe-tapping numbers, Head Over Heels never seemed to find its footing. Maybe the show was too full of ideas. Great concepts can only take you so far; the real magic happens when those ideas are distilled into something an audience can engage with emotionally. This show tried to juggle too many mismatched elements, and the connection between The Go-Go’s vibrant songs and the 16th-century story felt tenuous at best. It’s like trying to mix oil and water; no matter how much you shake the jar, they just don’t blend.
One thing that resonated strongly with audiences was the show’s theme of love and acceptance. Created in an era when society strives for more inclusivity, casting Peppermint was a significant milestone. However, this uncontestable highlight of the show – a legacy moment in theatre-making – underscores a critical issue with Head Over Heels: when the most memorable aspect of your show is a casting decision rather than the content itself, it speaks volumes about how the material plays.
Adding to the show’s rocky journey were the controversies surrounding its creation. Original librettist Whitty’s departure from the project under contentious circumstances cast a shadow over its development. It’s hard to accept a message about love and acceptance when the backstage stories hint at anything but those ideas.
Andrew Durand as Musidorus and Alexandra Socha as Philoclea in Head Over Heels (Photo credit: Joan Marcus)
Head Over Heels is the kind of show you want to love. It’s bold and different, and it has moments of brilliance. Some people really connected with it, finding charm in its abstract weirdness and the sheer audacity of its concept. But for most, it was just too scattered to engage with on a deeper level. Blending Go-Go’s hits with a centuries-old story was an intriguing idea, but ultimately, it feels like a mismatched patchwork rather than a cohesive tapestry.
So, does Head Over Heels deserve to be remembered? Absolutely – if only as a fascinating experiment that dared to step outside the box. Its brief run on Broadway is a testament to the unpredictable nature of theatre: sometimes, great ideas don’t pan out, and even the best intentions can lead to a flop. But in its failure, Head Over Heels gives us something worth discussing, which is, in itself, a kind of success. It may have paved a small part of the way for other ground-breaking moments in the discourse around inclusivity and casting on Broadway too.
Join us next week as we delve into another forgotten gem (or disaster) from the musical theatre history books. Until then, keep those obscure cast recordings spinning and those forgotten stories alive!
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