The Best of the Theatre

[99-1100896887]

Musical theatre(post-Show Boat) keeps the category as manageable as we can get it, I suppose, and although some lucky ones will have seen the musicals on Broadway, most of us will know them from oc recordings, or perhaps on TV .

Perhaps we can limit things to a list of our favouite musical comedies and/or musical theatre( 10 or 25).( Must be onstage; not a TV show) and usually originating on Broadway and on a soundtrack recording that could be located for listening for those who don't know the show.
I would not separate them ,myself into categories, but by muscial theatre I mean Sweeney Todd for example--which could hardly be called a musical comedy. So let's just use "Stage Musicals". Keep It Simple.

What say?

[Big Magilla]

I think this is too broad.

I like Cam's suggestion of starting with musicals, including composers, lyricists and male and female performances though for most of us these would be based on cast recordings. I assume we are talking about musicals starting with Show Boat and not going back to operettas?

As for plays, most of us will have known them from either reading them or seeing the film versions. I agree with Okri that they should be limited to plays of the 20th and 21st centuries. As for performances, was Edmund Kean the greatest stage actor of all time? No one alive would know. Was Laurette Taylor the greatest actress? A few people over 80 might think so. How many people on this board have ever seen the Lunts, Katherine Cornell, Helen Hayes or Ethel Barrymore on stage? I don't think this is something we can do with any real authority.

[Okri]

Not to be an incredible dick, but could we limit it to 20th/21st Century plays? I don't know if I can put Euripedes and Kushner on the same list. Especially since the musical (as we know it) is predominantly an artform of that period. Pretty please with sugar on top?

[OscarGuy]

I added the performance thing at the last minute, really. Strike those...But the others I think it's important to separate because they can be remembered long after a performance has arrived and left Broadway.

[99-1100896887]

I agree. Too many choices.
What about just starting with musicals--best musicals, and best performnces therin?
Although this is a great idea, maybe we shouldn't do this at this time of year, with new films arriving increasingly. Maybe better in the later spring--summer NEXT year, when more time could be devoted to it by everyone? AND there are fewer new films to discuss.

[The Original BJ]

OscarGuy, this sounds like a fun idea, but if you don't mind me making a slight suggestion -- I think there are a bit too many polls here all at once. I think if you stuck to a couple, you might get many more ballots; I surely can't be the only one who finds these nine polls a bit daunting. (Plus, and maybe because I'm a young'un, it's next to impossible for me to judge the theater's great performances, especially the non-musical ones, because most legendary performances I wasn't around to see.)

But I would be very interested to see this board's lists of greatest plays and greatest musicals.

[OscarGuy]

We've conducted many polls in the past and some have failed miserably, others have become huge success. I'd like to flirt with disaster again and try a new poll. This will work a little more like AFI than many of our polls, but it won't be exactly the same.

Submitting via PM or email (oscarguy (at) oscarguy (dot) com), I want everyone to submit the following.

The Twenty-Five Greatest Musicals of All-Time
The Twenty-Five Greatest Plays of All-Time
The Ten Greatest Playwrights of All-Time
The Ten Greatest Composers of All-Time
The Ten Greatest Lyricists of All-Time
The Ten Greatest Female Musical Performances of All-Time
The Ten Greatest Male Musical Performances of All-Time
The Ten Greatest Female Play Performances of All-Time
The Ten Greatest Male Play Performances of All-Time

Do not rank these lists. Once everyone has submitted a list (or the end of September rolls around), I will compile a full list of each category that will be anywhere from twenty-five to fifty titles or ten to twenty artists long for each list. Then everyone will rank 25/10 in each category from which a final UAADB Best of list will result.

If you think the numbers above are skewed (such as there are far more great male/female performances than ten), I can easily adjust if everyone agrees.