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son_of_a_gunn_25
#1
Posted: 10/6/08 at 5:06pm


My avatar is a reminder to myself. I need lots of reminders...
Updated On: 4/3/10 at 05:06 PM

sondhead
#2re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/6/08 at 5:08pm

Evita

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Schmerg_The_Impaler
#2re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/6/08 at 5:17pm

Evita, but in a good way... what I love about it is that it continues the whole "Eva Peron as myth and icon" thing, but that the narrator of the show is disdainful toward her. You don't often get a narrator who isn't on the protagonist's side.


In my pants, she has burst like the music of angels, the light of the sun! --Marius Pantsmercy

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Kitzarina
#3re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/6/08 at 5:24pm

Assassins
Pacific Overtures

Miss Saigon and Les Miserables both have heavy political subplots, even if they aren't the main focus of the story.


"You're the worst thing to happen to musical theatre since Andrew Lloyd Webber!" --Family Guy

"Shut up! It's been 29 years!!!" --the incomparable Patti LuPone in her MUCH DESERVED Tony acceptance speech for Gypsy.

Kitzy's Avatar du Jour: Kitzy as Little Red Ridinghood in her college's production of "Into the Woods"

Yankeefan007
#4re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/6/08 at 5:29pm

Two Gentlemen of Verona

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Mr Roxy
#5re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/6/08 at 7:36pm

Mr President
How To Steal An Election


Poster Emeritus

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Shawk
#6re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/6/08 at 8:00pm

The Fix.


'"Contrairiwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."' ~Lewis Carroll

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Amalia Balash
#7re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/6/08 at 8:14pm

Fiorello

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Mr Roxy
#8re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/6/08 at 8:18pm

Jimmy


Poster Emeritus

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LotteTBS138
#9re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/6/08 at 9:17pm

as mentioned.. The FIX
Bush is Bad (for the L.A. folks, and now they are doing a 2nd version, "The Alaskan Beauty Queen Edition")

Wicked
it's all about the 3 different types of people/animals and racism!


I once heard someone describe her (Ruthie Henshall) singing as sounding as though she's trying to swallow a whole meatball slightly larger than her windpipe. (The same person compared Michael Ball's singing to sounding as though he's sitting on a washing machine on spin cycle and Colm Wilkinson's to a man with a paralyzed lip trying to eat cottage cheese.) --- Schmerg_The_Impaler

i*heart*fame
#10re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/6/08 at 9:20pm

The Cradle Will Rock


"Don't thank your parents, if you were raised in a nurturing environment you wouldnt be in show business"--Conan O'Brien at the 2006 Emmy Awards

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ray-andallthatjazz86
#11re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/6/08 at 9:29pm

CAROLINE, OR CHANGE
HAIR
RAGTIME


"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"

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regnad kcin
#12re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/6/08 at 9:34pm

"The Frogs"
"Show Boat"
"Hairspray"
Probably "The Civil War" but I've never seen it...
I can't help but think of "Avenue Q" even if that's not what you mean...

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Paul W. Thompson
#13re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/7/08 at 9:55am

Tenderloin
Mayor
Annie
I'd Rather Be Right

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ChicagoPLAYer
#14re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/7/08 at 10:28am

Urinetown

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Paul W. Thompson
#15re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/7/08 at 10:47am

Pins and Needles
Knickerbocker Holiday
Finian's Rainbow
Call Me Madam
Oh, What a Lovely War
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

In other words, Broadway used to have musicals that were about politics or hot political issues quite frequently. Only lately, not so much. Wonder why?

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Mister Matt
#16re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/7/08 at 10:52am

Let 'Em Eat Cake
Strike Up the Band
Silk Stockings
Call Me Madam
NEWSical
Billy Elliot


"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian

Jon
#17re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/7/08 at 11:16am

Lil Abner is full of pollitical satire.

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Borstalboy
#18re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/7/08 at 11:21am

CATS


"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” ~ Muhammad Ali

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Kitzarina
#19re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/7/08 at 11:42am

Reefer Madness


"You're the worst thing to happen to musical theatre since Andrew Lloyd Webber!" --Family Guy

"Shut up! It's been 29 years!!!" --the incomparable Patti LuPone in her MUCH DESERVED Tony acceptance speech for Gypsy.

Kitzy's Avatar du Jour: Kitzy as Little Red Ridinghood in her college's production of "Into the Woods"

kooky
#20re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/7/08 at 12:17pm

" TALE "

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regnad kcin
#21re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/7/08 at 12:40pm

Paul W., some friends and I did a project relating to Broadway and political or non-political environments. We're kind of retuning to that political Depression escapism now, and mixing it wtih a little existentialism from the 70s. Sometimes, there'll be politics thrown in there but the purely joyful musical comedy is certainly in its revival

kooky
#22re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/7/08 at 12:55pm

I agree .......kcin.

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Paul W. Thompson
#23re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/7/08 at 1:11pm

Glad to know that people are looking at this sort of thing seriously!

Just a thought--have producers been afraid of politics lately (especially the pro-liberal kind), and if so, is it because the high ticket prices tend to attract wealthier (i.e. more conservative) ticket buyers? Certainly a lot of shows have clearly liberal/bohemian views ("Rent," "Hairspray," even "Mamma Mia!), because this is NYC after all, not Salt Lake City. But you can hardly say that about "Beauty and the Beast" and "Cats." I don't think that "The Cradle Will Rock" would fly at $125 a pop.

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blondebaby589
#24re: Overtly Political Musicals
Posted: 10/7/08 at 3:29pm

Not exactly political, but Seussical has a very pro-life theme. "A person's a person no matter how small."


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