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Valentine's Day is here and love is all around us. At this most romantic time of the year, we can't help but wonder... what is the greatest Broadway love song ever? BroadwayWorld continues our great tradition of finding that consensus- and this year we have more answers than ever! We've gathered responses from over 1500 performers, composers, industry professionals, and entertainment personalities from all over the world.
This year's list is presented by The Notebook, now in previews on Broadway. Based on the best selling novel that inspired the iconic film, this new musical follows Allie and Noah, both from different worlds, as they share a lifetime of love despite the forces that threaten to pull them apart, in a deeply moving portrait of the enduring power of love.
Director
The Music Man | Kiss Me Kate | Hello Dolly! | She Loves Me | On the Twentieth Century | After Midnight
“Will He Like Me?" from She Loves Me. The lyrics “will he like me? ...and “he’s just got to”“There’s more to me than I may always show” those lyrics kill me and that’s why I love it.
Director
New York | New York | Crazy for You | Prince of Broadway | Bullets Over Broadway: The Musical | Big Fish | Young Frankenstein | The Producers
My favorite Broadway love song is "Nice Work If You Can Get It," and it's because of those lyrics. It is my favorite love song because "nice work if you can get it."
Director
NINE | Chicago The Film | Memoirs of a Geisha | Cabaret | Little Me | ...Forum
"I'll Never Fall In Love Again" from PROMISES, PROMISES, because in the song the two main characters, Fran Kubelik and Chuck Baxter sing about never falling in love again, while they actually do.
Director
KINKY BOOTS | CATCH ME IF YOU CAN | LOVE NEVER DIES | LEGALLY BLONDE | LA CAGE AUX FOLLES | GYPSY | HAIRSPRAY and Others
"I Have Dreamed" from THE KING AND I.
Director
The Unsinkable Molly Brown | Anything Goes | Grease | 'You're the One That I Want,' Wonderful Town | Kiss Me | Kate | The Pajama Game
My favorite is "Always" by Irving Berlin. It was sung at our wedding by the wonderful Kelli O'Hara, so it will always be my favorite.
Director
(Performer) Starmites | Rags | Anna Karenina | Aint Broadway Grand; (Director) Cinderella | The Wild Party | john & jen
I am more often moved by the - playing against it - category of love song: "People Will Say We're in Love", "If I Loved You", etc...however, without a doubt, the most riveting and romantic love song ever written (for me) is: "Somewhere" from WEST SIDE STORY simply because the song itself is pure and perfect like we always dream love to be but it doesn't pretend it's possible now...
Director
Performer - Zoot Suit | Amadeus | Exec. Producer/Associate Director - Five Guys Named Moe | Miss Saigon | Les Miserables
Without a doubt, for me, it's Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Some Enchanted Evening", from their musical, SOUTH PACIFIC. Growing up, I remembered my parents trying to explain to me the passion everyone remembered - seeing Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin sing this song together, on the stage. People SWORE they were having an affair. Do I know? Of course not. The song itself is a magical love song because it's FULL of POSSIBILITY. Just what you want when "chemistry" is at play. When Bernadette Peters and I first faced the R&H songs, to begin making choices for the BERNADETTE PETERS LOVES RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN recording ... all she had to do was sing it once, in her apt. w/ just the piano, and I was a mess!
Director
Good Vibrations | Dance of the Vampires | Into the Woods | Dance of Death | Urinetown | Dirty Blonde | Love! Valour! Compassion! | Singin' in the Rain
After weighing the obvious ("If I Loved You" from CAROUSEL) and the classic ("Tonight" from WEST SIDE STORY)and the sad (there are so many of these including "A Little Fall of Rain" from Les Mis or "Not a Day Goes Boy" from MERRILY) Jessica-Snow Wilson and I both agreed that "I Chose Right" from BABY is probably the song that will always bring tears to our eyes with it's heartfelt lyrics and sentiment. "And I think about you, and I think about me loving you..."
Director
Be More Chill | The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical
"Santa Fe" from Rent. I'm a Rent baby. That show meant everything to me as a kid and I still sing that song to myself almost daily.
Director
Fiasco's Merrily We Roll Along | Into the Woods
"Waitin' for My Dearie" from Brigadoon which is a beautiful, beautiful love song.
Director
Sunday In The Park With George
"Too Many Mornings" from Follies. Few of us could claim to have spent thousands of mornings yearning to wake up to the one they love. But all of us could claim to have, at some time in our lives, spent too many. A heartbreakingly beautiful love song.
Director
Tony Nominee | The Color Purple
I guess "If I Loved You" from CAROUSEL would be it for me. Its indirect and hypothetical way of voicing love is so temperamentally right for me. The underlying fear and vulnerability that often accompanies love is beautifully acknowledged by not saying "I love you" but rather "if I loved you." In fact that "if" allows for full expression and articulation of love in all its manifestation. It alerts the object of the "if love" to what signs and behavior to look for as a signfier of that love. To me it is a perfect love song.
Director
Other World | Hatefuck | The Big and the Small
"Light My Candle" from Rent. It was one of the first Broadway musicals I ever saw, and it made a huge impression on me. Michael Grief is a mentor of mine. And in my adolescence I performed that song a few times and that is a fond and cringey memory!
Director
Dancin' | Wicked | Golden Boy | Aida | The Who's Tommy | How to Succeed in Busines WIthout Really Trying | Jerry's Girls
I’m going to say “People Will Say We’re in Love” from Oklahoma!. I know it’s old school, stay with me here … I married my high school sweetheart when we were in college, where we performed in a production of
Oklahoma! together and we are still married today!
Director
Prayer for the French Republic | The Sound Inside | The Band's Visit | The Waverly Gallery
"I Get a Kick Out of You" because it is deeply felt, while pretending to be casual.
Director
Significant Other | Take Me Out | Six Degrees of Separation
My favorite Broadway love song is "If I Loved You." The lyric is so brilliant because they can't say it, so they say IF I loved you.
Director
Big River
"If I Loved You" is my favorite love song. I ust find it so incredibly moving and so fragile and strong at the same time.
Director
Tony-nominated Director | Rock of Ages
"The Street Where You Live" from MY FAIR LADY. It kills me! And the right person singing it gives me chills... And, of course, "Being Alive" from COMPANY, which I think summarizes the paradox of love.
Director
Outside Mullingar | The Big Knife | An Enemy of the People | Born Yesterday
It may be kind of an odd love song, but I like "Not While I'm Around" from Sweeney Todd. The very first time I heard it when I was a kid, it was just deeply stirring to me and it has remained so. No matter who's singing it.
Director
Call Me Madam | The Prom | Mean Girls
"It Had To Be You" because it was my wedding song to my husband. A special dedication to thank him for taking care of the kids, taking care of the home so I can make this fantastic show.
Director
We're Gonna Die | A Strange Loop
My favorite Broadway love song is "Delovely" by Cole Porter. I like it because it makes me feel those butterflies that people talk about all the time. I think I feel them when I hear that song.
Director
Waitress | The Curious Incident of the Dog in Nightime | Queen of the Night | American Idiot
Gershwin’s "Embraceable You." The songs lyrics speak of two people in love but the chord structure is minor and feels wistful, even sad. I love those two dichotomies together... because that’s so often, love.
Director
Ain't Too Proud | Summer | Jersey Boys | Doctor Zhivago | Jesus Christ Superstar
My Broadway Valentine's love song pick is “ Not While I’m Around.” I spent my last fifty dollars to get seats for Sweeney Todd back in the day at the Uris Theatre. I lucked out. Somebody had just turned in two prize seats in row six. It was the first date with my daughter’s eventual mom. We barely knew each other. The song helped. Thanks to Sondheim!
Director
First Down | Hedwig and the Angry Inch | American Idiot
"The Origin of Love" from Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Director
Superhero | The Cher Show and Shrek
"If I Loved You" from Carousel because it's a love song that is in a form of a condition and it sort of creeps close to telling someone how they actually feel, but doesn't do it which is really smart and thrilling.
Director
Aladdin | The Book of Mormon | The Drowsy Chaperone
I couldn't pick between these two, so I guess it's a tie. "The Music That Makes Me Dance" from FUNNY GIRL and "My Heart is So Full of You" from MOST HAPPY FELLA.
Director
Catch Me if You Can | Love Never Dies | Impressionism | How the Grinch Stole Christmas | The Coast of Utopia
'Goodbye' from Catch Me If You Can- for all the obvious reasons!
Director
Pippin | Porgy and Bess | Hair | Artistic Director A.R.T
“With You” from PIPPIN.
Director
Lestat | Beauty and the Beast | Opposite of Sex
"And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from DREAMGIRLS. Emotional, powerful, desperate, broken-hearted.
Director
Million Dollar Quartet | Kiss of the Spider Woman | Artistic Director/Co-Founder of Signature Theatre
I would say "Loving You" from Passion. This haunting song goes right to the soul.
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