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My list of Seminal Broadway Musicals in Chronological Order - (these are the ones that sort of changed everything for good and bad imo)

Posted by Diva (aka Diva) Feb 3 '16, 08:21

Showboat - Took the chummy, showy, music hall aspect out of the musical as an art form. Groundbreaking in its time for the subject matter

Oklahoma - first musical to fully incorporate songs and dance with storyline to further the plot

Most Happy Fella - Perhaps the first thru-sung musical that incorporated the operatic style (big precursor to Phantom of the Opera)

Bye-Bye Birdie - First musical to use rock music in the score

Hair - Musical as a form of Protest. There is no 'Rent' without 'Hair' first.

Jesus Christ Superstar - First thru-sung Rock musical

Cats - The musical as spectacle and Spectacle Alone (No real plot or stars. Nothing else really matters except it looks and sounds cool)

Rent - Because Rent (it truly signaled the end of the last Millennium and the beginning of the current one)

The Lion King - The advances of Stagecraft and technical wizardry.

Hamilton - Not the first musical to use rap music, but the societal effect it is having on the industry and audiences - informing the way we look at what can be accomplished within the musical form makes it the most recent entry on this list.

Responses:

The bf would argue that this list needs more Sondheim. ;-) -- nm* - MDH Feb 3, 08:43 3
- I would/could possibly add 'Company' to the list. The form of it probably seemed schizophrenic at the time it opened. -- nm - Diva Feb 3, 08:45 1
  - And for this reason "A Chorus Line' might need to be on the list too. There was a lot of cool interesting and different stuff going on in the 70s. -- nm - Diva Feb 3, 08:56
- Me too! :) -- nm - Znufrii Feb 3, 08:44
[deleted] 11
- i think Phantom did a lot to bring big theatre to the masses.*EVERYONE* saw Phantom. Cats and Les Miz did that too, but i think Phantom was basically - Andie Feb 3, 08:45 9
  - I didn't put 'Phantom' on because it seemed like 'Cats' and 'Les Miz' did that first. *shrug emoji* -- nm - Diva Feb 3, 08:53
  - I think this is exactly right. -- nm - amanda jonas Feb 3, 08:49
  - I never saw Phantom or Cats in a theatre. I saw them on TV. But I only saw part of Cats because I wasn't a big fan. -- nm - Diva Feb 3, 08:47
  - Confession: I've never seen any of these 3 live. -- nm - MDH Feb 3, 08:47 5
    - If you see Phantom, you should see it on Broadway. - kelly Feb 3, 09:00
    - me neither (but i'm not gay) -- nm - mr plow Feb 3, 08:51
    - I don't remember why but we went a lot when I was a kid. Phantom, Cats, Les Mis, Miss Saigon, etc. -- nm - oblique Feb 3, 08:50 1
      - I've seen Les Mis like 3 times. (The last 2 because friends I had were playing Valjean and I wanted to support them.) -- nm - Diva Feb 3, 08:51
    - who *are* you? -- nm - Andie Feb 3, 08:47
- please see -- (link) - Diva Feb 3, 08:44 [Backboard]
I still can't believe we have a few more months before Hamilton wins all the Tonys. - Tim Feb 3, 08:39 5
- One interesting thing. Excluding Hamilton, LMM is only an Oscar away from the EGOT. And he's doing the song from "Moana" -- nm - MDH Feb 3, 08:42 3
  - What's his Emmy? -- nm - Tim Feb 3, 08:58 2
    - In 2014, Miranda received an Emmy Award with Tom Kitt for their song, "Bigger" from the 67th Annual Tony Awards. -- nm - Diva Feb 3, 09:00 1
      - awardception! - Tim Feb 3, 09:01
- Both Lin-Manuel's big shows opened way early in the season. 'In The Heights' had been around for a long time too before other shows opened that year. -- nm - Diva Feb 3, 08:41
Starlight Express is feeling slighted. Roller skates! -- nm - Baron Whitlock Feb 3, 08:38
This is great, thanks! -- nm - prayformojo Feb 3, 08:36
i would add West Side Story for the Bernstein-Robbins of it all. -- nm - mr plow Feb 3, 08:26 2
- there are plenty of great musicals that aren't on the list. I tried to keep it to musicals that broke ground and did something entirely different from -- (edited) - Diva Feb 3, 08:28 1
  - i feel like it was the Hamilton of its day - mr plow Feb 3, 08:34
That's a pretty sweet list. -- nm - Jim Feb 3, 08:24
I would of course defer on expertise, but the mainstreaming effect of Phantom of the Opera feels missing. -- nm - Name Withheld by Request Feb 3, 08:23 1
- I see Phantom as a worthy successor to Cats and Les Miserables in that respect - only because it wasn't first to do it's own thing. -- nm - Diva Feb 3, 08:25

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My list of Seminal Broadway Musicals in Chronological Order - (these are the ones that sort of changed everything for good and bad imo)

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