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re: Which was the toughest competitive year for Best Musical?

Posted by: MikeR 06:35 pm EST 01/16/14
In reply to: re: Which was the toughest competitive year for Best Musical? - Yikes11 06:29 pm EST 01/16/14

I bow to no one in my love for West Side Story, but The Music Man is one of the finest musicals ever written. There is nothing shocking about its Tony win.

(FYI, the word you're looking for is "milquetoast," and it means "a timid, meek, or unassertive person." I can't see how that word can be applied to a production of any musical.)


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re: Which was the toughest competitive year for Best Musical?

Posted by: keikekaze 12:57 am EST 01/17/14
In reply to: re: Which was the toughest competitive year for Best Musical? - MikeR 06:35 pm EST 01/16/14

I bow to many in my love for West Side Story, which I've always found excessively bombastic and self-important, and I'll flatly state that The Music Man is, all things considered, a better musical. It may not be a better dance performance, or a better "conception by Jerome Robbins," or Stephen Sondheim's Broadway debut--but it is a better musical. Don't let it's (perfectly deliberate) corniness fool you, folks. It disguises its craft very craftily.


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re: Which was the toughest competitive year for Best Musical?

Posted by: Chazwaza 04:18 pm EST 01/17/14
In reply to: re: Which was the toughest competitive year for Best Musical? - keikekaze 12:57 am EST 01/17/14

I don't think it is *better*... I think they are both in a short list of the greatest musicals ever written.

I don't know what makes you so confident as to declare it "better", but it's not true just because you think it or say it. They couldn't be more different, and they are two of the most acclaimed and beloved and popular shows ever... I don't think one has a point over the other in any category. At that point it's just about preference.


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re: Which was the toughest competitive year for Best Musical?

Posted by: enoch10 11:59 pm EST 01/16/14
In reply to: re: Which was the toughest competitive year for Best Musical? - MikeR 06:35 pm EST 01/16/14

>> There is nothing shocking about its Tony win.

oh, i don't know. MM has many wonderful things going for it - a big one for this production being an indisputable star turn in robert preston - but it pales in comparison to WSS, which even in retrospect seems groundbreaking and revolutionary on almost every level.

though ultimately you're right. 9 times out of 10 - and now that the pesky critics have been removed in favor of out of town bookers it can only get worse - the TONY tends to go to the commercial and conservative and very recently, more often than not, to the downright mediocre.


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