Snowflake Challenge #10

[potentiality_26]

Challenge #10

Five Things! The five things are totally up to you. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Today I'm ranking... musicals!  Yay? (There will be fudging of the five things part)

1) Les Miserables
Loved it my whole life, it's everything to me. Favorite version: 10th Anniversary Dream Cast. It's called the Dream Cast for a reason, y'all.

2) The Secret Garden
Also a long time love of mine. Favorite version: Original Broadway Recording.

The Andrew Lloyd Webber section. I ranked these as best I could, but know that they're all very close together.

3) Jesus Christ Superstar
Favorite version: NBC Live In Concert. I know this isn't considered the best by most metrics, but I watched it when it aired, bought the soundtrack, and still listen to it all the time. Are the Broadway singers better? Mostly. But sometimes it's about vibes. 

4) Evita
Favorite version: 1996 Film/Soundtrack. I'm not even gonna qualify this preference. Obviously there are people who prefer the Broadway version. In fact there are people who think this movie is bad. I think they're wrong.

5) Phantom of the Opera
Favorite version: 25th Anniversary. This is a close one, though, I like the Broadway a lot too.   

This is where the fudging comes in because I think the ALW block skews things. Two bonuses:

6) Wicked
Favorite version: Original Broadway Recording
Added because: If I could decide to kick one of the ALW ones off the list, this would replace it. 

7) Beauty and the Beast
Favorite version: Original Broadway Recording
Added because: Number 7 (rather than the top 5) really is where this belongs, overall, but I do want to mention it because "If I Can't Love Her" is probably my favorite song from a musical.

Since I've come out as an actor (lol) recently in this challenge, I'd like to say that I am a Shakespearean actor who does more modern plays here and there. I love musicals but I haven't performed in one since High School. Tragically, I cannot sing worth a damn.
  

Comments

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I like Evita, too! I love Another Suitcase and the Buenos Aires song.

[potentiality_26]

Great songs!

[sidleypkhermit]

Ooh, was that the one with my man Ben Daniels -- wait, OUR man Ben Daniels, I just remembered how we met! XD Anyway yeah. Maybe that production was uneven or whatever, but it compelled me.

[potentiality_26]

*points at you*

I mean, yes, Ben Daniels is a 110% why I watched it, but I genuinely love it on its own merits.

Speaking of whom, I had all my Exorcist WIPs (among a few other fandoms) hidden in a side folder that I couldn't find while I was making my WIP post. I've found them now and I might update that post so I don't forget about them again. I miss that show and may rewatch it.

[cmk418]

I love musicals so I had to check out your post.

Great list. I've never seen The Secret Garden but we had the soundtrack so I've heard it many, many times. Les Miserables is my all time favorite (and yes, the 10 year anniversary concert rules) and I agree with your ranking on the ALW's- I didn't see Evita on stage until just a few years ago, and I adored it, but I love the film version too. Haven't seen Wicked but have heard the soundtrack numerous times and I did see Beauty and the Beast when my niece's high school performed it three or four years ago.

[potentiality_26]

Interesting! I've seen all of these live at least once but The Secret Garden was actually the most memorable on stage (even though shows like BATB and Wicked are more complex costume/set-wise). If you get a chance, you should absolutely see it.

[meridian_rose]

I love movie!Evita's soundtrack.
Funny story though. I'd seen the movie at the cinema and on VHS and listened to the soundtrack or at least my faves many, many times. Then 2022 I rewwatched the movie with subtitles on and how, how have I been mishearing/wrongly singing to myself certain lyrics for literal years?!
Anyway thanks for sharing the love for this movie. I listened to one of the Broadway versions many years back via a friend and the thing I remember most is Che singing about "oh my insecticide!" which was too silly to take seriously for me ;)

[potentiality_26]

LOL, I feel you. I grew up listening to several of these, and have often had lightbulb moments of "Wait, that's what the lyric is?" only years and years later.

[nonesensed]

Huzzah for musicals! My dad raised my sister and I to adore all kinds of musicals, and I've found that sometimes there's just no real explanation for why one specific recording becomes "the right one" 😆 For example, my best Phantom of the Opera is forever the old LP my dad played at home when I was so young I didn't even understand the lyrics (English ain't my first language). So some preferences I can blame on nostalgia, and then there's some that I honestly have no clue why I like best 😅

Do you have a musical you've seen a version of that's not recorded anywhere? 'Cause my greatest musical related grief is that there's no Swedish cast recording of a small horror musical called Necronomicon that had a single run in Stockholm a few years ago - I saw it 3 times - and now there's just the promotional trailer left for the records 😭

I've managed to miss that you're an actor until this very post! What are your favorite kind of roles to play? 😊

[potentiality_26]

Nostalgia is definitely a powerful force.

The musical Necronomicon sounds like an experience! I don't think I have seen anything that didn't have some kind of official recording. I can see why that would plague you.

My favorite roles are Shakespeare villains!

[nonesensed]

I wish I could find a recording of the Necronomicon musical - or that it'd get picked up for another run, but alas! It's a horror musical set during the 1920s, so the audience starts the show off gathered along the walls of a room that looks like a time-typical hospital, is addressed as "dear colleagues" by a guy in a doctor's coat, go into another room where you're supposed to take part in a "patient conference", and then, when that patient starts talking about their traumatic experience in a mine, the platform the audience sits on is pulled back, creating a huge cave-like area where the actors can play out the patient's memories of the mine. One of the strongest theater experiences I've ever had 🤩🖤 Also, loved the music 💖

Shakespeare villains are so fascinating, I absolutely get why they're your faves to play! Do you have a particular favorite of them all?

[potentiality_26]

It's very cool when a play pulls the audience in like that.

I was in The Night of January 16th once, an Ayn Rand courtroom play where the jury gets selected from the audience and the ending is different based on their verdict. It was really a treat!

Edmond from King Lear is definitely my favorite.

[nonesensed]

Oooh, that sounds super cool! Must have been really fun to act in 💖

Ah, I can see that! It's not the Shakespeare play I'm most familiar with, but from what I recall of him, he seems an interesting challenge to portray 🖤

[potentiality_26]

It was really fun!

Which would you say is your most familiar (or favorite, if you have one), Shakespeare play?

[nonesensed]

💖

Ooooh, good question. I think I'd say I'm most familiar with Much Ado About Nothing because A) I got the assignment of writing a "modern take" on it in junior high and was Way Too Into That and B) the "bisexual disasters"-flavored version that starred David Tennant and Catherine Tate reawakened my love for the play, but I've also seen multiple versions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello and Twelfth Night, and enjoyed myself immensely.

[potentiality_26]

I love that version of Much Ado too!

[nonesensed]

💜💜💜