Oh good, I'm not the only one that doesn't swoon whenever Spring Awakening is mentioned. I so did not get the big deal. Parts of it were good (mostly the singing, although I don't think the whole score was all that, either) but overall I was just not into it. Plus I STILL cannot believe that it won the Tony for best choreography.

As for HSM - I've never seen it, but my roomie, who is a big Disney Channel fan, has it on all the time and I just remember walking through the room and hearing one of the songs and thinking how painfully shrill it was. I kind of want to watch it just to see what the fuss is about, but I can't get past that whiny voice.

Two cast recordings I listened to for the first time yesterday - The Great American Trailer Park Musical (holy hell, I am officially Orfeh's bitch. Plus she used to be a cheesy teen pop star!) and Evil Dead: The Musical. Let me tell you something, there's nothing like sitting quietly at your desk doing busy work when a song called, "All the Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons" pops on. I'm also a fan of "Do The Necronomicon". Very catchy. I wish I'd seen the show when it was Off-Broadway but the whole splatter zone thing kind of freaked me out.

Yeah, as someone who loves Spring Awakening, they did NOT deserve the choreography award. And Duncan Sheik does need to shut it before the original cast of Hair (including Ben Vereen) shows up at his door.

The splatter zone was only the first 3 rows and if you had tickets there and didn't want to sit there, you could move.

I know about 99% of all the words to the the ED:TM soundtrack. When it gets back to NY, I'm going for splatter zone seats. The second time I saw it, I couldn't get tix for it.

"All my college boyfriends and my one night stands; my male co-workers and platonic gay friends (hey!) Every date I go on ends in demon bloodshed, and now that I've met you two guys, I know you'll soon be dead...(what the f---?)"

A friend at work saw SA and didn't care for it. She said it isn't what they're advertising it to be.

I liked some songs. All of Wendla's songs are very pretty, and I like "All That's Known". I keep going forth on "The Bitch of Living," but the way they all say "bitch" as if they're bring really naughty kinda makes me giggle. I'd still like to see it; it's much more my thing than the funny stuff like "Spamalot," "Avenue Q," "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," etc. I've seen the latter two and while they're fun to see in the theater I wouldn't buy the soundtracks.

ETA: I just wanna say it's so nice to be able to chat musical theater online somewhere. Most places I've found that are active are full of *mean* people who will bite your head off. I really have no idea how musical theater fandom has such a mean community, but it does.

I really disliked High School Musical, to the point where I couldn't even make it through the entire movie. The performances were terribly forced and the fake enthusiasm was so annoying that I turned it off. I was looking forward to some mindless musical crack and I was sorely disappointed.

In other news, I've been on a cast album kick lately, so I've dragged out all my Broadway CDs for my paperwork day at work. I'm having a hard time not singing out loud to The Music Man and Fiorello! because I kick it old school.

What are people's favorite cast albums?

Hmm, my favorite old school albums are "West Side Story" and "Cabaret". My other faves are "Rent", "Les Mis", "Evita", "Hedwig and the Angry Inch". I really like an off-Broadway musical called "Bernarda Alba". Some songs are a bit too morbid, which if you know the source material you won't be surprised to hear that, but "Adela" is one of the most gorgeous musical theater songs I've ever heard.

I'd definitely like to get Sweeney Todd. For some reason I was putting off watching/listening to this but watched the concert version with Neil Patrick Harris, Patti Lupone and George Heard and it was great. Can't wait for the movie. I disliked Into the Woods so I never thought to look for Sweeney Todd and they're both Sondheim.

The typical ones: Cabaret, Chicago, Les Mis, Baker Street (from the 1960s), Evil Dead: The Musical,

*gasp* You disliked Into The Woods?? How? What? How?

I saw it on a DVD from the library and it didn't catch me. Love Company, though.

Apparently the Jim Henson company bought the rights to Into The Woods, and got to the point where they constructed the wolves....but never made the film. That saddens me.

I love Company, and I am so excited because the revival was filmed for PBS' Great Performances. I love that show (they really do a great job with musical), and I wanted to see the revival.

After watching a bunch of performances on You Tube, I have officially decided that Raul Esparza is my new Broadway boyfriend. First of all, pretty! Second of all, funny! Thirdly, talented as hell.

I am officially twelve.

THANK YOU.

The thing that bugs me most about Spring Awakening is that everyone keeps going, "OMG! A musical with modern rock music! How terribly novel!" And I'm all, "Seriously? I thought we'd been getting one of those every few years for about three decades now."

There's about a million of them... Rent, Chess, Hair, JCS, Rocky Horror, etc... Not to mention the reviews like Movin' Out.

I've not seen Spring Awakening but nothing in what I've read about the music or the story has motivated me to even think about wanting to see it. Oddly, I feel the same way about Wicked. I like about 2 songs and I have no real drive to buy tickets for it.

Wicked is cute, and has gorgeous sets and costumes, but I don't think it's worth it to go see it unless you can get a major discount, especially if you have to sit in ANY mezzazine seat, which is so far from the stage in the Gershwin. Especially since Menzel and Chenoweth aren't there anymore, who I think were a big part of what made the show great.

Although I hate hate the song "the Wizard and I", even with Idina singing it. It's just about the most generic sounding song I've heard in my life.

Yeah, I've said my thoughts about Wicked: Cute, visually arresting, only worth seeing depending on the cast. It opened with Menzel/Chenoweth which...wow. I mean thats big, and it also had Joel Grey and Norbert Leo Butz, and that helped a lot imo.

Raul Esparza is awesome even if he does have an awesomely soapish romantic life with his sexual confusion and on/off again wife. Actually that adds to the awesomenish.