The Three Shows to Lose Your Broadway Virginity To

With the start of the new Broadway season fast approaching, it's easy to get caught up in the news of upcoming productions.  But there are a few shows (and by shows I mean musicals) currently playing The Great White Way that I think are well worth seeing.

While trying to compile a list of great shows currently on Broadway, I kept asking myself, "Which shows would you recommend for someone who has never seen a Broadway musical?" The result is this list:

The Three Shows to Lose Your Broadway Virginity To

1.  The Phantom of the Opera

from playbill.com

It's the longest running show on Broadway for a reason.  Some of the "spectacle" feels a little dated now (large, grandiose Broadway shows are sort of out of fashion these days), but this show, which tells the story of a disfigured genius who haunts an opera house and its star ingenue, is still great.  There's pyrotechnics, illusions and of course that giant prop chandelier.  

But aside from all the special effects and luscious sets (that staircase is a spectacle all on its own), Phantom offers something that a lot of new shows struggle to provide: an outstanding score.  This is some of Andrew Lloyd Webber's best work.  It manages to combine pop rock with opera into something that still has the feel of classic show tunes.

Phantom is a modern Broadway classic, and you can't go wrong selecting it for your first Broadway experience.  You will be highly entertained.  I believe the current cast is fairly strong (for a replacement cast).  I especially like Hugh Panaro as the Phantom.  He brings a gruffness to the character that other actors fail to do (they instead choose to make the Phantom rather whine-y and pathetic), and he manages to clearly enunciate all of his vocals in spite of the prosthetic make up (a feat that many a Phantom have failed to accomplish).

2.  Anything Goes

from playbill.com

This may seem like kind of an odd choice.  Yes, if you attend this musical, you will probably be one of the only audience members under the age of sixty (that's really not an exaggeration), unless of course, you yourself are over the age of sixty.  And yes this musical, for one of its climactic pay offs, contains a completely stereotyped, and questionably racist gag involving the portrayal of Asians (think "black-face" but for Asians).

Yet, I think this show is pretty wonderful.  It truly is a traditional musical.  A score by Cole Porter that immediately teleports you back to the 1930s.  An outstanding cast led by the queen of "old-timey" classic musicals, Sutton Foster.  And the best tap number I've ever seen.

Anything Goes takes place on a cross Atlantic cruise liner, but the setting hardly matters.  The silly situations and characters are what take precedence.  This show is a classic comedy of errors (everyone mistaking each other for everyone else).  This is not self-deprecating, offensive humor (which is oh so chic these days).  It's a corny, cheesy, "I can't believe how silly this is" kind of humor.  And it truly works.  What's more, over the course of its many revivals, this show has managed to sneak in a few modernized tidbits (I assume they're sneaking them in because there are a few moments I can't possibly imagine would have been allowed in the original 1930s production) that add a nice sense of double entendre to a lot of the silliness.  I tend to lean toward the cynical, but I really enjoyed this show.  For a truly traditional Broadway experience, Anything Goes is as close as it gets.

3.  Jersey Boys

from playbill.com

This last one was a bit tough for me to choose.  I went with Jersey Boys.  This is by far the best of the "jukebox" musicals.  It tells the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons through their music.  So in terms of score, this musical is all pop rock.  At times it even has the feeling of a music concert (I guess this partially depends on the success of the actor currently playing Frankie).

This show, unlike so many other jukebox musicals, actually allows the music to inform the story (think of the quality episodes from the first season of Glee).  So often these musicals, which adapt the canon of a particular artist into a full length show, struggle to develop a plot that doesn't feel contrived (think of any of the "tribute" episodes of Glee).  I think Jersey Boys is extremely successful largely because it doesn't shy away from, rather it embraces, the inherent concert-like nature of the genre.

Jersey Boys is a fairly simple show.  It doesn't utilize a multitude of special effects or any fancy set pieces (other than the stationary suspended truss-like platform).  It's all about good actors performing great songs.  If the thought of a big showy musical scares you (i.e. grown adults standing wide-stance, shouting up into the rafters and spontaneously breaking out into song isn't your thing... yet) then Jersey Boys is a great way to get your Broadway feet wet.

Daily Monku:  As may have been evidenced in previous monkus, I'm kind of a grammar Nazi.  I simply hate when people use the wrong form of it's (vs. its) or there (vs. their or they're).  But lately, I find I've been over doing it on the instinct to correct my homophones.  I find in cases where I mean the contraction of "it is", I'll actually leave out the apostrophe.  Or worse, I've actually written "they're" when I meant to write "there".  Honestly, who does that?  I guess this isn't really a monku (although it does make proof reading extra annoying), rather a caution against complaining too vigorously.