Ragtime is obviously my favorite for many reasons and as Roxy put it, it was a complete package.
1776 has some very passionate fans and also some extreme haters. I have never hated the show and while the score isn't one of my favorites despite some nice songs here and there, it is Peter Stone's magnificent book that makes it a major success. It is a shame that the Book award was not in use that year at the Tonys because I wish he could've received a Tony for his work.
1776 major weakness is & always was its score. A professional composer would have done a much better job. Edwards score was serviceable buy one wonders how much better it would have been with a really knockout score. The book was the shows biggest asset in addition to the cast
I actually think a number of 1776's melodies are quite beautiful, even magnificent. Thinking of "Cool, Cool, Men", "He Plays the Violin", and "Momma Look Sharp". As usual, it's the lyrics that really seem amateur at times. ("Sit down, John/ Sit down, John/ Oh for God's sake, John/ Sit down!") Still, that damn show packs an emotional wallop by the end that is inescapable and much more than the sum of its parts.
RAGTIME is one of the all-time greats of the musical cannon, but I'm not sure it qualifies as a true American history. Though it's peppered with real life celebrities, all the major characters are fictional, much like those in Les Miz. Both are set amidst real events but are hardly slices of history.
the artist formerly known as dancingthrulife04
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Hamilton, and there is no serious competition. It is the best american history musical ever, and one of the best handful of musicals ever without regard to subject matter.
If 1776 has to do with history (and I love the show), so does Oklahoma. Guilty pleasure is the history told in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Hairspray involves the history of race relations in Baltimore - love it too.
Shenandoah (yes some of the music is hopelessly 1970s, but it has a nice mixture of music. Ballads, comic songs, uptempo, reflective)
If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.
I haven't seen too many of the US history musicals, but I loved 1776 (both the play and movie). I saw one about Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, but I can't remember if it was "The Civil War" or another show. BTW, I think a musical about Lincoln's relationship with Frederick Douglass would be great, although it probably would be fairly dry.
Audrey, the Phantom Phanatic, who nonetheless would rather be Jean Valjean, who knew how to make lemonade out of lemons.
"If 1776 has to do with history (and I love the show), so does Oklahoma. Guilty pleasure is the history told in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Hairspray involves the history of race relations in Baltimore - love it too. "
OKLAHOMA! was the history of American forebears as they moved west. Nothing typifies the pioneering spirit than the joyous song THE FARMER AND THE COWMAN. It also has one of the most exhilarating musical scores ever.