What Broadway Musical soundtracks would you recommend for capturing the essence

Question:My collection is fairly small - Cats, Phantom, Oklahoma!, Les Mis, J.C. Superstar, The Sound of Music, and West Side Story. I'm looking to expand this, but other than some familiar names of others (e.g. A Chorus Line) this is a genre I don't know much about.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: My collection is fairly small - Cats, Phantom, Oklahoma!, Les Mis, J.C. Superstar, The Sound of Music, and West Side Story. I'm looking to expand this, but other than some familiar names of others (e.g. A Chorus Line) this is a genre I don't know much about.

Your collection as it stands is kind of heavy on recent hits. You need a little history in your CDs. Some earlier shows include Anything Goes (although there were revivals) and Showboat (fabulous show!). With Rodgers and Hammerstein and Oklahoma, you get a more seamless working in of songs to help push the story line along instead of stopping the plot with the line "That reminds me of a song!" In addition to Oklahoma and SOund of Music, you should also have South Pacific (early "overtones" that racism might be bad), King and I ("Racism is Bad, m'kay?" but in a subtler East meets West context), and Carousel (very dark material for a Broadway musical) 1943-1964 is considered The Golden Age of the Broadway Musical and you need a few in there from composers other than R&H: Guys and Dolls (by Frank Loesser), Fiddler on the Roof (Bock and Harnick), Wonderful Town by Leonard Bernstein), My Fair Lady (by Lerner and Loewe), and Hello, Dolly! (by Jerry Herman). The other MAJOR omission is Stephen Sondheim; he is the latest innovator of the musical. Try his Company (recently revived), Follies (the best kept secret on B'way), Sweeney Todd (Get the original B'way production with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou not the Johnny Depp version; you'll hear with Cariou what Johnny Depp was trying to measure up to), Into the Woods ( a 3-hanky show). And of course, recently, you have The Producers and Wicked.

In between all of the major shows and composers are small cast shows (Dames At Sea -- 6 people, ...Charlie Brown -- 7 people, Jacques Brel ... -- 4 people), musical revues (Red, Hot and Cole, Side by Side by Sondheim, It's a Grand Night for Singing, and Forbidden Broadway.

And somewhere along the way, for no good reason at all except that they are joyous celebrations of the stage, I hope you come across Annie, Pippin, I Do, I Do, Babes in Arms, Brigadoon, Shenandoah, Cabaret, Godspell, Little Shop ..., Working, Sunday in the Park with George, La Cage aux Folles (the movie The Birdcage is based on this one), Gigi, The Music Man, and 42nd St, where you're invited to "come on along and listen to .... the lullaby of Broadway!"

And have fun ... I know I did.

Oh lordy...some of my favorites are Wicked, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, My Fair Lady, Little Shop of Horrors, Sweeny Todd, Hairspray...I'm a fan of the fairly recent stuff, mostly, but those are my suggestions.

The Wizard of Oz, The Lion King, The Producers, Gigi, The King And I - are some good ones.

i dont know what you mean by capturing the essence.
hah.

i love musicalssss and i think theyre all great.
west side story is a classic.
love sound of music.

my favorite broadway play is RENT!<3

i was in a musical theater class in highschool where we watched musicals such as

showboat
oklahoma
singing in the rain
newsies
sweeny todd.
the king and i
(thats all i can remember from the course)

but others are..

fiddler on the roof. chicago, gypsy. hairspray. grease. hair. wizard of oz. wicked. rocjy horror picture show. moulin rouge. oliver. annie. 42nd street.

Well it sounds like you have some of the classics (ie. Les Miserables <3 Phantom <3 Oklahoma-worst two hours of my life..and so on). I'd say look into some of the more modern musicals. I am in the same position as you, where I'm trying to expand on the classics (Gypsy, Chicago, A Chorus Line, ect.) but I have a number of others that I love. Wicked (great music for everyone to listen to)
Lion KIng (again, really good music for everyone)
Aida (many good songs)
Avenue Q (despite the puppets...DO NOT HAVE THIS CD ANYWHERE NEAT KIDS...it can be highly inappropriate)
Godspell (not all songs, but some)
Hairspray (again, for everyone, surpirisingly, I liked the movie version better then the original Broadway cast)
Tick, Tick Boom (a lesser known musical by Jonathan Larson)
my personal favortie...RENT (so amazing...sadly its closing in June :'-(
You're a Good Man Charlie Brown (a few good ones)
Legally Blonde (great music)
Tarzan (not to bad, a couple great songs)
The Little Mermaid (just opened, but I hear it is great)
Guys and Dolls (Bushel and a Peck!!! <3)
Me and My Girl (lesser known but quite good)

Hope these gave you some ideas!

Begin an interest in foreign musicals ; )
Here are some short clips of my favorite musical, foreign or not.

Tanz der Vampire
http://youtube.com/watch?v=epWl_ZZSF48

Romeo et Juliette
http://youtube.com/watch?v=focuJn49zQ8

Jekyll & Hyde (this is a Broadway musical)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ukAC8ocGZw8
(German version) http://youtube.com/watch?v=-aSi5-xpvGY

Notre Dame de Paris
http://youtube.com/watch?v=aBXeXBpTVOk

Elisabeth
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TAyCOPTWa-w

Rent, Sweeney Todd, Spring Awakening, Avenue Q, The Color Purple, Wicked, The Wild Party, Aida, Annie, Urinetown

Miss Saigon
Hair

Give those two a listen when you have time.

definitley wicked