Hooray for Musical Theatre !!

Now I know I tried (and failed) to do a 30 day song challenge in the past, but this is much more suited to me! It's a 30 day musical theatre song challenge, and I'm going to modify it slightly. I'm just answering a whole bunch of the questions now, then some more later, then some more after that instead of boring you all for 30 days straight. Onto question number one!

1. A song from the first musical you ever saw/heard.

Well. I think the first musical I actually ever saw was Cats, but it doesn't count because I don't remember anything other then that I was teriffied and we left half way through. So instead I shall say "Jeanette's Showbiz Number" from The Full Monty. Dad was in this musical when I was about 11. Because of that, we saw it over and over again, and I listened to the soundtrack over and over again. We got to sit in rehearsals, and go to cast parties and I was completely enthralled by the world of musical theatre. This son was my absolute fave from the show because it was so broadway, and I sung it to death.

2. A song from your latest musical obsession.

I'm loving this question because I go through so many random obesessions with musicals. At the moment I've been very very obsessed with Sondheim, and I recently got the Company album. The song that I've been singing from it is "The Little Thing's You Do Together". I adore Sondheim's music, and Company is such a great example of his work. His chatty, fast paced, heavy-lyric-ed songs and his heartfelt, beautiful ballads are all on show, plus it has such a touching message about relationships and connection.

3. A song demonstrating how underrated I think a musical is.

This is a tough question. I suppose my best answer is "Rita's Confession" from Lucky Stiff. I never really hear people talking about Lucky Stiff, or singing any of the songs. But I really like it, and this song is fantastic. It's quite hilarious and I oversung it for a long period of time.

4. A song demonstrating how overrated I think a musical is.

My answer to this is a complicated one. The musical Wild Party is a favourite of many, heaps of people LOVE the music, and I admit, a few songs I enjoy and sing along to. But the rest of it, I find absolutely awful. I think this show is far too overrated for it's own good.

5. A song which makes you happy.

Everytime I listen to "Totally F****ed" from Spring Awakening I feel so happy - and I know it's strange because it's not necessarily a happy happy song. But whenever it reaches the 'blah-blah0blah' group sung section, I feel so happy and joyous because the it's such a passionate, heartfelt part of the song. Love it.

6. A song which makes you sad/teary.

I just discovered this one recently. It's called "Soon They'll Forget" from a musical called Once We Lived Here by Matthew Frank and Dean Bryant. Mr. Frank himself gave it to my showfit class to learn and perform to him in an audition excercise and I was an absolute mess. The song was so beautiful, and so tragic that it was making me tear up just trying to learn it!

7. A song sung by your favourite female singer in a musical.

My absolute favourite female singer of all time is Julie Andrews. She's basically my idol, so I'm going to say the song "Stay Awake" from Mary Poppins. Yes I know it's a movie musical but it still counts! She sings it so beautifully.

8. A song sung by your favourite male singer in a musical.

I have so many favourite female singers but not many male ones, strangely enough. One I do love, though, is Norbert Leo Butz. He's a fantastic performer and singer. So I'll say "Schmuel's Song" from The Last Five Years. It is such a brilliant song, and so brilliantly performed.

9. A song from a musical you know all (or nearly all) of the lines to.

Hands down, any song from Jesus Christ Superstar. I am a big fan of knowing the lyrics to everything, and JCS is my all time favourite musical that I listened to NON-STOP! I can basically sing the whole recording all the way through.

10. A song from your least favourite musicl.

A musical I really dislike is Xanna Don't. Potentially, I haven't given it a big enough chance, but listening to it once through was enough for me. However there is one song I like from it called "Fast" basically because I have an obsession with singing very wordy songs very quickly, and that's basically what this whole song is about.


That's enough for today! I'll post the next ten questions soon enough :)