Posted by GlindatheGood22 2012-12-17 21:59:05
It seems to me every year I read some post saying how it's been such a lackluster season. So how long's it been since we had one that wasn't disappointing?
I'd say 2009. Thoughts?When Was the Last
Posted by mc1227 2012-12-17 22:00:16
I thought 2005 was an outstanding year.
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Posted by Brave Sir Robin2 2012-12-17 22:03:54
The 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 seasons were really good, I thought.
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Posted by Jordan Catalano 2012-12-17 22:04:43
2007-2008
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Posted by aasjb4ever 2012-12-17 22:04:51
2007-2008.
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Posted by carolineorchange21 2012-12-17 22:11:00
i loved the 2006-2007 season
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Posted by After Eight 2012-12-17 22:13:59
1964-65
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Posted by broadwaydevil 2012-12-17 22:16:56
The 2004 season was phenomenal.
2005 was very good.
2007 was decent.
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Posted by GlindatheGood22 2012-12-17 22:22:34
Count me among the 2007 fans as well.
And 1998:
Ragtime
Cabaret revival
Side Show
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Posted by aaronb 2012-12-17 22:37:00
I liked this season: DEATH OF A SALESMAN, VIRGINIA WOOLF, and GLENGARRY. Three solid revivals.
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Posted by Ed_Mottershead 2012-12-17 22:37:42
1955-1956
Diary of Anne Frank
Waiting for Godot
My Fair Lady
Most Happy Fella
The Great Sebastions
Tamburlaine the Great
Mr. Wonderful (Sammy Davis)
1956-1957
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Major Barbara
Bells are Ringing
New Girl in Town (Gwen Verdon at her very best)
Happy Hunting (return of Ethel Merman to Broadway, not the show)
Auntie Mame
Old Vic
Not to menton holdovers from previous seasons: The Pajama Game; Damn Yankees; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; The Desperate Hours
If you were in New York say, in January 1957, there were a lot a fine pickings, I'd say.
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Posted by chewy5000 2012-12-18 00:47:11
1975-1976
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Posted by ratherbewhaling 2012-12-18 01:00:11
I'd agree with 2009 even as someone who was disappointed with what won best musical that year, although I could understand people saying 2008 or 2007
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Posted by redmustang 2012-12-18 01:05:36
Agree with After Eight. GREAT season.
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Posted by chewy5000 2012-12-18 04:26:19
Also, 1980-1981
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Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-12-18 05:38:35
I almost hate to agree with After8, but 64-65 was what this thread topic immediately made me think of. Even some of the flops were pretty great, in hindsight.
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Posted by After Eight 2012-12-18 06:32:41
^
Why "almost?" Go the whole nine yards. Don't be so wishy washy
Besides, aren't you the one who keeps telling us that the true golden age was the seventies?
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Posted by newintown 2012-12-18 08:57:57
Define "good."
In the 2010-2011 season, I enjoyed
The Pitmen Painters
The Scottsboro Boys
The Pee-wee Herman Show
The Book of Mormon
War Horse
Sister Act and
Jerusalem - and that was just on Broadway.
Off Broadway, The Divine Sister was divine, Lost In The Stars at Encores was beautiful, and The Other Place at the Lortel was terrific.
Was it a "Golden Age?" No. But getting 10 enjoyable experiences a year isn't bad.
In the 2011-2012 season, I can only applaud
Other Desert Cities
Once
One Man, Two Guvnors on Broadway and
The Submission and Judith of Bethulia Off Broadway.
But 5 a year isn't tragic, I suppose...
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Posted by GlindatheGood22 2012-12-18 16:10:37
I really hated the 2010 season - in fact, the worst in recent memory for me. I liked the Ragtime revival and nothing else.
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Posted by newintown 2012-12-18 16:25:27
Chacun à son goût.
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Posted by Emmaloucbway 2012-12-18 17:03:58
I liked the 2010-2011 season.
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Posted by JoeKv99 2012-12-18 21:51:28
So After Eight I have to ask: Were you a habitue of Broadway 50 years ago? How may shows did you see in that glorious 64-65 season? Ben Franklin in Paris? Golden Boy? I was Dancing? Zizi? Bajour? The Family Way? Kelly? Half a Sixpence? I won't go on.
I just finished reading Season In, Season Out which a good friend gifted to me. Jack Gaver, the drama critic for UPI watched and observed every show of the 65-66 season and he pretty much hated everything. In fact, he said Broadway had reached it's nadir and probably would not survive to see the improvements implemented after the "total disasters" of recent years: More accurate accounting, better ticketing and of course, more bars in theater lobbys.
Two facts: No one EVER likes the season at hand- there's simply too high a crap-to-gems ratio. And of course, time lends enchantment. Everyone loves "Do I Hear a Waltz?" NOW but it's only because they didn't have to sit through it.
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Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-12-18 22:02:45
"Besides, aren't you the one who keeps telling us that the true golden age was the seventies?"
No, I said that few would agree with me, but for me, musicals wise, the 70s would be my golden age. I would love to be able to time travel to 1971 Broadway.
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Posted by Scarywarhol 2012-12-18 22:23:56
2006-2007, 2007-2008, and 2010-2011 were fairly good seasons, I thought. Dry years in between, and this one has been lousy. It will bounce back like always, I'm sure...but what a terrible season.
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Posted by broadwaydevil 2012-12-18 23:17:59
No one EVER likes the season at hand- there's simply too high a crap-to-gems ratio.
Thank you for pointing that out. Truer words have never been spoken. Even in the "best" years all of us have been citing, there was tons of crap but it's quickly forgotten as years pass and we remember only the highlights. The more that I think about, 2011 wasn't such a bad season. (The Book of Mormon, The Scottsboro Boys, The Normal Heart, Anything Goes, War Horse, Jerusalem.)
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Posted by After Eight 2012-12-18 23:47:40
"So After Eight I have to ask: Were you a habitue of Broadway 50 years ago?"
Yes.
"Two facts:"
Two misstatements.
"No one EVER likes the season at hand-"
Nonsense. Utterly absurd. Personally, I was in heaven in many seasons. Look at the yearbooks in the 50's-- critics spoke very highly of the seasons they had seen. Even here, people have been raving about recent seasons.
"And of course, time lends enchantment."
More nonsense. If I lived another 50 years, Mother/Hat or Once would seem every bit as horrible as they did when I saw them.
"Everyone loves "Do I Hear a Waltz?" NOW but it's only because they didn't
have to sit through it. "
More drivel. Not everyone loves it now, and plenty of people sat though it then and liked it, myself among them.
And what's your problem, anyway? Every season has its good and bad shows, even the greatest in history. The question was what do you think was the last good season? People gave different answers. I gave mine. I can't even begin to imagine why that bothers you so.
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Posted by After Eight 2012-12-18 23:57:11
"No, I said that few would agree with me, but for me, musicals wise, the 70s would be my golden age."
If the seventies, musicals wise, represents the golden age to you, how is it then that the last good season, in your opinion, was 1964-65?
Your golden age didn't even have one good season?
Wow, that's golden, all right.
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Posted by Someone in a Tree2 2012-12-19 00:01:56
I'm with Eric in raving about the musical outpourings of the 70's as a DECADE, but finding one single wonderful June-to-June period proved much more challenging when I actually looked at the offerings of each season. Here are my tops-- (and my seasons may not conform to the Tony's rules):
'50-'51: GUYS & DOLLS, CALL ME MADAM, THE KING & I, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN
'57-'58: WEST SIDE STORY, JAMAICA, THE MUSIC MAN
'59-'60: THE SOUND OF MUSIC, FIORELLO, ONCE UPON A MATTRESS, BYE BYE BIRDIE, (& THE FANTASTICS off-B)
'61-'62: MILK & HONEY, HOW TO SUCCEED..., NO STRINGS, ...FORUM
'63-'64: 110 IN THE SHADE, HELLO DOLLY!, FUNNY GIRL, (ANYONE CAN WHISTLE)
'66-'67: THE APPLE TREE, CABARET, I DO! I DO!
'68-'69: ZORBA, PROMISES PROMISES, 1776
'75-'76: CHICAGO, A CHORUS LINE, PACIFIC OVERTURES
'83-'84: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, THE RINK, SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE
'89-'90: GRAND HOTEL, CITY OF ANGELS, ASPECTS OF LOVE (and ONCE ON THIS ISLAND off-B)
'97-'98: SIDE SHOW, THE LION KING, RAGTIME, CABARET revisal, (and HEDWIG off-B)
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Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-12-19 00:07:30
I echo your previous post A8--Why does saying the 70s as a decade, but saying '64 as a season stands out in my mind, bother you so?
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Posted by newintown 2012-12-19 09:35:01
"Jack Gaver, the drama critic for UPI watched and observed every show of the 65-66 season and he pretty much hated everything."
I've never heard of Gaver, and doubt that a writer for the UPI deserves much respect for arts writing, but he didn't like:
A revival of The Glass Menagerie with Maureen Stapleton, Piper Laurie, George Grizzard and Pat Hingle?
Oliver!?
Peter Shaffer's Royal Hunt Of The Sun, directed by John Dexter and starring Christopher Plummer and George Rose?
Man of La Mancha?
Ellis Rabb's revival of You Can't Take It With You starring Rosemary Harris?
Cactus Flower? (We may have forgotten, but it was a phenomenal hit, and it's a good comedy.)
Marat/Sade?
Sweet Charity?
Brian Friel's Philadelphia Here I Come!?
If he didn't like any of those, then he can't like anything. Even I (who have a reputation for hating everything) just applauded 15 productions from the past few years.
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Posted by JoeKv99 2012-12-19 10:06:44
You caught me- he did indeed enjoy Plummer in Royal Hunt but bemoaned more didn't see it.
And After Eight I apologize for questioning your having "Been there" 47 years ago. I'll try not to provoke a man of your age- all I was trying to say that to my (comparatively youthful) eyes Every season is lambasting in it's day (The OP's point, actually) and somehow, magically, BECOMES great in retrospect. I hadn't heard of Gaver before I read his book either. I found it very interesting that this book and The Season both are particularly contemptuous of the Broadway output during an era held in such high regard.
Personally I think that's because in retrospect we can cherish the highs and overlook the lows. Contemporaneously we do the reverse.
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Posted by newintown 2012-12-19 10:21:25
Actually, doesn't Goldman have a lot of praise for several shows that flopped? (Like Joe Egg and The Unknown Soldier and His Wife?)
I feel like he was more pessimistic about "hits" like Hair, and he's very good at pointing out what many others have said - that Hair was more interesting and had more integrity in its earlier incarnations than the glossed-up version that opened on Broadway and pandered to suburbanites.
I really don't see The Season as a complaint of no quality on Broadway; it's much more complex than that. I think he was saying that there was room and some desire for good work on Broadway, but tourists clamor for low-brow fare, and economics require pandering to the largest number of tourists possible, ruling out the possibility of productions of more interesting work.
Edit: Looking at that season, too, you see that although there were almost twice as many shows produced then as there are now, very few of them ran long enough to succeed. The hits that year (as Goldman noted) were Hair and Plaza Suite, with semi-respectable runs for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, There's a Girl in My Soup, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and The Price.
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Posted by songanddanceman2 2012-12-19 11:04:30
newintown i love that you are a Charles Busch fan, Divine Sister was brilliant. Presenting the UK Premieres of his plays is a delight, as is the ma himself. Only one i have not seen is Judith
