Welcome! The purpose of this thread is to talk about all things related to the wonderful world of musical theatre. Each week I will post a thread with a topic/question for everyone to respond to. This is also a great place to mention any new musicals you’ve discovered and/or general recommendations for other musical fans. Heard/seen any good shows lately? Have any theatre news to share? Tell us about it!

I totally forgot about The Christmas Story live, and so I didn’t watch it. I planned to watch and talk about it this week…but I was playing D&D and failed you all. So, instead, I’m going to put all the pressure on you this week! What do you think about TV productions of musicals? Were there particular shows that you really liked? Or hated? Why? What shows would you like to see performed in the future? Did anyone watch The Christmas Story? Was it good?

I only saw Grease and Hairspray. They weren’t bad, but Hairspray was better. They did some pretty smart things to make the show work for TV, but they also did some pretty silly things (like Darren Criss “hosting” or whatever that was about). I’m really curious about The Christmas Story because I love the movie (of course) but don’t know anything about the musical. In general, I think the idea is good. Putting on musicals for TV seems fun, and it could lead to some really interesting productions. But I’m not sure they’ve figured out how to do it yet. Part of the problem is the casting. Because it’s TV they tend to cast big names (whatever that means), but that doesn’t always make sense. For example, I just saw that they cast John Legend as Jesus for NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar. That might work, I don’t really know much about John Legend, but when I was reading about that news I saw that they also cast Alice Cooper as King Herod. Um, no. Alice Cooper is cool (he signed my shoe when I was in high school!) but I don’t think he can pull this one off. So, casting is a problem. But there are other issues as well. Honestly, I would love it if they just filmed stage productions, but I assume TV producers (or whoever) think that general audiences would be bored by that. Maybe they would, I don’t know.

So, what do you all think about TV musicals?

And, just to plug last week’s post, if you didn’t get a chance to read it or comment, please do! I wrote a crazy long thing about Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, and I asked you all to share your favorite theatrical experiences of 2017 (I’d love to hear about your favorite moments from this year). There wasn’t a whole lot of traffic in the thread last week, which makes me wonder if Tuesday has become too popular. When I originally started doing this Tuesday was pretty empty, but it seems like it’s a busy day now. So, in addition to everything else, if you have any thoughts about the best day of the week/time to have this thread, let me know!