Welcome to the Musicals Thread, the Avocado’s space for anything and everything related to musical theatre! Every month I’ll post a discussion prompt, but please feel free to comment on other topics, from new discoveries to old favorites. If you have ideas for future prompts or would like to write a feature for the thread, let me know!
“Hal, it’s about cats.”
– Andrew Lloyd Webber to Harold Prince
The 1980’s are remembered as, among other things, an age of excess, a sentiment which bears itself out in the world of musical theatre. The decade saw the dawn of the megamusical – shows that could, arguably, more rightly be called operas, with a focus on big songs, big sets, big emotion, big casts, big spectacle – and big runs. The first was Cats (1981), which usurped A Chorus Line as the longest-running show on Broadway until The Phantom of the Opera (1986) took the title, which it still holds today.
There was, however, still room for more traditionally-styled shows, too, though arguably they went big in their own ways. La Cage aux Folles (1983) made strides for LGBT+ representation in a major Broadway hit. The use of puppetry in Little Shop of Horrors (1982) extended past the stage itself. And long before Shrek, Into the Woods (1986) pulled together multiple fairy tales to examine questions of community, morality, and responsibility.
What are your favorite/the most memorable examples of musical theatre from the 1980’s? If you’re not very familiar with this period, are you interested in changing that? Why or why not?
In the course of working on this series I tried to choose my favorite decade of musical theatre, and it proved more difficult than I expected. My two favorite individual musicals, however, were easily identified, and both debuted in the 1980’s: Les Misérables (1980), with its sweeping drama and themes of social justice and personal redemption; and Sunday in the Park with George (1983), with its precise compositions and intimate musings on the nature of creativity. There are a bunch of 80’s shows still on my list, too – I’ve had “Unexpected Song” from Song and Dance in my library for ages, for instance, and I would love to be able to put it in context.
Best Musical Tony winners (listed with the years of their original productions – I know it looks more than usual like I made multiple typos):
1980 – 42nd Street
1982 – Nine
1981 – Cats
1983 – La Cage aux Folles
1985 – Big River
1985 – The Mystery of Edwin Drood
1980 – Les Misérables
1986 – The Phantom of the Opera
1989 – Jerome Robbins’ Broadway
1989 – City of Angels