What makes a great musical ?

Jesus Christ Superstar contains one of the best known love songs of all time: I don't know how to love him...

I don't think Moby Dick had a love plot. How about something like Nunsense? (Years since I've seen it...)

I can think of musicals with amazing scores but weak books that I love (Mack and Mabel). I can also think of musicals with weak scores but amazing books that I love (Blood Brothers). I can't think of any musicals with weak scores AND weak books that I love.

I wouldn't personally call the whole musical great unless it has both, but that doesn't mean I don't love them and see great aspects in them.

I think the production does matter. I've seen musicals that I think COULD be very good performed terribly badly and could still get a feel for how it might have been (Dogfight - not at Southwark!). Also, the production will change how you feel about that show. I personally loved the Menier production of Pippin and the direction made me see the show in a whole new light. But it's not all about big effects and flash. I love the Fringe more than the big commercial shows more and more. The performers have to make me believe in their emotion. The helicopter was great but if I hadn't cared about Kim and Chris's fate then it would have meant nothing. 

A great musical, for me, has to touch my soul. It doesn't need to be perfect, but I agree with Theatremonkey for saying "One that changes forever how you feel, look at or think about some aspect of life or the world.
" 

I also love to be surprised. I remember the first time I saw Into the Woods and realised what the Princes were really like, and thought it was brilliant. And the lyrics are so clever and don't always go in the way I expect. I love some unpredictability. Thus Jersey Boys/Buddy/Beautiful, to me, are definitely NOT great.


All the shows I love the most DO have great lyrics, tunes and plots, and have mostly been produced well in the versions I've seen. But, more than that, they are the ones that have succeeded in making me sob, or laugh, or both, and really care about the characters and touched some aspect of my own life. By my own definition, this means that shows as diverse as Into the Woods, Wicked and Carrie (which is clearly flawed in some ways, but made a huge impact on me) are great, to me. 

I've been writing a musical for a few months now. Your comments are really interesting to me. I feel like we have a great concept, but getting the actual book right is soooo difficult, yet very important. You have to try and get to a high point at the end of the first act, but you have to save some stuff for the second act as well otherwise the second act will be disappointing. I'm very aware of the fact that in order to make the musical succeed we'll need a great "I want song" early on in the show, a huge first act finale and a very strong 11 o'clock song. But of course, none of these songs will have a big impact if the book isn't solid. It's really tough, but I think it will be very rewarding once it's finished.

The main problem at the moment is that I have a very big first act finale but the scenes leading up to it are hardly about anything. The only purpose they serve is they set up the finale. These scenes are necessary for the finale to work, but the dialogue in these scenes is very uninteresting so far because the characters don't really have that much to talk about because the thing that's going to change the pace of the story hasn't happened yet. Very frustrating to know you have a great first act finale, but your lead up to it is quite boring

Throw in a tap number. Job done.

Works every time.

You can't have scenes that are there just to set up other scenes - there's no room for that. The show will sag and your act one finale will be undermined. Sounds like you need to rethink the story, perhaps complicate it so that something interesting happens to other characters not being fully serviced now. Whatever. Setups and transitions are out - go from big moment to big moment. Easy for me to say, I know.

Yeah.  Mendelssohn wrote such a lovely tune for that. 


I think it's many things: 

Commercial Success

1) Sociocultural attitudes at the time
2) A star in the show
3) A star having written the show (doesn't mean the score has to be good - Kinky Boots)
4) Material people are familiar with

Artistic Success

Who knows - or everyone would write a hit! 

Mendelssohn's violin concerto of course. Tut tut surprised you don't know this! 

True. They tried to pin it down using computers for "Beyond the Fence". I haven't seen it, but many people said that it was good, but it felt a bit too streamlined. I'm also in this facebook group where the composer for that show said that the computer was actually more of a hindrance than a help. So I don't think there's a real fixed formula for a great musical other than making sure you have a strong book and score.

No need to sit through all that proper music, just have a look at this.


Of of course this isn't where I git the answer from, I knew it from being proper clever like.