Best Play

[maestrowork]

John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer-winning play, "Doubts," won the Tony's last night.

Monty Python's "Spamalot" won best musical.


What are you favorite plays and musicals of all times?

[firehorse]

Play - Angels in America and a large handful of classics, including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Long Day's Journey into Night, A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler (even named my cat after the latter). Oh, and Six Characters in Search of an Author.

Musical - too many to list. Into the Woods tops the list - so brilliantly written on so many levels. I have a feeling Avenue Q will stand the test of time in my iPod ;). Two other favourites are Big River (saw the original and wish I could have seen the ASL version) and She Loves Me.

I tend to prefer plays, because with musicals I get caught up in that former stage manager thing of thinking too much about the technical aspects. There are scores of musicals - in both senses of the words - I love that I've never seen performed, including Godspell and Joseph. Don't really want to see either; they're too easy to do badly, but the music is fantastic.

On a personal note, one of my former classmates (well, a year ahead), Liev Schreiber, won Best Featured Actor, so that was exciting. If you ever get a chance to see this guy do Shakespeare (which he does every year at the Public), go for it - he's an American Kenneth Branagh.

[Nicholas S.H.J.M Woodhouse]

Play - hmmmmm

I'm going to go for Equus.

Its certainly not the best written play I have ever seen, but I think for every writer there are some works that 'got you' at some point in your life when you needed to be got.

On Liev Schreiber - I eagerly await his film directorial debut with the adaptation of Foer's brilliant Everything Is Illuminated this summer.

Nique.

[Sarita]

Plays-I can't think of any titles right now, but the style is Noh. Amazingly beautiful imagery and fascinating to think that all the roles were originally (and in some cases still) played by men. The Japanese really have a flair for aesthetics.

Musicals-Wow, I'm with Sarah. There are too many to mention. Some of my favorites are Les Miserables, Jesus Christ Superstar, Flower Drum Song, Sweeney Todd, Phantom, and ugh shut me up. I really think everyone needs to see a musical on Broadway at least once in their lives. My first show was Cats. I was little when I saw it, maybe 8 or 9. Spectacular. As far as performances go, hearing Old Man River from Showboat can give you chills for days. I can't go a week without listening to the entire original Broadway recording of Les Mis and at least skimming through Brightman and Crawford singing some Phantom. I love musicals, love them.

I can't wait to see Julia's list :)

[firehorse]

At least I know one person will get a kick out of my entry this week ;)

[mommie4a]

Musical - Elizabeth Swados' Runaways.

Play - Master Harold and the Boys (Athol Fugard)

[Jaoman]

As my signature makes apparent, I'm very excited about Shaw. Man and the Superman was one of the funniest things I've ever read and makes my list as my favorite.

[sunandshadow]

I don't know If I could fairly pick a best play. How do you judge a play when it's quality is completely different depending on the group performing it? And most of the plays I really like I've seen as movies, and preferred the movie version. Normally I would consider play scripts to be interchangeable with movie scripts, but since movies weren't mentioned in the original post, paybe you guys disagree?

[KTC]

I loved Ed Graczyk's "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean". It was also made into a movie that I think is worth seeing. I saw the play years and years ago and enjoyed it.

[KTC]

Sun,

I'm not sure, but I would think that most plays scripts would have to have more dialogue than screen scripts. I've heard somewhere that a screenplay should be about 25% dialogue, and I can't pull the play script percentage out of the murky depths of my soggy brain, but I think it's quite a bit higher. Anyone?

[Cassie88]

I've lived about 40 minutes outside of Manhattan for most of my life. My first play was Peter Pan with Mary Martin. Can you imagine? I was also lucky enough to see Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady. Some incredible performances I've seen: Tom Conti - Who's Life is it Anyway, Paul Sorvino - That Championship Season, John Lithgow - The Changing Room, Joel Grey - Cabaret, Ian McKellen - Amadeus, George Hern - La Cage Aux Folles, Sada Thompson - Twigs, Donna McKechnic - A Chorus Line, Robert Morse - Tru, Mandy Patinkin - Evita, Elaine Stritch - Company, Streisand - Funny Girl, .....
I love a thriller/mystery on stage.. Saw Deathtrap. There's nothing like everyone in the audience jumping out of their seat at the same time. For pure spectacle, there's nothing that can compare to The Lion King..the first number has everyone screaming and crying at the same time. I also loved Matthew Broderick and Natan Lane in The Producers... And they'll be in a limited run of The Odd Couple opening in Oct..I think... It's already sold a ton of tickets.
Great plays, great performances, Great memories. I couldn't remember all of these plays myself, mind you. I had to go Google The Tonys.....what a trip down memory lane... I feel so oldddddd.

[Kiva Wolfe]

I'm such a fan of Edward Albee. Best plays I remember...

The Rhymers of Eldrich...tragic
Hello Out There...strange play
The American Dream...witty and tragic
Philadelphia Story...just witty
Needless to say, I had bit parts in all of them. Don't get me going on musicals...

[mindelei]

I have a new play that I just love!!! "Embedded Live!" by Tim Robbins. It can be obtained via DVD through Netflix or you can always wait until the release of the DVD to the general population in September. :popcorn: