Musicals Oak Park IL

Almost 12 million people saw Broadway shows in the United States in 2005 which doesn’t take into account the touring musicals. Favorite musicals transcend time and some of the first modern day musicals ever made remain favorites today. For an extra special occasion, some people choose to see musicals over other forms of entertainment.

Of course, part of the appeal of seeing a musical on the stage is the exciting night out going to dinner and a show. The same person who wouldn’t stay home to watch a forty year old movie would jump at the chance to see the same story come alive on the stage. When it comes to musicals, many people prefer to see live, real actors on the stage over television broadcasts.

Musicals have been made from films and vice versa. Sometimes the film comes first and the musical follows. Even animated films such as Disney’s The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast have been smash hits on the modern stage. In fact, animal costumes have won many awards for the musical and the costume designers.

We’ve gotten songs from musicals that will endear us forever. Hello Dolly’s title song was the biggest hit of a recording artist’s life, Louis Armstrong and at age 63, his record hit number one on the pop charts. Further, many of the popular tunes from the musical Annie are still the favorite tunes of many children.

Musicals have set and broken records for years. The latest and one of the most exciting records broken in the theatre was in 2006 when Phantom of the Opera outran Cats as the longest running musical. It was Andrew Lloyd Webber beating himself while his number 1 and number 2 musicals changed places on the longest running list.

Worldwide, Phantom of the Opera has had a box office take of well over 3 billion dollars which is another record. Fortunes are made and lost in the theatre, and while one artist’s version of a musical “makes it” while another’s doesn’t is anybody’s guess.

In the meantime, we are entertained, sometimes educated and forever grateful to the art form that is the musical, to see an artist’s vision come alive on the stage and in the end to relive those memories in our living rooms. Musicals combine music and drama, thereby combining two fantastic forms of entertainment into one genre: this could be why musicals remain such a popular form of entertainment today.

A Disney animated movie, The Lion King made its Broadway debut on November 13, 1997. There have been several international productions of The Lion King in places such as the U.K., China, Germany, the Netherlands and other countries.

We first fell in love with Annie April 21, 1977 and loved her through all of her 2,377 performances. So much so that we brought her back 20 years later. The revival of Annie made its Broadway debut on March 26, 1997 and lasted another 239 performances. From a comic strip to a book to a Broadway musical and then a film, Annie has millions of admirers regardless of the platform. Further, one may find that Annie is a musical that is commonly reproduced in many high schools and college settings.

Oklahoma is one of the most famous musicals of all time and it premiered on Broadway on March 31, 1943 and played for 2,212 performances. Oklahoma is based on the play “Green Grow the Lilacs” by Lynn Riggs and came to be a Rodgers and Hammerstein production.

Rent made its Broadway debut on April 29, 1996 and quickly won over a generation of what has come to be known as “rentheads.” Adding to the romanticism of the musical is the sad fact that the composer and author of the book, Jonathon Larsen died unexpectedly from an aortic aneurysm the night before the show’s first off-Broadway performance and 10 days before his 36th birthday. Now in its 11th year of production, and one of the longest running Broadway shows, Rent is still drawing crowds.

Mention the Von Trapp family and whoever is listening immediately knows you’re talking about The Sound of Music. This musical that transcends all generations started as a memoir by Maria Von Trapp and has been put into various forms of music and drama all over the world. To this day, the Von Trapp descendents carry on Maria’s legacy.

Grease as the musical film version may have been more famous than Grease the stage musical but that’s where it started and it went on for a whopping 3,388 performances in 8 years. Musicals like Grease often result in popular songs and there is even a sequel to the first film.

One of the most successful and longest running musicals in history, Les Miserables came to Broadway in 1987 and ran until 2003 with 6,680 performances making it the 3rd longest running musical ever in the United States after The Phantom of the Opera and Cats. It is the longest running musical in London. A newer version opened on Broadway in November of 2006 and is expected to run 6 months. Les Miserables has also been staged in China, Japan, Argentina and Brazil and other countries as well. Based on the 1862 Victor Hugo book, it has been staged in schools and theaters all over the world.

West Side Story made its Broadway debut in 1957 and performed 732 shows which were for its time, considered a successful run. If that was successful then the 1956 Broadway musical My Fair Lady must have been considered ultra successful with a run of 2,717 shows. Actually, it was even more than that as it was a Broadway record.

Fiddler on the Roof debuted on Broadway in 1964 and was made into a film in 1971. Regarded as one of the most famous Broadway musicals, it was brought to Broadway for the fourth time in 2004 and ended that run in 2006.