{"id":20287,"date":"2015-09-10T18:54:40","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T01:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=20287"},"modified":"2026-03-29T17:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T00:06:10","slug":"a-list-of-musicals-ive-seen-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=20287","title":{"rendered":"A List Of Musicals I&#8217;ve Seen Live"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><figcaption><em><a href=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/come-from-away-at-asolo-rep.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-27748\" src=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/come-from-away-at-asolo-rep-590x393.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"590\" height=\"393\" srcset=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/come-from-away-at-asolo-rep-590x393.jpeg 590w, https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/come-from-away-at-asolo-rep-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/come-from-away-at-asolo-rep-768x512.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/come-from-away-at-asolo-rep.jpeg 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 590px) 100vw, 590px\" \/><\/a>Scene from the production of &#8220;Come From Away&#8221; I saw in 2025<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>So I was chatting with Myca earlier today, and he mentioned seeing <em>Amelie The Musical<\/em> and wanted to know if I&#8217;d like the Playbill. No, I said, I don&#8217;t collect Playbills; but the conversation made me regret that I haven&#8217;t made a habit of keeping playbills for the musicals I&#8217;ve seen, because now I&#8217;m sure I can&#8217;t remember all the ones I&#8217;ve seen live.<\/p>\n<p>But anyway, the conversation motivated me to try to make a list of all the musicals I can remember seeing, in the hopes that this can replace having kept all those playbills.<\/p>\n<p>So here\u2019s the list. A bunch are Broadway, three are West End, some are local but professional productions (mainly in Portland), some are national tours, a few are school or college productions. In a few cases, I\u2019ve seen them live multiple times.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>13 (local Ithaca production)<\/li>\n<li>The 25th Annual Putman County Spelling Bee<\/li>\n<li>42nd Street. (West End, Oct 2017, with Sheena Easton and Clare Halse. Incoherent story, wonderful tapdancing.)<\/li>\n<li>The Addams Family Musical. (Franklin High School production, Portland, OR, Nov 2019. Fun high school production. They had a girl playing Fester, and she was wonderful.)<\/li>\n<li>An American In Paris (West End, Oct 2017. Leanne Cope, who originated Lise in Paris and on Broadway, played Lise. AMAZING sets, also wonderful dancing.)<\/li>\n<li>Annie. My parents took us to see this on Broadway &#8211; one of the first Broadway musicals I ever saw. I\u2019m pretty sure that we saw Dorothy Loudon, still the best Miss Hannigan ever. I can&#8217;t remember if the Annie was Andrea McArdle or if she&#8217;d been replaced by this point; but I do remember my instant crush on whoever the lead actress was, which occupied my thoughts for weeks afterwards. This would have been around 1977. Seen again a year of so later in the Camp Modin production. And seen again, the non-equity national tour in Portland in May 2024 &#8211; so 47 years between the first time I saw it and the most recent time! In 2024, the standout cast member for me was Christopher Swan as Warbucks; he did a good job acting it and his voice sounded so rich.<\/li>\n<li>Annie Get Your Gun (Bernadette Peters again)<\/li>\n<li>Assassins (A local production in Massachusetts. Really good.) (And again in Portland, June 2024, seen with Charles and Becky and Tina and Jenn.\u00a0 Very small theater, with the proprietor played as a drag queen, and on the whole a thrilling production.)<\/li>\n<li>Avenue Q (March 2026, Portland production at Brunish the Theater, which is a fairly small space. Saw it with Charles and Sydney. It was a good production, and we all had a lot of fun, and agreed that the Kate actress, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.columbian.com\/news\/2017\/nov\/10\/daughter-of-theatres-founders-takes-reigns\/\">Emily Alexander<\/a>, was particularly great.)<\/li>\n<li>The Band&#8217;s Visit. (Broadway, 2018. Tony Shalhoub had left the show by this time, but Katrina Lenk was still there and was wonderful.)<\/li>\n<li>Barnum (Jim Dale and Glenn Close) Our parents took us &#8211; one of the first Broadway musicals I saw. The main thing I remember is being amazed when Dale walked a tightrope over the stage.<\/li>\n<li>Bat Boy (A not-good production in L.A., seen with Mandolin. The lead actor was disabled &#8211; he was missing most of both his arms &#8211; and although he was very good, having the actor being genuinely, visibly disabled threw off the comedy. Mandolin and I agreed afterward that we&#8217;d rather see him play Mark in &#8220;Rent.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Black_Nativity\">Black Nativity<\/a>. (Taken to this by my aunt Marlene in 2018, in Sarasota. Predictable story &#8211; I mean, well, duh &#8211; but wonderful singers.)<\/li>\n<li>Beetlejuice. (Saw the national tour in Portland April 2024. Justin Collette and Isabella Ensler were the leads. It won&#8217;t be an all-time favorite for me, but it was lots of fun and, as you&#8217;d expect from a national tour, had great sets and an amazingly skilled ensemble.)<\/li>\n<li>Bright Star. (Sarasota, December 2019. Seen with my mom sister bro-in-law niece nephew. I didn&#8217;t love the story, but the performances were mostly good or great, and the bluegrass-style music was so much fun.)<\/li>\n<li>Cabaret (Pacific University production, in Forest Grove, OR, October 2025. Excellent for a college production. Fun variety of gender presentations. I thought the actors playing the landlady and her boyfriend were especially good. Seen with Charles, Becky, and Naomi.)<\/li>\n<li>Candide (Portland opera, May 2012. I went to the dress rehearsal and even <a href=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=15432\">did some drawings<\/a>.)<\/li>\n<li>Chicago (Broadway revival.)<\/li>\n<li>A Chorus Line, on Broadway. This is the first musical I saw multiple times &#8211; my parents took me to see it, and in high school I took myself a couple of additional times, because it was so easy to take a train to Manhattan and get half-price tickets to this show.<\/li>\n<li>Come From Away (<a href=\"https:\/\/asolorep.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Come-From-Away-Playbill-NHL-edit.pdf\">Asolo Repertory Theater<\/a> in Sarasota, FL, Dec 2025). Seen with my mom and my sister and her fam. Really excellent production. Cast was universally excellent, just slightly weaker than the OBC, and overall the production was as good as the Broadway (it helped that they had more of a set).<\/li>\n<li>Company (2006 or 2007. Broadway revival with Raul Esparza, although to be honest I can no longer remember if it was Esparza I saw or an understudy. Regardless, it was spectacular. The best of the three John Doyle directed Sondheim shows I&#8217;ve seen.) And then seen again in July 2024, in Portland, the national tour of the &#8220;Bobbi&#8221; Broadway revival. The production was great, the staging very clever, and the performers were all very good without any being outstanding.<\/li>\n<li>Doctor Horrible\u2019s Sing-Along Blog (unauthorized live adaptation). Seen at a small theater in Portland; Bean and I took our nieces Maddox and Sydney. We didn\u2019t tell them where we were taking them, but had fun dropping hints at our dinner at Subway first (\u201cPenny for your thoughts?\u201d \u201cHow horrible!\u201d \u201cLet\u2019s hammer it home\u2026\u201d etc.) They restored Moist\u2019s song; the actor came out soaking wet and did lots of big arm swings and kicks so the audience got splattered. The girls had fun, but complained that we should have let them know ahead of time so they could cosplay for it.<\/li>\n<li>Dreamgirls (West End, Oct 2017. Amber Riley from &#8220;Glee&#8221; starred.)<\/li>\n<li>Evil Dead The Musical (Seattle, seen with Robin aka J Squid. In the back row, so no blood spattered on us, sadly.)<\/li>\n<li>Falsettos (Mandy Patinkin, Chip Zein, Faith Prince &#8211; what an astounding cast!) 1993, so I was about 25. My sister and I were taken by our parents. We had front row seats, iirc &#8211; it was stunning.<\/li>\n<li>Fiddler On The Roof (Camp Modin production! Still counts!) (And then again, in June 2019 &#8211; an off-Broadway Yiddish-language production, which was excellent.)<\/li>\n<li>Footloose (local production with teen cast, including my niece, in Ithaca).<\/li>\n<li>Fun Home (One of my very favorite musicals. Better live than on the cast album, and the cast album is <em>amazing<\/em>. Seen on Broadway, with the original cast; my mom took me and Becky and Naomi to see it.) (A year or two later, saw a Portland production of the show, which was not AS great but was still great.)<\/li>\n<li>A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (Nathan Lane again)<\/li>\n<li>Gentleman&#8217;s Guide to Love and Murder. (2018, with my mom, in Sarasota.)<\/li>\n<li>Guys and Dolls (1992 Broadway revival with Nathan Lane and Faith Prince) (And also a 1985-ish production at Staples High School, which I painted the marquee for). (And also a really fun and excellent production by Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida, 2016, with my mom and sister.)<\/li>\n<li>Hadestown. (National tour, seen 7\/22\/2022). Saw this one with my housemate Charles and our friends Alexis and Mike.<\/li>\n<li>Hair (Umass production)<\/li>\n<li>Hairspray (Another one that I put on the list, so i guess I&#8217;ve seen it, but now (in 2018) I don&#8217;t recall seeing it. Presumably a local Portland production?)<\/li>\n<li>Hamilton (the &#8220;And Peggy&#8221; National Tour, seen 4\/15\/2022). Seen with Charles, Rachel and Mike. As good as you&#8217;d expect overall, but the actor playing George Washington &#8211; Darnell Abraham &#8211; was outstanding, much better then any of the actors I&#8217;ve seen perform the part on video.<\/li>\n<li>Heathers. Local Portland production which I took Sydney and Maddox to see. It was fun. During the simulated sex in \u201cDead Girl Walking,\u201d Sydney covered her own eyes with one hand and Maddox\u2019s eyes with her other hand, but Maddox peeked over.<\/li>\n<li>Hello, Dolly. (Broadway 2018, with Bernadette Peters and Victor Garber.)<\/li>\n<li>Hereville: The Musical (reading). I&#8217;ve actually seen two readings of this work-in-progress based on my graphic novels, both in 2023, one in San Diego and one in NYC. I&#8217;m biased, obviously, but I&#8217;m really impressed with the work they&#8217;ve done.<\/li>\n<li>In The Heights (Tiny local Portland production, seen 4\/29\/2016.) (And then again, in a big production at Portland Center Stage, September and October 2019. I saw it twice &#8211; the first time I was invited by the production to sketch the show. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/posts\/in-heights-29639174\">You can see the resulting drawing here<\/a>. Then I traded a high-res copy of the drawing to a cast member in exchange for tickets to see it again!)<\/li>\n<li>Into the Woods (OBC, w\/ Bernadette Peters) At the end of Act 1, I thought the play was over, and my mom stopped me from walking off. Later on, they added the narrator telling the audience &#8220;To be continued!&#8221; at the end of Act 1, so presumably I wasn&#8217;t the only one to make this mistake.<br \/>\nYears later, I saw a small local production in Massachusetts, with Charles and Sarah. They had beautiful costumes. The very intimate theater really added something &#8211; the song \u201cNo One Is Alone,\u201d especially, had much more impact on me here.<\/li>\n<li>Ivy &amp; Bean. Intended-for-kids production; I was invited to livesketch the dress rehearsal, and then they gave me tickets so I brought Sydney and Maddox to see it.<\/li>\n<li>James and the Giant Peach. I took Maddox and Sydney to see this one. This might have been another one I got tickets for as a reward for live-sketching the dress rehearsal?<\/li>\n<li>Jesus Christ Superstar (Oberlin College production, 1987-ish)<br \/>\n&#8230;And again in 2021, with Sydney and Sydney&#8217;s boyfriend, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.portland-theater.com\/theaters\/keller-auditorium\/jesus-christ-superstar.php#:~:text=Cast%20and%20Creative&amp;text=The%20ensemble%20includes%20David%20Andre,Paul%20Louis%20Lessard%2C%20Eric%20A.\">at the Keller Auditorium<\/a> in Portland. This was a delayed-by-Covid US tour of the <a href=\"https:\/\/openairtheatreheritage.com\/productions\/jesus-christ-superstar\/V6tQGygAAIgwdZLD\">2016 London revival<\/a>. A bit too abstract and impersonal for my tastes, despite being very well done. Had odd elements, like when Jesus is being whipped, instead of whipping him 39 times, he had glitter thrown at him 39 times.<\/li>\n<li>Kimberly Akimbo (Seen on Broadway in November 2023, with Vicotria Clark and Bonnie Milligan. This was a week I saw five musicals, and KA was my least favorite, although I actually liked it quite a lot, it was a good week.)<\/li>\n<li>Kinky Boots (Seen on Broadway, with my mom.)<\/li>\n<li>Kiss Of The Spider Woman (Original Bwy cast w\/ Chita Rivera) (And then again in Portland, seen with Becky.)<\/li>\n<li>The Last 5 Years, in a Portland production. Saw this with my friend Becky, who introduced me to the show. (We also saw the movie together, but that was a different occasion.)<\/li>\n<li>Les Miserables (bwy)<\/li>\n<li>The Life (bwy). (My parents took me to this, but my mom has no memory of it at all. Honestly, all I remember about this musical is the fact that I did see it.)<\/li>\n<li>Lizzie (Punk rock show about Lizzie Borden. Seen with my friend Becky in Portland.)<\/li>\n<li>Lost In The Image Machine (This was an original musical at Oberlin College, written and directed by a student named Tom Abernathy, who was a very talented musician and performer. Not sure where Tom is today, but I hope he&#8217;s having fun.)<\/li>\n<li>The Magic Show, with Doug Henning. This is one of the first Broadway musicals I ever saw; my parents took me, of course. This show is long-forgotten, but it had music by Stephen Schwartz, and I keep on meaning to find a copy of the cast album to see if it&#8217;s at least fun. David Ogden Stiers was in it. The main thing I remember is when Henning covered his female co-star with a sheet and then appeared to set her on fire. I also remember that I couldn&#8217;t follow the plot, but that happened to me a lot when I was a kid.<\/li>\n<li>Mamma Mia. Stumptown Stages production in Portland; I saw this February of 2020 with Charles and Mike. It was silly fun, which really is all Mamma Mia needs to be.<\/li>\n<li>Mean Girls. National Tour when they came to Portland in November 2021, seen with Charles, Mandolin, and Mike, at Keller Auditorium. My seat was far enough back that I brought low-power binoculars with me, which actually worked very well. It was pretty much a replica of the Broadway production (they&#8217;d changed lyrics here and there), and I had a wonderful time. The actress playing Gretchen Wieners, Megan Masako Haley, I also saw in New York playing a smaller role in Pacific Overtures.<\/li>\n<li>Merrily We Roll Along, seen on Broadway November 2023, with Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez in the leads. This was so excellent; I was blown away. It&#8217;s up there with the Broadway revival of &#8220;Once On This Island&#8221; for &#8220;most perfect production I&#8217;ve ever seen, no change would improve it.&#8221; (Also, I was sitting front and center, and I got wet three times: a little splash that hit me and my neighbors when the cast toasted at the end of &#8220;That Frank,&#8221; a little bit of Jon Groff spittle, and a larger splash when an ensemble member playing a maid with a tray accidently dropped a glass and a good splash hit me in the face!)<\/li>\n<li>Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play (Only marginally a musical, but they do sing, so&#8230; Seen with Becky, who was totally blown away, and Charles, in Portland. It was a really fun and interesting production &#8211; there are three acts, and each act was done in a different location, so the audience got up and walked to the next place at each act break.)<\/li>\n<li>The Mystery of Edmund Drood (I added this later, because I originally forgot to include it on the list. Which is kind of sad, because not only did I see this particular UMASS production, I drew the poster for it.)<\/li>\n<li>A New Brain (Seen in Portland with Charles, but I have barely any memory of it!)<\/li>\n<li>Once. (A very good production in Sarasota, Florida, December 2017. The cast was excellent, the staging elegant, but I just don&#8217;t get the appeal of this much-praised show, which might as well have been titled &#8220;Magic Pixie Dream Girl: The Musical.&#8221; Also, it&#8217;s always a problem when the plot hinges on the main character being an incredibly brilliant songwriter, when the songs themselves are actually quite meh.)<\/li>\n<li>Once On This Island (Broadway 2018 revival with Lea Solonga, and damn was this show spectacular.) (And then again, on my 55th birthday in 2022, at a tiny local production a ten minute drive from my house. The actress playing Asaka seemed about 12, and that actually worked fine and was sort of neat; there&#8217;s no reason a goddess can&#8217;t embody herself as a child, after all).<\/li>\n<li>Pacific Overtures (the 2017 off-Broadway revival with George Takai. This was directed by John Doyle, who also directed the Broadway revivals of Company and Sweeney Todd I saw, and it was wonderful. Radically different from the original production, however. Seen with Becky.)<\/li>\n<li>Parade (Portland production in a tiny theater, but really good. Seen with Becky. Front row seat, at one point a member of the company stumbled over my feet.)<\/li>\n<li>Passing Strange (May 2024. Portland production in a tiny theater &#8211; Portland Playhouse, to be specific, which was also where we saw Mr Burns. Really good production, entire cast was great, with a woman playing the narrator which I thought was interesting because it probably made it take longer for audience members to realize that the narrator and the main character are the same person. Seen with Charles and Becky.)<\/li>\n<li>Passion (Original bwy cast w\/ Donna Murphy)<\/li>\n<li>Pete the Cat. Kid\u2019s musical I livesketched in 2018, at Oregon Children\u2019s Theatre.<\/li>\n<li>The Phantom of the Auditorium. Kid\u2019s musical based on a novel from the \u201cGoosebumps\u201d series, at Oregon Children\u2019s Theatre. I went with Sydney and Maddox. <a href=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/phantomoftheauditorium.png\">I drew the poster<\/a> for this production!<\/li>\n<li>Pippin -the Bwy revival with the circus acrobats. Purely spectacle, so much jaw-dropping fun. The moment in the first song when the curtain dropped and there was a circus in progress already happening on stage was just stunning.<br \/>\nAlso, the least comfortable seat I&#8217;ve ever had in a theater, my hips hurt for days afterwards. It looked like the theater had extended the rows by one seat, but there was a drop to the aisle, so my right foot was six inches lower than my left. But I did have a sightline to backstage and could see the actors preparing to enter.<br \/>\nSeen again in a local production in Portland In Feb 2026, with Charles. Influenced by the circus production, but without 95% of the circus elements. It was a lot of fun, not as spectacular as the Bwy but it did feel tighter, more focused.<\/li>\n<li>The Pirates of Penzance (Kevin Kline as the Pirate King). I\u2019m not sure which was the very first Broadway musical my parents took me to see, but this is a possibility. I remember being stunned by the energy of Kline\u2019s performance. Also, the bit where Kline got into a swordfight with the conductor, who defended himself with his baton, was the single funniest thing I\u2019d seen in my entire life, especially when the conductor won.<\/li>\n<li>Putting It Together (Local Portland production. I have literally zero recollection of seeing this, by my friend Kevin has a very clear memory of seeing this with me.)<\/li>\n<li>Rent &#8211; first seen on Broadway. I was so startled that many people in the audience were singing along!. Later on I brought Sydney and Maddox to a professional Portland production in a very tiny theater &#8211; I think Becky may have been with us as well. It was fun, and the way they restaged \u201cContact,\u201d to focus on Angel and Collins rather than the whole cast, made it work much better.<\/li>\n<li>The Rocky Horror Show (this was a local production, I think in Massachusetts.)<\/li>\n<li>Ruthless! (teeny tiny production in Portland)<\/li>\n<li>The Scarlet Pimpernel (Original Bwy cast)<\/li>\n<li>Seussical. Portland production I took Sydney and Maddox to see. I have basically zero memory of this, although I quite like the Seussical original cast album. I should ask my neices if they remember this.<\/li>\n<li>Show Boat (1994 Bwy revival with Elaine Stritch and Rebecca Lurker. Seen with my mom, who asked me afterward if Stritch &#8211; who was very flat &#8211; used to be good.)<\/li>\n<li>Side Show (1997 Bwy original cast. I think I saw this with my parents.)<\/li>\n<li>Six (touring company in Portland in July 2023. The cast included Natalie Paris at Jane Seymour &#8211; who originated the part on the West End in 2017. Gabriela Carrillo as Catherine Parr radiated energy and was practically bouncing sometimes.)<\/li>\n<li>Some Like It Hot, seen on Broadway with mom in September 2023. So much fun! With Christian Borle and J. Harrison Ghee. The whole things was bouncy, energetic, and likable, but to me the most memorable part was the final chase scene with the gangsters after the main characters and the cops after the gangsters, which was done as a long (ten minutes?) screwball comedy based dance with the full cast, and worked remarkably well. I also loved when the two main characters put on their female personas for the first time, which took place onstage during a song.<\/li>\n<li>Spring Awakening (local production with teen cast in Ithaca NY. Seen with my mom, and with my sister and her family. Very loud but fuzzy sounds, impossible to make out the words, I didn&#8217;t enjoy it. I think my sister later said it&#8217;s the worst musical she&#8217;s ever seen.)<\/li>\n<li>Sweeney Todd (perhaps my all-time favorite musical, I&#8217;ve seen this on Broadway (the revival with Patti Lupone), at a UMASS production I drew the poster for, and in Portland. It&#8217;s a shame they never made a movie of it. THEY NEVER MADE A MOVIE OF IT! IT NEVER HAPPENED!) September 2023: Seen again on Broadway, this time with Josh Groban and Anneleigh Ashford.\u00a0 A stunning, wonderful production that leaned into horror film imagery; the ensemble creepily danced like zombies, and during &#8220;Epiphany&#8221; Grobin cast a 30-foot-high shadow on the back wall. Ashford really leaned into making Lovett grotesque and even hornier than usual.<\/li>\n<li>The Tap Dance Kid. 1983. Hinton Battle won a tony in this. Possibly Savion Glover was in this too, but it&#8217;s hard to know, since three different actors played Willie during the run. The original Broadway production &#8211; My mom brought me to see this one. I don\u2019t think my sister or dad were with us, although I don\u2019t know why.<\/li>\n<li>Tick Tick&#8230; BOOM!. August 2022. Local production by Portland Center Stage. Becky had a couple of free tickets she couldn&#8217;t use, so me and Charles went. It was pretty-good but not great, and honestly I liked the movie better. There is something fun about an extremely stripped-down design, though, and I will never not love the song &#8220;Therapy.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Triangle. September 2025, Broadway Rose (local theater company). The story is split between a woman working at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1911, and a graduate student working at the same building in 2011, who becomes obsessed with a vision he sees of the 1911 woman. The 1911 woman, Sarah, is falling in love with her foreman, while the grad student had love at first sight with Sarah&#8217;s\u00a0 great-great-nephew. Seen with Becky, Charles, and Alexis. It was well-done and the actors were great, but the story and themes both seemed muddy. The play talked about how important it was to remember the names of the dead names, but also 99% ignored the political circumstances leading to the fire, to the point of having a foreman as an adorable romantic partner (in real life, the foreman had the key to the exit in his pocket, but fled another way).<\/li>\n<li>Tommy (On Broadway, with my sister and parents. This is certainly the loudest musical I&#8217;ve ever seen! I didn\u2019t love it &#8211; I think I\u2019d get a lot more out of it now.)<\/li>\n<li>Tootsie: The Musical. Original cast, April 2019, seen on Broadway during an unexpected NYC stay because the second leg of my flight home from Florida got cancelled. They sort of strained to avoid the inherent sexism of the plot &#8211; major rewriting from the musical. It isn&#8217;t the best musical I&#8217;ve ever seen, but the book was hilarious, and it was fun to see Santino Fontana (Greg from Crazy Ex Girlfriend) live. Sarah Stiles (Spinet in Steven Universe!) in the Terri Garr part was a standout, endlessly funny.<\/li>\n<li>Urinetown &#8211; Aug 2017. (A superfun production by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.anonymoustheatre.org\/\">Anonymous Theater Company<\/a>. None of the actors had met each other or rehearsed together before the performance. The audience applauded wildly when they did a timorous kick line.)<\/li>\n<li>Waitress &#8211; July 2025. Broadway Rose Theater Company, seen with Charles, Becky, and Alexis. It was good, and seemed to be a replica of the Broadway production in most ways. The lead actress, however, wasn&#8217;t thin enough to be the lead on Broadway, which honestly improved it for me &#8211; it seemed to fit the character better to not be glamorously beautiful.<\/li>\n<li>Wicked (Saw it on Broadway &#8211; I won the ticket lottery on my first try!)<\/li>\n<li>You\u2019re A Good Man, Charlie Brown (Portland production in a tiny theater.)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>So 89 musicals seen live! Or if I count shows I&#8217;ve seen multiple times by the number of times seen, then the total is 108.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to these, and in addition to ones I&#8217;ve forgotten, there are any number of shows I\u2019ve seen either on legit videos or on bootleg, some of which I\u2019ve watched and listened to so much that I <em>feel <\/em>as if I\u2019ve seen them live.<\/p>\n<p>Altogether, a pretty nice list. Some were fun for the night but unmemorable, some of I have no memory of beyond the bare fact of having seen them, but a bunch were (at least to me) spectacular, treasured memories. Given my tastes, it\u2019s not surprising that I\u2019ve seen more shows by Sondheim than by any other composer.<\/p>\n<p><em>(List has been updated <\/em><em>many<\/em> <em>times since the original posting.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scene from the production of &#8220;Come From Away&#8221; I saw in 2025 So I was chatting with Myca earlier today, and he mentioned seeing Amelie The Musical and wanted to know if I&#8217;d like the Playbill. No, I said, I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=20287\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-popular-and-unpopular-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20287"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27822,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20287\/revisions\/27822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}