Favorite plays

[magpie]

Since we seem to be missing this, what are your favorite plays (that you've seen, read, been in, or all three)?

What do you like about them?

 

[Yama]

Do musicals count? I like lots of those but don't know almost any plays.

 

[magpie]

Do musicals count? I like lots of those but don't know almost any plays.

Musicals count as plays! List away.

 

[Yama]

Les Miserables
Pippin
Wicked
Parade
The Last 5 Years
Legally Blonde
The Lion King
The Lord of the Rings
Bonnie & Clyde
The Book of Mormon
Into the Woods (but not the new movie... blegh)
Sweeney Todd (in which I think the movie is actually superior)
Rent
1776

 

[magpie]

Les Miserables
Pippin
Wicked
Parade
The Last 5 Years
Legally Blonde
The Lion King
The Lord of the Rings
Bonnie & Clyde
The Book of Mormon
Into the Woods (but not the new movie... blegh)
Sweeney Todd (in which I think the movie is actually superior)
Rent
1776

I didn't know there was a Lord of The Rings musical. That's wild. I'll have to check it out. A girl in one of my classes was always talking about Parade. I've never seen it but from what she said, it sounds good. And I saw The Lion King on broadway. It was amazing.

 

[Yama]

I didn't know there was a Lord of The Rings musical. That's wild. I'll have to check it out. A girl in one of my classes was always talking about Parade. I've never seen it but from what she said, it sounds good. And I saw The Lion King on broadway. It was amazing.

Yeah there is one, this is my favorite song from it:

Parade's really good, I think the OBC is the best version. Newer versions I've seen don't have as good orchestration. I'm really jealous cuz my sister got to go to New York for s trip with her school and she saw Pippin on Broadway. Sooo jelly. She doesn't even like musicals that much.

 

[Ingrid in grids]

The Importance of Being Earnest
A Streetcar Named Desire
Waiting for Godot
My favourite Shakespeares are probably A Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbeth
Also a few of Caryl Churchill's plays (Cloud 9, Top Girls, Love and Information)

 

[magpie]

The Importance of Being Earnest
A Streetcar Named Desire
Waiting for Godot
My favourite Shakespeares are probably A Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbeth
Also a few of Caryl Churchill's plays (Cloud 9, Top Girls, Love and Information)

If you haven't read or seen it, Far Away by Caryl Churchill is absolutely bone chilling.

 

[Fregoli]

Shakespeare: Othello, Hamlet, Midsummer Night's Dream, Richard II, Coriolanus (more dramatic than Julius Caesar, which is talky and tedious), All's Well That Ends Well, Romeo and Juliet, Love's Labours Lost, Titus Andronicus. I've seen Much Ado About Nothing more than any other Shakespeare - and would like to see something else, please.

Webster's Duchess of Malfi; Middleton's Revenger's Tragedy; Massinger's Roman Actor (The Tyrant's Play)

Restoration and 18th century comedy is FUN:
Wycherley: The Country Wife (particularly the china scene - for months afterwards, no respectable woman could go into a shop and order china)

Goldsmith: She Stoops to Conquer

Farquhar: The Recruiting Officer and The Beaux' Stratagem (brilliant production by the UK National Theatre earlier this year - written on his death bed, but a healthy play, completely free from morbidity or angst)

Lessing: Nathan der Weise (humane)

Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest (dialogue so good you can sing it)

Shaw: Pygmalion, Arms and the Man, Man and Superman

Priestley: the "time" plays

Coward: Hay Fever

Christie: The Mousetrap

Frayn: Noises Off

Musicals:
Sondheim: A Little Night Music, Into the Woods, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd
Chicago]
Guys and Dolls
Fiddler on the Roof
Singin' in the Rain

Must go to play. Now. Need theatre fix.

 

[Raffaella]

What? No Albee or Miller?

I LOVED All My Sons. I read View from the Bridge many years ago and I remember liking it but it didn't affect me quite as much as All My Sons.

As for Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, I was impressed by how Albee captured the horror of being dragged through the drama of a dysfunctional couple only to leave you feeling empathy for them at the climax. I haven't read any of his other plays yet but I plan to.

 

[magpie]

What? No Albee or Miller?

I LOVED All My Sons. I read View from the Bridge many years ago and I remember liking it but it didn't affect me quite as much as All My Sons.

As for Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, I was impressed by how Albee captured the horror of being dragged through the drama of a dysfunctional couple only to leave you feeling empathy for them at the climax. I haven't read any of his other plays yet but I plan to.

I really liked The Goat by Edward Albee, but beware, it has a lot to do with a man's relationship with a goat.

 

[Pionart]

Have you ever seen a man, become the leader of the Original people, transform into the leader of the New Empire, be raped, then emerge as the Great Phonenix, the Saviour of the World, and escape without harm, only to befriend the Cursed King himself?

And think of all that is in between, prior to, and subsequent from...

Shakespeare, you ain't got shit on me.

 

[Raffaella]

I really liked The Goat by Edward Albee, but beware, it has a lot to do with a man's relationship with a goat.

Oh, rofl, I remember reading somewhere that the themes of WAoVW are repeated in all his later plays so this just feels it's completely out of left field. Either way, I wasn't sure which one to move onto so thanks for that recommendation!

 

[Xann]

A Dame By No Other Name

 

[magpie]

A Dame By No Other Name

 

[Flâneuse]

my all-time favorite: Lydia (Octavio Solis)
others I love: Angels in America (Tony Kushner), A Doll's House (Henrik Ibsen), Macbeth, Hamlet

 

[magpie]

The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh
Richard II by Shakespeare
Marisol by Jose Rivera
Scab by Sheila Callaghan
A Lie of the Mind by Sam Shepard
Far Away by Caryl Churchill
Ion by Euripides
Getting Out by Marsha Norman
The Secret Rapture by David Hare

 

[Hiraeth]

Not sure what my favorite plays are (probably something cliché like Romeo and Juliet or an Oscar Wilde play), but I did once help out at my university's theater costume design team for a play based on The Basset Table by Susanna Centlivre, a comedic play about gambling and love.

It was one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen, especially costume-wise. The costumes were a mix of 17th century Baroque, Victorian Gothic, and 1970s Glam rock with very elaborate card-styled makeup (think the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland, but with more glitz and glamor ). It was wild.

Additionally, it was fun seeing it behind the scenes. Theater students can be so lively and dramatic.