7 Broadway

Disney's THE LION KING is one of the most colorful and imaginative plays on Broadway. There is so much going on at any one scene, that you could watch it a second time and still not take it all in. The music score, the dancers, and the use of puppetry, make this one of my favorite plays.

In the Broadway production of HAIR SPRAY, I enjoyed this play because of the great characters and the realistic situations they get in. The main character is a  plump teenage girl with a little weight problem, wins a position on a dance TV show. She starts right away to integrate the show, a problem very apparent in the 1960's. The show won several awards and ran for 2500 shows.

Grease the Musical is all about teenage problems and love of the middle class working teenager. The show is based around a high school in the late 1950's. A common theme so far in all these plays is bright colors and a lot of singing and dancing. There is always a story to be told. The music for this play is Rock n Roll of the 1950's.

Wicked the musical is the untold story of the wicked witch of the West. Her perspective is a parallel story from the 1939 novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". The story of two unlikely friends, the white good witch and the black wicked witch of the west. A very nice difference in points of view. I have not had the pleasure of seeing the show in person, but I have seen a lot of the videos on the web. It must be spectacular in person.

The musical CATS is very interesting because its about cats that are representing cats instead of something else like in may of the Broadway shows. This play is composed by one of my favorite composers Andrew Lloyd Webber. The show is about deciding which cat is going to rise into the heavens. The story line is based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, written by T.S. Elliot. One of the most memorable songs from this show is "Memory".

The play RENT is about the struggling young musicians and artists in New York's Lower East Side during the time that AIDS was the big scare of that time. Aids struck all areas of the art and music world at that time. Many great artist just vanished from the face of the earth, taking their great talents with them. Such a terrible loss to future generations. It's up to all of us to keep their memories alive by sharing their work with as many people as we can.

You can never go wrong with a Disney story. One of my fondest is Beauty and the beast. My daughter and I have watched this video a hundred times. The characters of the enchanted castle were turned into furniture and house hold serving ware and other items that were around the castle. After ten years Belle came to the castle and wins over the heart of the beast that lets her go home to help her ill father. The spell is broken when the beast showed his love to Belle and received her love in return.