In State Fair, by the third or fourth iteration of “It’s a Grand Night for Singing”, you want to machine gun down everyone.
There are very few things in musical theater that are “categorically, unequivocally false”. It’s a young art form that is still developing - it’s not like trying to write a sonnet or a haiku where you can definitely state that there is a strict protocol for how to do it. People try to make rules - for a while after Oklahoma! there was a “rule” that every musical should have a dream ballet sequence. Right. (When’s the last time you thought a show fell short because it lacked a dream ballet?) Even basic principles such as that songs should advance plot or character could be broken: someone could welll write a '20s or '30s style review (The Garrick Gaieties of 2010!) with a bunch of novelty songs and interchageable ballads, and create a great evening of musical theater. It probably wouldn’t age well, but in its time it could be quite intelligent and “real”.
But fine: conventions have grown up around musical comedies and dramas in the last 60 or so years. Songs reveal character and advance plot, there’s a dramatic arc, and at least one “I Want” song early on. Great. But even only looking at convention, your rule doesn’t hold up: in The Music Man (as classic and respected a musical as you could want) when Marian sings “Seventy-Six Trombones” as “Good Night My Someone” was Meredith Wilson just too lazy to come up with a new tune? Or was he trying to subtly link the two leads together? Later in the show when Harold and Marion take on one another’s songs (the moment Ulf the Unwashed mentions), is it again laziness, or is he saying something about how the characters have changed?
For a later example, in Disney’s Aladdin when Jafar sings the reprise of “Prince Ali”, did anyone think, “That’s the genie’s song - it reveals nothing about Jafar’s personality!”? Or how about when Pseudolous sings the reprise of “Lovely” in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum? Or Daddy Warbucks’ reprise of “Maybe” in Annie? Or the moment in Jesus Christ Superstar that choie mentions?
It’s simply a technique: not a hugely popular one, but not unheard of, and perfectly valid either way. It’s been used to great effect and to poor effect, and everything else in between. If you want to argue that Lloyd Webber uses the technique badly, well, that’s material for a different thread. But since you singled out the technique itself, all I can say is that…well, that you’re categorically and unequivocally wrong! 
Agree to disagree. Although I will say I should have put a smiley after my previous post, because I’m certainly not taking it as seriously as my tone probably suggests.
I do think choie’s example is a poor one though, and really only serves to reinforce my point about it. That, to me, is an early example of Lloyd Webber reprising a melody in order to drill “the hit song” into the audience member’s heads so they’ll remember it better later. It would have made more (or at the very least, as much) sense to have him sing a reprise of “Damned For All Time”.
And, not to like, talk myself up or anything, but I am aware of techniques used in musical theatre. I’ve worked as a professional music director/pianist/composer in NYC for eight years now, and before that I did it elsewhere for twelve. So I mean, I get what you’re saying. However, I stand by what I said, and my use of the word “true”, as in “a true musical theatre composer” is valid. I’m talking about composers like William Finn. Jason Robert Brown. Michael John LaChiusa. And of course, Stephen Sondheim. People who seriously know how to construct a musical.
I think ALW has a place in this world, and I am seriously in love with some of his work. But you guys aren’t allowed to use examples from The Music Man and Aladdin (seriously?) to refute what I’m saying, when those are the exact types of shows I’m talking about… shows that use the structure of a musical to let the audience hear great songs, as kind of a “Hey, thanks for coming… sit back and let us play these tunes for you, and we hope you enjoy” kind of thing. Some people demand more from their theatre. More sophistication in their storytelling, more sophistication in their songwriting, more sophistication in their character development.
But I do agree that it’s an evolving art form, and as I’ve said, there is a place in this world for both ends of the spectrum.
Speaking of ALW, “Love Changes Everything” is Aspects of Love’s musical motif, used to describe the relationships between all the principle players. As Gerasrd Alessandrini parodied it in [iForbidden Broadway*
I, I sleep with everone, sleep with Jenny, sleep with Rose
She, she sleeps with everone…
With your uncles and my beaux.
Yes I, I sleep with everyone, while I lust for Guiletta…
Yes, we, we sleep with everyone, one by one and two by two.
And if you’re in the audience then you’ll sleep too.
Except, of course, that’s not true. I’m not convinced that Alex ever sleeps with Jenny. He WANTS to, but he knows it’s illegal. He says as much:
If my body really ruled me, then we both know all to well / You’d end up wiht a lover locked inside a prison cell!
Gotta disagree a bit: it’s very effective to have polar opposites use the same tune/song but one use is proud/serious/happy, and the other’s use of it is ironic/mocking/sad.
…which…I now see a bunch of other people have commented on and you’ve responded to. :smack: 
That said, what’s wrong with Music Man–it’s a wonderful example of a musical comedy. There’s room in the genre for comedies, dramas and tragedies.
Hey, Mr. Musical Director guy, you don’t know JCS, do you? 'Cause Judas does sing ‘Damned’ again, right before the other reprise. Clearly ALW was opportunistically trying to get Damned to be a big “hit song,” huh? After all, why else would Judas repeat it? 
Seriously, there’s being cynical about ALW’s motives, and there’s letting one’s cynicism become an obstacle to appreciating, or even acknowledging, a possibly wise move on the part of an artist. In JCS, it is extremely effective to have Judas, Judas freakin’ Iscariot, the most famous betrayer in history, to sing “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.” I can’t even fathom thinking otherwise.
But then, I don’t think of musicals as being divided into categories called “True Art” (written by True Composers, aka an anointed few) and “Hey let’s put on a show for the yokels!” (by shallow, Tin Pan Alley-esque hacks). I know you admit that each type of musical has its place, but such labels still seem like a rather tight-fisted, narrow way to look at art.
(And by the way, fellow JCS fans, the amazing Judas in that clip is Drew Sarich. You may thank me for introducing him to you later. :D)
Ha, fair enough. I did forget he reprises that song too. 
But again, that kind of proves my point… I mean, just look at the other thread (or just listen to people’s opinions over the past 40 years). The dude uses the same music over and over. Fact. Sunset Boulevard, as much as I love it, is Aspects of Love 2.0.
I’ll concede that maybe I’m looking at it in terms that are a little too black and white, if you at least entertain the notion that maybe ALW isn’t reprising all these songs because they serve the story, but perhaps because he thinks that’s the way musicals should be written, with his songs repeatedly burrowed into our heads.
I was a boy when I saw Kismet about 50 years ago, so I might have this one wrong. The leading lady sings “Sweet Mystery Of Life” a couple times early on, and it’s wistful and dreamy. She can’t remember the whole song. At the end, when the shy young man turns out to be the bold outlaw leader, who sweeps her away, she sings it triumphantly. She’s found her love.
Years later, Mel Brooks brought back the song as a sexual gag in the unforgettable Young Frankenstein, where it means, ah, roughly the same thing.
Ha, we will indeed have to agree to disagree! Because while I respect your experience, I still think you’re very wrong! There is no “true” musical theater or one way to structure a musical; there are all types of musical theater. I’m not saying you should like them all or that they’re all equally sophisticated (though our lists of what is and isn’t would undoubtedly differ); I’m just saying it’s ridiculous to draw a line and say “this type is true, and that type is not”.
It’s also kind of a destructive attitude, because while Brown/LaChiusa/Sondheim/etc. have done some great stuff, I shudder at the idea of a world where that’s the only kind of musical that people try for. I say bring on the “Hey, thanks for coming… sit back and let us play these tunes for you, and we hope you enjoy” practitioners - like, I dunno, Jerry Herman, Charles Strouse, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Menken and Ashman…
I actually think we’re saying the same thing. I can see from your point of view why it would be hard to understand that I’m not saying I don’t like shows like that, but I do. Superstar got me interested in theatre in the first place, and hell, I even pop in Jekyll & Hyde every now and then when I want to hear amazing women belt out some well-constructed songs. That’s what I was saying (albeit not very well) when I said there’s a place in this world for both kinds of shows.
My use of the word “true” probably comes across as dismissive or condescending, but I don’t mean it to be. I agree, we need both kinds of shows just like we need frivolous sitcoms and hard-hitting dramas on television. It’s a yin-yang thing.
Of course I just noticed your user name, and I’m now realizing maybe I’ve been arguing with Richard Rodgers’ grandson or something.
Heh, alright then - I retract “you’re wrong” and replace it with “I don’t quite understand”. I do understand you’re saying we need both kinds of shows, and that’s good enough for me.
As for “Uncle Dick”, I’ll never tell!
I definitely don’t deny that he repeats his music to a fault, and I think hummability is often one of the reasons. I just don’t think every time he does it is for a single reason – propping up a song he thinks will be a hit – and certainly not that early in his career (pre-gigantro-fame). Pretty sure he and Rice didn’t seriously think JCS was gonna be a huge mainstream hit to the point where he’d try to prop up the love song by putting it in the mouth of one of history’s greatest villains. In fact, the biggest hit off the show was sung only once, at the very end (albeit there is a hint of the first line earlier, during The Last Supper argument, and in the overture – but that’s standard in musical overtures).
Actually, I also think some of his repeating shtick stems from his love of opera and Puccini in particular. Repeated leitmotifs are very common in Puccini, and I think Webber fancies that kind of hammering-the-point-home form of musical storytelling.
Oops, I think you’re conflating two songs from two shows. “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life” is from Naughty Marietta, the Victor Herbert operetta, and I don’t think it appears in Kismet. I wonder if you’re thinking of “And This Is My Beloved” from Kismet, which does have a similar downward-scale melody?
Sound of Music has received several mentions but I’ll add another one: the eponymous track! First sung by Maria in the Alps with arms outstretched & spinning, then later taught to the kids, it makes a slow multi-part-harmony reprise when the kids are practicing the music without her after she’s left the family temporarily. The kids do it beautiful and very sad.