Well sure, and Sweeny Todd is light opera. That doesn’t make it not worth mentioning. 
IMHO you made the right choice with Sunday in the Park. I love Into the Woods, but the second act is weak.
Yeah, I was focusing on “greatest” and assuming “American” referred to musicals created by American writers and composers, i.e., no Andrew Lloyd Webber or Alain Boublil.
What I mean is that there is strong narrative thrust and emphasis on characterization in the other musicals we’ve mentioned that is entirely absent from Assassins. The evolutions of and revelations about the characters of George, Sweeney, the Baker, Fosca, Giorgio, and so forth, as accomplished in song, is the point of those musicals. Assassins is an attempt at social commentary, not plot or character study, and is so different from the others that I don’t think it’s appropriate to judge it by the same standards.
I also can’t agree about the second act of Woods. It’s where we get the pay-off for all the stuff set up in the first. I’d call it more interesting than the first, but that’s unfair; it doesn’t work without the first. (Contrariwise, if you wanted to telll a journeyman & unambitious story, the first act stands up on its own.)
Ah, I get what you are saying about Assassins now. Fair enough.
And I think I mischaracterized Into the Woods. The Second act is the play, and storywise there isn’t anything wrong with it. But it drags, and isn’t…strong is the only way I could describe it. I go into the show wanting it to knock my socks off, but the second half always lets me down a bit. This is, again, not to say that it isn’t still wonderful, but I think it’s a knock against Into the Woods that gives the edge to Sunday in the Park as the superior play.
Never had to work so hard to agree with someone before.
We’re still not agreeing.
After all, the three best songs of the musical ("Your Fault/Last Midnight, “No More,” and “No One Is Alone” are in the second act.
Now I have to go have sex with my wife, or at least buy a copy of Stuff. This is the gayest argument I’ave had in years.
If it makes you feel any less alone, my father once made a very convincing argument that TMM was the MOST American musical because of exactly what you said.
And to the rest, Skammer is right that we have to limit ourselves to movie musicals. I can’t possibly debate a stage production of Guys and Dolls when the only live performance of it I’ve ever seen was a (fairly good) high school production.
My vote goes to Singin’ in the Rain
ETA: I’m with Skald. This IS the gayest argument I’ve had in years… at least since I argued with my father about The Music Man vs. The Wizard of Oz.
I’ll still discuss stage musicals, as the one’s I’ve mentioned thus far I have only seen on PBS, videotape, or DVD.
South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut
All of the musicals mentioned are excellent (some better on stage than film - some films never had a stage counterpart) but before we dicide which one(s) is/are The Great American Musical, perhaps we should define the parameters
Is it taken from history (1176, Ragtime, Fiorello)?
Is a family-values story (MMiSL, Music Man, Fiddler)?
Was it created out of left field (Hair, The Pajama Game, Curtains)?
Is it pseudo-biographical? (Chicago, Pippin, Mame)?
So many others can fit into these categories, there are more categories I cannot think of right now, and many of the musicals cross categories. How are we to choose? I have my favorites, some of which have never seen a stage or a big screen (Dr Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog is one), and I think they are great examples of the musical genre, but are they Great?
Conclusion - it’s all too subjective to say difinitively which one is THE Greatest.
Discussing composers (Sondheim vs Schwartz vs Kander/Ebb vs Gershwin vs Rogers/Hammerstein vs Rogers/Hart) is A WHOLE 'NOTHER ISSUE!
FTR - I’m a Sondheimm fan all the way.
GAH, I am sorry, I know everyone loves Last Midnight, but…you know what, never mind. I like the play, a lot, and don’t feel like poking at it’s flaws anymore. 
Let me change the subject and get into a different fight with someone.
Stephen Schwartz is a hack and none of his work belongs within spitting distance of this list.
The greatest American musical movie, in my opinion, is The Bandwagon. The Great American Musical (film category), which is a different thing, I’m still goin with* Meet Me in St. Louis*.
With the exception of Sondheim, I can’t think of anything post-Golden-Age that would qualify.
The word “Americana” keeps popping up. If you want Americana, then it would have to be something like *The Music Man *or *Show Boat *or *Oklahoma! *or Carousel . . . or two that haven’t been mentioned: *Hello, Dolly! *and Annie Get Your Gun.
But I’m not sure whether “Americana” is really what we’re looking for. Certainly shows like *Gypsy *and *West Side Story *and *The Wizard of Oz *and *42nd Street *and *Funny Girl *and *On the Town *deserve to be considered, though each portrays only one slice of the American pie.
And what about shows like *The Sound of Music *or *South Pacific, *which are American in every sense except location?
But…but… he wrote “Deliver Us!”
The fact that he gave Amy Grant work is not his fault. I blame that other Steve.
I’ll bite - How can you say that about the composer of Godspell? (eta) and Pippin?
I think West Side Story has the best music of any musical ever written, but its story, while set in America, is basically timeless. Almost by definition, what with it being a copy of Romeo and Juliet, which is itself a copy of Pyramus and Thisby (or what have you).
A truly great musical that is in many ways about the American dream, and is set in the quintessentially American setting of Broadway itself, is A Chorus Line. (The stage show, not the movie.)
And if we want to blur the line between musical and opera some more, there’s always Porgy and Bess.
I would like to offer up my definition of the American Musical genre again. This is the definition I was taught in school and I am fairly sure is the, more or less, standard deffinition. I will rephrase for better clairty.
The American Musical is a specific sub-genre of performance more commonly know as “the musical” or occasionally “musical comedy.” It’s a style of performance that originated on the American stage and beyond that has little to do with where the show was originally produced or the subject matter. Like Chicago Blues, or Kansas City BBQ it’s a style and does not need to be confined to it’s namesake location. Andrew Lloyd Webber writes American Musicals.
The style of the American Musical is typified by characters breaking into fully orchestrated song (typically, but not always, at points of heightened emotion), and using spoken dialogue rather than recitative (the sing talk of opera) and usually, but not always, features elaborate dance numbers, production design and costumes. It also features a cohesive storyline following a traditional plot arc of introduction, rising action, climax and falling action, though liberties can be taken with plotting. At it’s best it seamlessly combines elements of ballet, straight drama, and opera and it is this combination of what are traditionally separate styles that distinguishes it from other forms of musical performance such as Cabaret style, Opera, Operetta etc.
Fun Fact: Along with Jazz the Muscial is one of the only original American artforms to be exported and picked up by the world at large.
HA! I like you.
You know what, I will give him Godspell. I always forget that Godspell was him. I like Godspell. I am not crazy for the music as a whole (and that’s my biggest problem with him, I think his music is trite.) but I think the concept and execution of the show is brilliant.
On the other hand.
Pippen is highly over rated. Listen to the show for 5 performances a week for a full run and I think you will agree. What seems interesting on first listen is VERY shallow. I will then add to the pile Wicked, which is (I think) a good example of what is wrong with modern theatre and his work for Disney as good examples of how to allow your ego to overshadow the job that is required.
Also on a personal note, he came to speak to my class at UCLA and was really quite a dick. Jason Robert Brown, Fiona Shaw, and Francis Ford freakin Coppola were all warm and approachable, but Schwartz was a jerk. I won’t pretend that this doesn’t color my percption of him.
Which reminds me, The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown deserves honorable mention.
Anything viewed from the wings, 6 performances in a row after 6 weeks of rehearsal, can get old. It’s been decades since I’ve been able to enjoy Kiss me, Kate or Promises, Promises for that reason.
I’ve not yet seen Wicked (and am not likely to) nor have I heard the score, so I cannot comment on it; but I have felt, for quite a while now, that Disney spoils what it touches. It sanitizes it and dumbs it down for the youngsters. Unfortunately, no one can afford to take their kids to see Broadway shows anymore so their hold on The Great White Way will be released soon enough.
I won’t attempt to argue which one’s greatest since it’s totally subjective, but my nominee for most important musicals would include Showboat, Man of La Mancha, and Rent (far from my favorite but definitely important).
Middle child first: MAN OF LA MANCHA
One of the most laughable things I’ve ever read was a review of West Side Story praising it for taking musicals from (to quote Roger Debris) "Dopey showgirls in gooey gowns. Two, three, kick turn, turn, turn, kick turn!” to something darker and more meaningful. While I love some of the songs from WSS I think the play has more holes than a Casey Anthony memoir, and the notion of Latino and Polish gang members running around singing and dancing being “dark and gritty” is just hysterical.
To me, La Mancha was the turning point where musicals became more serious. Sure it has the cliches- a character bursts into song on his death bed, the “let’s put on a show right here in this old Inquisitorial dungeon”, etc., but it doesn’t have some of the frilly silly things like gratuitous choreography and overstaged dance numbers. It’s a play within a play and it doesn’t go for realism (yes, I know Cervantes was one-armed and that they probably didn’t really have co-ed dayrooms in dungeons), but it does get darker than most musicals have gotten before: mental illness is addressed [Don Alonzo/Don Quixote is not seen as a harmless eccentric who just has a delightful sense of vision but a man endangering himself and others], the dangers of excessive fantasy (“the man with moonlight in his hand has nothing there at all”) and how “the real world” will triumph everytime swords are crossed.
But particularly I love Aldonza- far more complex than most musical heroines. She’s basically an even lower ancestress of Carla from Cheers- to cheap crass barmaid add cheap tavern whore. Her interactions with Quixote (which do not appear in the novel for those who don’t know- in fact she’s not a character in the novel except in passim) are magic. The way she obviously treasures his ‘missive’ even though she can’t read it and won’t admit it is fab, and her search for his angle as he’s the first person ever to see her as having worth even as she realizes first and foremost he’s a nutter, “and why I’m not laughing myself/I don’t know”.
The notion of being adored awakens in her something she never knew was alive or at least thought was dead, but she also detests it- it lets her know what she is missing, “robs me of anger and gives me despair!” One of the most painfully beautiful lyrics in any book number to me is:
You have shown me the sky
but what good is the sky?
To a creature who’ll
never do better than crawl!
'Of all the cruel bastards
who’ve badgered
and battered me
you are the cruelest of all!
Yet even after his madness leads to his own downfall and her own (musicalized) gang rape, the don’s “gentle insanities”, like Pandora’s box, leave her hope. She still goes to him on her deathbed, and while you know it won’t be easy somehow she’ll become more Dulcinea. Somehow, even as Quixote/Quijana’s dead and Cervantes is going to answer the Inquisition there’s hope.
And of course, even as overplayed and over performed as it is, who can’t love The Impossible Dream? Or Dulcinea for that matter. And several of the book numbers- also major cuts above.