So I love musical theatre and I have for years now. Pretty much the only music i listen to out of choice is showtunes and musical theatre soundtracks so I thought it'd be fun to culminate a list of my top ten favourite musicals.
10: Hairspray
Tracy Turnblad is a young teenager living in Baltimore who loves to sing and dance but most importantly The Corny Collins Show- an after-school musical extravaganza! She dreams of being on the screen with all her favourite stars particularly Link, the heartthrob of the musical. The only problem is Tracy doesn't exactly look like the rest of the cast so her dreams are pretty unrealistic that is until she auditions for the show and wins becoming an overnight sensation. Alongside Tracy's success on the show is a deep rooted unacceptance of racial integration which Tracy sets out to change.
9: Waitress
Waitress follows the story of Jenna, a woman trapped in an unloving marriage through her unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. She works in a dinner where she spends her days baking pies to escape her miserable situation alongside her two best friends, Becky and Dawn. Following her checkups with her gynaecologist, she swiftly falls for him and the two embark on an adulterous relationship to escape their unloving marriages.
8: Finding Neverland
This follows the story of J M Barrie and his inspiration behind the universally adored Peter Pan. Barrie meets Sylvia and her three sons and becomes hooked (ha funny pun!) with their lives and spirit and weaves his time with them into the story he writes.
7: Newsies
Newsies is set in 1899 and was inspired by the newsboy strike of the year in New York. Jack and his trope of newsboys become enraged when the prices of the papers go up in an exploitative move by the newspaper editors so in order to rebel they go on strike and try to make a change for themselves.
6: Heathers
Veronica Sawyer is overlooked and outcast in her school until the popular group, The Heathers, take her under their wing. The problem is Veronica doesn't fit in with her new group and then new boy, JD comes to the school and she becomes infatuated with him. JD is prone to slightly psychotic tendencies and the pair begin a murderous vendetta against the popular kids at school.
5:Les Miserables
Based on Victor Hugo's famous novel, Les Miserables follows the story of Jean Valjean, a man jailed for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. It is a nineteen year long story following Valjean's redemption and reinvention.
4: Dear Evan Hansen
Evan Hansen in a socially anxious teenager who struggles to connect with his peers at school. At the start of the school year, Connor Murphy commits suicide and Evan gets caught up in a web of lies associating himself with Connor and fabricates a story that the two of them were best friends. This leads him to gain friends, popularity and even romance.
3: Mean Girls
Based on the incredibly popular film, Mean Girls tells the story of Cady who recently moved to the States from Africa. She has no clue about social etiquette or how to be popular but is took in by the popular girls at school or, The Plastics. Secretly, Cady is friends with the uncool kids- Janice and Damien and is feeding all the dirty secrets of Regina, the queen bee, back to them in an attempt to take her down and steal her man. However, with all the lies and deceit that Cady is partaking in she ends up becoming a plastic herself.
2: Hamilton
The musical sensation of the decade, Hamilton is the hip hop musical centering around America's founding fathers. The show is set over the course of the Revolutionary War and the birth of America as the nation we know today.
1: Wicked
Advertised as the 'untold story of the witches of Oz', Wicked follows the story of Elphaba and Glinda and their friendship. It shows the audience that things aren't always as they seem and one should never judge a book by its cover.