hello, a rare occurrence of me being active on this blog? who would’ve thought! today i am going to be reacting to unpopular musical theatre opinions of which i found on a reddit thread, so without further ado please enjoy my rambling!!

1. hadestown is overrated: unfortunately i disagree with this opinion, hadestown is one of my favourite musicals. i think the concept of the piece is unlike anything that has been written in the canon prior, and the music is one of my favourite vocal scores in the musical theatre canon. i can understand why one would think it is an overrated musical because of how oversaturated it became in the media in 2019-2021 but i truly believe it is one of the most important pieces of written work in the past 10 years. i will never not love hadestown.
2. hamilton is underrated: ok, i partly agree with this opinion but i partly disagree. now, there is no denying that hamilton is one of the most important and influential pieces of musical theatre every written, and it truly changed the way in which modern composers have continued to write contemporary musical theatre. no matter how many times i listen to the score of hamilton, i am constantly reminded of just how genius it is, and how specific and unique the score and narrative lin manuel miranda created is. in these ways, i would agree and say that yes, hamilton is underrated. but, i disagree with the fact that hamilton does not get enough credit for its impact on the theater community. in fact, i often think that it gets too much credit. hamilton is not the only influential contemporary musical that has been written, and it never will be, there are other contemporary musicals and contemporary composers who are making work just as good as hamilton and are not getting enough credit for it.
3. les miserables is boring and predictable: i think that this is an interesting opinion! i disagree with this, les miserables is written about the french revolution which was a major historical conflict and one we are still feeling the after effects of to this day. i don’t see how that is an example of boring subject material, now do i think that the narrative is a little predictable? absolutely! but it’s about war and conflict! it is blatantly obvious to an audience what the final outcome of les miserables will be, but to me the ending of the show is not why people go, people go because of all that happens before the somewhat anticlimactic ending. so, i disagree with this opinion, i do not think that les miserables is “boring and predictable.”
4. matilda is overrated and poorly structured as a musical: hmmm, ok, now this hurts my inner child but unfortunately i am going to have to agree. i think that the music in matilda is entertaining and fun, and i always appreciate work which centres around young people and which employs young working actors, but i think that the book is a far better representation of the story than the musical is. i also agree with the latter half of this opinion stating that it is poorly structured, as one of my biggest qualms with the musical adaptation of matilda has always been that the writers squeezed all of the interesting narrative in act 1 and left nothing to be further explored in act 2 except for resolution.
5. the movie adaptation of wicked is better than the original musical: oof i disagree with this opinion!! although i thoroughly enjoyed the wicked movie, and thought that not only did the actors do a fantastic job but that the work of the crew and creative team was astonishing i did not like it nearly as much as the original musical. maybe this is because the stage adaptation lives in such a special place in my heart, but to me, nothing will come close to the stage version of the show.