Underrated Musicals worth seeing!
The musical world is a vast mix of arrays of alternating shows with many different musical styles for everyone! While some musicals steal the literal spotlight and bask in their shining solo of glory, there are many other well composed musicals that I believe deserve to be heard!
Calvin Berger
Calvin Berger is a musical about a senior in High school named Calvin Berger who has a nose he believes to be his incredibly huge obstacle to his success and the love of his long time crush on the perfect: Rosanna. Like many underrated shows it consists of a very small cast of only the four main characters and no chorus. While Calvin likes Rosanna, his dorky female best friend Brett likes him, and the new kid who is incredibly handsome but awkward with girls Matt likes beautiful Rosanna. On the wrestling team Calvin and Matt bound over their feelings for Rosanna and realize to truly win her over they need to work as one to where basically Matt gets the girl solely through the help of Calvin's love notes to Rosanna that Matt plays off as his. This musical has an amazing amount of sass and awkward humor that is incredibly relevant to almost everyone. All four characters have one or more solo songs with the oh so astonishing duet songs. Also Aaron tviet played Matt on a community version of the show (AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE IS HIS SOLO SONG). I recommend listening to the opening song : Security Meltdown to really understand the wonder of this musical and the emotional, beautifu song How can I compete with that?
25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee musical grants the awkward reality behind spelling bees. Obviously when hearing about a Spelling Bee you immediately assume boredom and awkwardness , which is true expect there's a great deal of build up and excitement that burns in the background. Also this musical focuses on the character develop surrounding the 12 year old characters with various personalities and backgrounds which create relatable characters for the audience. While this musical takes place in a Spelling Bee with 12 year olds it's full of seemingly inappropriate jokes and themes, such as Gay parents, erections, etc but also offer classy representations of taboo topics. My favorite song from the musical is Pandemonium.
Once Upon A Mattress
Once Upon A Matress is the telling of the older forgotten tale of The Princess and The Pea,with an adorable dorky twist. This musical actually has a large cast including a chorus and follows The Prince Dauntless and his journey to find a bride. Except everyone among the kingdom is forbid to wed until the Prince has found a bride,but Dauntless's mother creates different impossible texts for the possible bride to pass in order to marry her son. This rule causes a stir in the relationship of Lady Larkin and Knight Henry because lady Larkin is pregnant and unless she's married to Henry she must be banished. As it seems all hope is lost Dorky,sweet,funny Princess of the Swamp Winifred attempts to wed Dauntless forcing the Queen to make a special test for her. This musical is very jazzy and can be seen in the first chorus number : Opening For a Princess and Winifred's song Happily Ever After.
Ordinary Days
Ordinary Days the musical is a musical that harbors funny songs that are perfect for a cabaret. This musical has only four characters who seemingly never cross except in the fact of being in the same place with different perspectives. The four characters pair off into couples, and so Claire and Jason (Hunter Foster) who are facing issues with their relationship. Then Deb is a snappy knows-what-she wants- kinda women in college struggling with her Thesis paper her voice is very similar to Kristin Chenoweth. Deb goes on a first date with Warren who is cat sitting a local artist who is currently in jail because warren was so moved by the artist's inspirational phrases he painted Warren made flyer copies to pass around NewYork. The Climax of the story is reached by both couples when Deb is crushed by Warren's hopeful reasurment that maybe no one truly reaches their dreams but the here and now is more important as Claire is shocked when Jason proposes causing her to rush off. Songs I'd recommend would the duet between Claire and Jason : Fine and the duet between Deb and Warren : Big Picture.
Wonderland
Wonderland is a musical spin of Alice in Wonderland ,which I believe is one of many different musical versions of the tale of Alice 's story. Wonderland is an awing composition of music that is intentionally written with a different music style for each song. While having this stylistic freedom it grants an original array of many styles of dance as well. Kate Shindle plays the female Mad hatter which instead of being a friend of Alice's is actually Alice's enemy because the Mad Hatter represents Alice's alter ego. This musical has a very large cast,songs I suggest are Welcome To Wonderland and Mad Hatter which is a power house song.
