42nd St. Moon Blog

I'm actually an American Musical Theatre of San Jose subscriber and have been for years and years. Our seats are in row 7, so you know we've been around a long time. But I haven't really been thrilled about a season of theirs in a long time. I mostly hold on to the subscription beacuse it's a guaranteed half a dozen times a year we get to go out with another couple with whom we are dear friend, but who we don't see as often as we'd like.

I am one of the few who enjoyed it as AMT transitioned from all home-grown to more touring shows. I thought the quality got noticeably better, and I admit I had been tired of seeing the same people doing the same things year after year. It also increased the chances you'd get some new shows in...like the recent Little Women tour.

But what is usually wrong with their seasons is that they depend way too much on the old chestnuts. These are shows from similar eras to the shows 42nd St. Moon does, but you have seen them (unlike any 42nd St. Moon show) a hundred times. You may have a different list, but I can tell you at least half a dozen "classic" musicals that I never ever want to see again. OK, let's start a controversy...what are yours? Mine are:

Music Man
Sound of Music
South Pacific
King and I (You guessed it, I'm not a huge R&Hammerstein fan...R&Hart is an entirely different matter!)

I'm sure there are more.

Anyway, AMT's new season is full of such shows:

Sweet Charity (starring Molly Ringwald)
The King and I
Christmas Dreamland (the Radio City Music Hall production, for goodness sake)
Camelot (starring Michael York)
42nd Street
TBA: another touring Broadway show will be announced later

I will say that I always love a good production of 42nd Street, but other than that I gotta wonder if we wouldn't be better off just going out to a nice dinner 6 times a year!

Oh, and I'm hoping this long missive about another theatre's impending season will nudge Greg into giving me a few more hints about our 2006-2007 season!