Musicals I Love With Sad In It

This sounds like a crazy post. Well, the musicals I tend to be drawn to are complex and have both positive and negative emotions in it. Below I will write a list of the musicals that I love where sad has been involved and that only counts if it was in the songs, but not where it wasn’t that capable.

1. Sound of Music
2. Wicked
3. Newsies
4. South Pacific
5. Phantom of the Opera
6. Rent
7. Les Mis
8. Beauty and the Beast
9. Man of La Mancha

Why do I love feeling the negative emotions in these if they are going to hurt? Well, musical emotions come in two sets, which only applies to positive emotions. There are the positive emotions that are naturally part of the show and than there are the emotions that naturally apply to the experience. I feel like those with sad going on feel more real to me. Some of these musicals actually took some time until I realized sad was in some of them. But some, I knew on the very first round that sad is a piece of them.

Possible Spoilers:

Wicked was the musical where I began to understand the negative emotions. I can trace back how far the negative emotions have come through this musical. I remember not liking “No Good Deed” that much and that song seemed emotionless from 2006 all the way until 2016. I saw Wicked live in 2006, sometime in high school, 2013, and 2016. That one song seemed not interesting and seemed emotionless. It was in 2016, my fourth time, where the portrayal of “No Good Deed” finally made me appreciate it for once and where I finally began to pick up on its emotions.

Well “I’m Not That Girl” began as this sad song and was a sad song during the first three rounds. Well, I don’t know when it was, but I want to say it was like 2014 or 2015, I realized the song was heartbreaking thanks to the help of “On My Own”. I realized that both songs were about unrequited love and due to “On My Own” being stronger, I realized “I’m Not That Girl” was a heartbreaker.

But where did I began to realize that heartbreak was part of the musical world? Well, I didn’t know about heartbreak until December of 2012. It was when I saw Les Mis for the first time through the movie. While watching the movie, I finally was able to pick up on heartbreak, but I thought the musical was too depressing. I wasn’t able to dig deeper because I didn’t know it was going to be tragic and I didn’t know musicals could be tragic.  Les Mis showed me a side of emotions I thought was literally impossible and it was during my second viewing of the movie where I began to see something special about Les Mis. Over time, I realized the musical wasn’t too depressing due to its underlying spirituality, which has themes of love, hope, compassion, forgiveness, humanity, sacrifice, and redemption. Ever since the realization of heartbreak, I was able to notice that it was much easier to spot negative emotions and darkness in other musicals.

Just like Les Mis, Rent is a sad musical. It takes place during the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s/1990s. It has an incredible message of how precious life is, living in the moment, and measuring your life in love. You see these characters struggle through depression, drug addiction, relationships, HIV/AIDS. But they are like this family despite all their struggles.

In the case of Sound of Music, I never noticed sad was in one of its songs for quite a long time. I grew up with the movie and never once picked up on that emotion. I remember it being in 2015 when I saw the stage show for the first time. It was during “Edelweiss” and I remember the emotion entering at a place that seemed unusual. It was at the moment where the Captain stopped singing and there was a pause before Maria and the children started singing and I noticed the emotion. I feel like realizing sad was in a song in the middle of that song is a spot where the emotions tends not to be a part of. But due to the emotional shift in “Edelweiss”, I learned to love the musical even more.

The latest meaningful musical that had sad in the score belongs to Newsies. I remember watching it and it existed at the end of act one. I just witnessed this big fight break out as a result of the strike. After the fight, Jack witnessed Crutchie being arrested and that left him with a lot of inner conflict. In the first scene, which was “Santa Fe (Prologue), you realize that Jack is quite protective of Crutchie. Due to what he witnessed, he sang “Santa Fe” and that became a sad song and I felt sad, but innocently during the production. Another moment with the negative emotions belonged in “Letter From the Refuge”. The thing with that song is that I don’t remember it while watching the production. I eventually rediscovered the song and was able to notice I do remember one of the lyrics. After a couple of listens, I realized that song is a heartbreaker.

The negative emotions are highly important in the world of musicals. For all of these musicals, my emotional connection is quite strong. I care about these characters’ journeys, which is why I love feeling the negative emotions. I only love feeling the negative emotions in musicals that I love myself and typically tend to be a meaningful musical.

Memorable Older Musical Characters

The older characters in musicals are in my opinion are those in their 30s and up. When I wrote a list of memorable younger musical characters, it was so much easier to think of characters. Much of the characters I love are young, but there are incredible older characters as well. But it feels like most of the older characters are villains and antagonists and those are the kind of characters I typically never end up liking.

1. Jean Valjean-best older character: Les Mis
2. Javert-Les Mis
3. Thenardiers- Les Mis
4. Harold Hill- Music Man
5. Marian- Music Man
6. Leading Player- Pippin
7. Miss Hannigin- Annie
8. Miguel De Cervantes/ Don Quixote- Man of La Mancha
9. Emelie- South Pacific
10. Nellie- South Pacific
11. Grizabella- Cats

I wish I could have included more older characters. These are the only memorable older characters I can think of at this moment.

Lines from Musicals that Perfectly Describe Them

This is a list of phrases and lines from musicals that perfectly describe the musical. Some of these shows do have more than one line that perfectly describes them.

1. Because I Knew you I Have Been Changed Tor Good- Wicked
2. To Love Another Person is to See the Face of God- Les Mis
3. Courage cannot erase our fear. Courage is when we face our fear- Newsies
4. No Day But Today- Rent
5. I’ve Got to Find my Corner of the Sky- Pippin
6. The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow- Annie
7. To Dream to the Impossible Dream- Man of La Mancha

Favorite Musical Protagonists

This is a list of some memorable musical main characters.

1. Elphaba and Glinda
2. Jean Valjean
3. Annie
4. Jack Kelly
5. Miguel De Cervantes/ Don Quixote
6. Maria Von Trapp
7. Pippin
8. Roger and Mark
9. Harold Hill
10. Nellie and Emelie

Don Quixote Review

I spent this summer attempting to finish Don Quixote. Don Quixote is an old classic written by Miguel De Cervantes. It follows the chivalry adventure of Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It has such a wonderful story filled with memorable characters even though it is easy to get some of them mixed.

The two most memorable characters are Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Those two represent where the core of the story comes from. I especially love Don Quixote, the crazy, foolish, valiant, brave knight errant who rights all wrongs. He also is a tragicomic character and it was fun discovering why he is tragic and comic. He is comic due to his sense of humor, foolishness, and craziness, but he is tragic because he is delusional and in a sense some of his comic characteristics could easily be flaws. His adventures are much more fun in the second half of the book then the first half. In the second half, Don Quixote is treated the most as a knight and the adventures seem real. I know he is having adventures through delusions, but I still love him. In fact some of his adventures are shown through other characters playing tricks on him by pretending to be characters in the knight errant world.

As for Sancho Panza, he is the loyal squire of Don Quixote. Sancho Panza also has a sense of humor. He sometimes just doesn’t like being a squire due to his master’s madness. He went along with his adventures because Don Quixote promised him that he would be a governor of an island someday. But Sancho would soon realize that he would rather follow along with his master’s madness then being a governor.

The book has an underlying spirituality to it. It mentions God several times and is filled with several parables. The parables are invented by Sancho, which runs in his family. In a sense, I feel like Don Quixote sees Dulcinea as a kind of goddess, which connects to the spiritual aspect.

The plot is filled with many twists and turns. Cervantes is crazy at times. There are times when he interests short novels into the plot. A character would be reading the story and having those short novels in there kind of makes you get mixed up with reality in a sense. You begin to wonder what is really happening and what is going on in the short story. Sometimes a character would tell their life story, which in a sense can also feel like a short story. Cervantes even inserted a fake book of the second part of Don Quixote after someone wrote a sequel to it. Part of the true second part of the book has Don Quixote and Sancho showing the wrong done to the fake book. Cervantes even inserts himself into the book.

This book is quite a difficult one to write a review. It is essentially a tragicomedy, which is a genre I am hardly familiar with. I found this book so much harder to read then Les Misérables. I read Victor Hugo’s unabridged masterpiece last summer and finished it in a shorter amount of time then Don Quixote. The reason why Don Quixote took me longer was because I found it harder to grasp and understand due to the tragicomic nature of the book. I also found it easier to skip a day of reading. Even the language is harder to understand because Cervantes does write a lot in a kind of Shakespearean way. This book is truly a classic.

What is it about Don Quixote that makes it such a classic? I think it is a classic because I think everyone has a bit of Don Quixote in them. We all have a different perception of reality. We all can be quite crazy or foolish at times. This book also shows the importance of imagination.

“The Impossible Dream”

“To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to bear with unbearable sorrow, to run where the brave dare not go”

Those above lyrics are from the song, “The Impossible Dream”, which is from  the musical, “Man of La Mancha”. For a Spanish project, I had to research the character and book, Don Quixote. Don Quixote is an interesting character because he is both tragic and comic, and that is the first time I found a literary character who is like that. The musical, “Man of La Mancha” is based off of the book, Don Quixote.

The musical is basically a show within a show. I saw the movie version of the musical last night. It starts with Miguel de Cervantes being arrested and in the dungeon, he arranges for the other prisoners to take part in a show, which is based off his book, Don Quixote. Miguel de Cervantes ended up playing the part of Don Quixote. He was an incredible Don Quixote because he truly acted like a knight errant. On Don Quixote’s deathbed, I almost cried. The actor who played Don Quixote’s squire was also lovely and always was there for his master. The actress who played Aldonza was also amazing.

One of the confusing parts about “Man of La Mancha” is that there are two beginnings and two endings. That is mainly because it is a story within a story. The first beginning starts when Cervantes and his assistant are putting together a show. The second beginning is when Cervantes starts describing who Don Quixote is. The first ending is when Don Quixote dies and the second ending is when Cervantes leaves the dungeon.

The sets were lovely, which convinced me that it was Spain. It also had a good collection of songs. Some of the songs stood out more than the others, which included the best song, “The Impossible Dream”. After seeing the movie, the musical ended up being meaningful to me because the character of Don Quixote already meant something to  me. He fascinates me because of his comic and tragic nature. There is a huge difference between tragic and comic elements coming together separately versus the two elements coming together in one character.