confessions of a drama queen

I was an 11 year-old Audrey

I love show tunes. It’s taken me a while to own up, but now I say it with pride. The musical theater geek is a highly specific sort, with a few defining characteristics: a flair for the dramatic, a surplus of passion, a hormonal level to rival the most flagrantly pubescent of teenagers. I think all of these traits inform the way I listen to music now—it seems I take a liking to musicians who embrace their theatrical sides, particularly in songs about heartbreak, rage, obsession and despair. At the same time, I deeply appreciate singers who can make big lavish production numbers simply because they’re happy and they need the world to know.

Many a music nerd—whether you like wailing emo boys, sultry chanteuses or flamboyant popsters–will find lots to love in show tunes. If you’re a fan of Metric, Morrissey, Kate Bush, Tim Buckley, Of Montreal, Antony, Frightened Rabbit, The Gossip, Andrew Bird, The Mountain Goats or Fiona Apple, to name just a few, chances are you’re gonna like a few of the jams on this list. Allow me to take you through a few of my highly subjective list of favorite musicals—from emo to delightfully corny.

Song and Dance
Just as the title states, the format of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical about a young British woman’s romantic travails in America is straightforward: the first half features one actress singing all of the show’s songs in an extended musical monologue, while the second half is all dancing. Bernadette Peters stars as the ingénue who chronicles the ups and downs of her romances through some knockout songs. Her kewpie doll looks and sweetie pie vocals sometimes belie the true power of her voice, but Peters is a master of ballads that start quietly but build to a thunderous crescendo. One of these ballads, “Tell Me on a Sunday,” is one of the best breakup songs of all time. Period.

Jesus Christ Superstar
I’m Jewish, so I originally learned about the New Testament from this Andrew Lloyd Weber rock opera. (Is that not the saddest single sentence in the history of modern religion?) The highlight has to be Mary Magdalene’s stunner, “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” which I imagine would make a great cover for Jenny Lewis or Neko Case.

Mandy Patinkin: Dress Casual
OK, let’s get really obscure. Four tracks on this Mandy Patinkin record are from a 1966 made-for-TV Stephen Sondheim musical called Evening Primrose–it’s about a bizarre bunch of people who live in a department store (and remember, this was written long before the Andrew McCarthy vehicle Mannequin came out). On this recording, Patinkin sings the part of one of the residents; Bernadette Peters plays Ella, his muse. Their urgent duet, “When,” along with “I Remember,” Ella’s patchwork of recollections of the outside world, are the standouts.

Side by Side by Sondheim
No one tackles obsession quite like Stephen Sondheim. I can trace my precocious flair for drama back to the days of singing songs from this collection of Sondheim classics at voice lessons when I was 12. My preadolescent fave was “Losing My Mind” from the musical Follies, which has Fiona Apple cover written all over it. “Not a Day Goes By” is also wrenching and brutal and bleak, teetering on the verge of madness, as any good torch song should be.

Kiss of the Spider Woman
Take a novel about two cellmates in an Argentinean prison in the 1980’s and turn it into a splashy Broadway musical. Sounds like a disaster, no? But somehow it works, mostly because one of the prisoners has a vivid imagination, transforming his bleak prison cell into a bright neon Bway extravaganza, featuring Chita Rivera as the title character. The glitzy showstopper “Dressing Them Up” is a number to which I could see Kevin Barnes strutting around at the next big music fest.

Phantom
Don’t confuse it with The Phantom of the Opera! It came out at roughly the same time, but this woefully overlooked version of Phantom was written by the guys who wrote Nine, and its score feels way more exhilarating, a little less cheesy than the Broadway behemoth. Amid all of the blustering about romantic love, this Phantom manages to evoke a different kind of rapture: the love of music. “Home” is the heroine’s love letter to the Paris Opera House, and it gives me chills every time I hear it.

The Boyfriend
Pure joy. Set at an all-girl boarding school in 1920’s France, The Boyfriend features boy-crazy flappers whose main goals are to fall in love, dance and look cute. What could be better? The best songs are all cornball and fluff and full of glee: “Won’t You Charleston with Me?,” celebrates the flapper dance craze, while the title song addresses teenage flapper priority # 1. Also, Twiggy stars in the movie version, so put this one in your Netflix queue. For the costumes alone!

Guys and Dolls
Forget the lackluster performances from the latest Bway revival (sorry, Lauren Graham!)—this 1992 cast recording features the incomparable Faith Prince as Adelaide, the squeaky-voiced sex kitten who’s been waiting for far too long for her gangster boyfriend to propose. This show is hit after hit, but the biggest showstoppers belong to the men: “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat” and “Luck Be a Lady.”

Bye Bye Birdie
A visit from a swaggering Elvis-like idol turns a small town into a circus in this 1960’s classic. “Honestly Sincere” is the pelvis-swiveling number, while the ear wormy “The Telephone Hour” features gossip girls (and guys) from a much more innocent time spreading some juicy rumors. Ann Margaret was to-die-for in the movie version, but this original Broadway cast recording is a classic as well.