“The Last Five, no scratch that, Ten Years” A Revisit with the Tony-Winning “Best Musicals” of the Decade

Welcome back to Memoirs of a Theatre Kid for the final post of the year, but also the decade.

My gif-courtes of Giphy.com

Navigating through the social medias this month, I couldn’t help but notice a trend of reviewing/reminiscing through the two thousand tens, aka the first decade where I was old enough to be cognizant of the world and its goings on from start to finish. I thought to myself, “What theatre-related thing of the past ten years can I write about on Memoirs of a Theatre Kid?”

Eventually, I decided I’d dive into the ten winners of the highly sought-after “Best Musical” Tony award from 2010-2019, and what the original cast and creative team of each show has gone on to do since their respective wins. (Obviously it would be impossible to chart ever accomplishment and accolade from every individual who mounted these musicals, but I tried to squeeze in the bigger ones with a somewhat logical and well-transitioned narrative).

So travel back to me to the start of the decade…when your humble author was an underclassman in high school, Obama was in his first term of office, and Toy Story 3 was released.

“The Costumes, The Scenery, The Makeup, The Props…” Theatrical Travels Part II

Welcome back to Memoirs of a Theatre Kid!

Courtesy of giphy.com

I apologize for the month gap in posts. For those of you who know me personally (which I’m guessing is my entire readership) you can probably guess the reason behind this gap…namely an F-3 tornado that hit my apartment complex and had my roommate and myself (as well as our fur babies) displaced for a month.

Courtesy of giphy.com

I’m happy to report all animals and humans are healthy and well, and we’re moved into a new place and are slowly but surely getting our lives back together and reestablishing a sense of normalcy. For me, part of that is getting back to writing. But since I am still in the middle of a thousand boxes that need to be unpacked and a massive to-do list, I’m keeping it simple this month by continuing with my theatrical travels series. (Should you care to hear more about us getting our lives together after the tornado, check out this video interview we did with KMIZ on the fourth of July, and this interview I did with News Tribune about being separated and reunited with my kitty Gavin in the after math of the tornado).

For this post I decided I’d focus on places where theatre enthusiasts can travel to view props, costumes, and other notable memorabilia from Broadway musicals and plays, as well as well as their film adaptations and other movie musicals.

Courtesy of giphy.com

(I should probably clarify the difference I mean between adaptations of musicals/plays verses movie movie musicals. I would classify adaptations as any works that began as a stage show that was than adapted for the screen, such as Hello Dolly, The Crucible etc. But when I refer to “movie musicals”, I mean any musical that was initially created in cinema such as La La Land, Singin’ in the Rain, etc.)

This didn’t leave me quite as wide a berth as my first post in the theatrical travels series, so I didn’t follow quite such a strict set of criteria this time around. While costumes, props, and filming locations were the primary focus for this post, if any of the selected locations also had items/features that tied in to a musical/play based upon historical events, I decided to include those as a historical bonus if you’re like me and can’t get enough of those real life tie-ins between the stage and real life.

Courtesy of giphy.com