I listened to the OBR
Music / Lyrics: William Finn (Falsettos, A New Brain)
Book: Rachel Sheinkin
On the whole I was unimpressed by this musical, largely due to the lack of interest in the plot, and sometimes painful lyrics.
Things I DID like:
The end of "Woe is me" when she keeps singing, after the tag (instrumental and vocal from chorus) ends. The tag comes back in and finishes, and she's still singing. Then one last time the tag plays and they're done. I found that hilarious.
I also like the variations on "Goodbye". It's always the same, but is lead up to by different things.
The use of different styles was well done... Except that it felt forced. It was not necessarily part of the world of the play, unlike Seussical. (Maybe part of that came from the fact that each different style would be preceded or followed by standard musical theatre thoroughfare. Meaning it changed styles in the middle of a song.)
"My unfortunate erection" seemed to be a good song. Not sure if that's because I'm biased because I've heard it before, though.
Ooh, also apparently when they perform it, they get volunteers from the audience to participate in the spelling bee. They sing Goodbye to them, and they are serenaded by the Comfort Counselor. That's a neat bit of audience interaction that can probably only happen in a show like this. So there's that, and that's cool.
