You’ll like this if you enjoy: Any of Whitman and Shaiman’s work, musicals about criminals like Chicago, The Producers, and Bonnie and Clyde.
Click here to listen to the Catch Me If You Can cast recording.
Bad Girls: The Musical is another crime-themed show, based on a TV series of the same name. It follows a fictional group of inmates in a women’s prison in London. The stage production is definitely a more comedic interpretation of the TV show, but the characters and storylines are taken directly from the first season. It’s a super unique show, and really is a good time. It really sits on its own as a piece of theatre, in that I can’t think of anything quite like it. Bad Girls opened in Leeds in 2006, before moving to a West End run in 2007. It’s a woman-heavy show, and would be a really fun idea for a small community or independent theatre company. While we haven’t seen a professional production of Bad Girls in Australia to my knowledge (or frantic googling!) a filmed version of the musical is available to rent on Vimeo.
Standout track/s: A-List; The Key; The Future Is Bright; This is My Life
You’ll like this if you enjoy: Any of the crime-related musicals listed earlier, shows with a large cast of women like Nine and 9 to 5.
Click here to listen to the Bad Girls cast recording.
Do I Hear A Waltz? is a lesser known show with a well known creative team. With book by Arthur Laurents (West Side Story, Gypsy), music by Richard Rodgers (Carousel, The Sound of Music), and Stephen Sondheim (Sweeney Todd, Into The Woods), I am amazed that more people don’t know to talk about this show. Adapted from Laurents’ play The Time of the Cuckoo, the show follows a struggling secretary taking her dream vacation in Italy, and the hijinks that ensue while she’s there. However, the show was not seen as a success despite all the right ingredients, with many agreeing that it did not add much to its source material. Nonetheless, it’s a lovely listen, and there are some fabulous songs within the score.
Standout track/s: Someone Woke Up; Take The Moment; Do I Hear A Waltz?
You’ll like this if you enjoy: The works of Rodgers, Sondheim, or Laurents, the original play The Time of the Cuckoo or the 1955 film adaptation Summertime.
Click here to listen to the Do I Hear A Waltz cast recording.