Customer Reviews

My Favorite Year (1992 Original Broadway Cast)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've enjoyed the Peter O'Toole, Mark Lynn Baker film since it's first appearance. So, when I discovered this musical version of the fabulous film with the amazing Tim Curry I just had to check it out.
This is a very nice musical..it isn't stunning or amazing but I can imagine it was a very fun show to go see. Most of the music is pretty light hearted but Tim has a couple of good strong songs for that amazing voice of his.

Besides Ragtime, Aherns and Flaherty get little notice in the musical theater world. They deserve so much more credit. This show, along with Once on this Island, are among my favorites.
Tim Curry is amazing as always in this part. His emotion and strength is evident despite this simply being the soundtrack. Lainie Kazan and Andrea Martin are comic geniuses and certainly hold their own in this show. Evan Pappas is great as an innocent young man on his television journey. Highlights of this recording include "If the World Were Like the Movies," "Professional Showbizness Comedy," and "Rookie in the Ring."
As far as excellence of musicality, this show does show the immature stages of the pair. Ragtime is far more full and smooth, but My Favorite Year is an unsung musical that deserves some more attention.

I am an actress who occasionally does musicals, and this was the first one I ever did (at age 12 I played Tess). Although it's not up there with the greatest shows in the world and was not awfully successful (it closed after about 30 performances on Broadway), My Favorite Year is one of my very favorites. The music - although, again, it is not terrific - is a lot of fun to listen to and I guarantee you will want to hear this CD over and over again if you buy it. The best numbers in the show are the opening number, "Twenty Million People," and Swann's "Exits". "Shut up and Dance," sung by the male lead, Benjy Stone, and his romantic interest, K.C., is good too, although I must warn you that it will play over and over again in your mind long after you've turned off the CD, possibly driving you mad. (Now that I've written that, it's happening to me. Aaargh...) All in all, I think this is a CD worth buying. The show is so much fun. If I could go back to that time and do it all over again, I would.

My Favorite Year was one of the first shows I ever did, nonprofessionally, it will always hold a special place in my heart. But the music is just amazing the comedy is engenius. The sound is brillant and the voice variation and quality is just outstanding. But other numbers such as "If the world were like a movie" grab your heart and pull, the lyrics and passion of which it is sung will move you to tears. The soundtrack on the hole is so simplistic that it is monumental. It spans all aspects of the musical including the subplots. It is so brillantly written that the listener is just pulled in and you feel like you are standing in the studio next to Alan Swann in 1954! Never will another show match this one nor the music it is too orginal. I would flip for a revival on Broadway. Remember "Savor the aroma" Buy this CD

My Favorite Year is a phenomenal blend of classic musical theatre and, even though I hate to use the word because of it's negative connotation, "campy"-ness that makes it a great show for everybody to enjoy. The irresistable lyrics and wonderful orchestrations paint a vivid picture of everybody in the show and their personality traits and quirks. This show can make you smile with just the opening number. My Favorite Year is wonderfully written with amazingly talented singers AND actors to bring it to life JUST on cd. Kudos!

What can one say about My Favorite Year? One could point out the stars that have filled various roles on Broadway and in the movie. One could also go on about the music and libretto matching perfectly. One could even reminisce about the golden days of television, with its live (and lascivious) humor that never failed to evoke laughs. My advice: buy the CD, and hear a classic musical for yourself!

Flaherty and Ahrens are the very best of the new composers because their music, always, entertains. This score is so apt,fresh and funny- you can see the show happening as you listen and I have never seen it!. I am old enough,though, to remember those golden years of television comedy when shows were filmed live and things did go, hilariously, wrong. I particularly love the voices of Evan Pappas,Tim Curry and Lainie Kazan- "Rookie in the Ring" is a knockout (pardon the pun!) Although this cd contains a considerable amount of dialogue it's such clever, funny, well delivered dialogue that you won't tire of it easliy. This is a very exciting cd with a uniformly excellent cast. A musical comedy, with heart, emotion and lots of laughs. My favourite CD? Well, at the moment, yes! No collection should be without it!

A great, fun musical. Anything with Tim Curry and Lainie Kazan *must* be fun. Hilarious and touching, MY FAVORITE YEAR, is for all those who loved RAGTIME.

A delightful, tuneful musical, true to it's source with some wonderful performances, My Favorite Year deserved much more than the month or so that it ran. There have been alot of musicals, not nearly as good as this that have been successful. Oh well!
Tim Curry does an admirable job of filling Peter O'Toole's shoes. Andrea Martin is a hoot, and having Lainie Kazan ("Rookie, a seltzer!!") re-create her film role was brilliant (after all who else could have done it???). The rest of the cast are fine, Evan Pappas is admirable as Benjy.
The score is charming and does justice to the film. Curry has a couple of lovely big numbers, Kazan actually has a very sweet ballad, Rookie In The Ring, as well as leading the big show stopper, Welcome To Brooklyn. Martin and Papas do nicely with the comedy numbers, and the title song/finale is quite stirring.
Overall a worthwhile musical that deserved more success. Terrific and enjoyable CD, worth having!

Probably the best word that I can use to describe this soundtrack is WOW! In December of 2001, my high school theatre troupe performed the broadway production of My Favorite Year and I can sure tell you that it was a lot of work! We could not have done this show without the "guidance" that this soundtrack gave us. It was an invaluable aide to assist us with our singing and helped improve our acting. This soundtrack, believe it or not, helped us to actually get a better idea of how the show worked and ran and gave us an insight as to how deep the characters were and how far their interactions among the other major characters ran when we were barely auditioning for the show. I can't enough of how great the soundtrack is, whether you're planning the production of the show or are just interested in purchasing it, you will be sure to enjoy the drama and humor that the soundtrack so well captures and am positive you will go back and want to hear it all over again!