Broadway Musical Lyrics Quotes

Some things I cannot change, but 'til I try I'll never know.

The heart may freeze, or it can burn. The pain will ease and I can learn. There is no future, there is no past. I live this moment as, my last.

Those who don't try never look foolish.

It's just life, so keep dancing through.

Cause getting your dreams It's strange, but it seems A little -- well -- complicated There's a kind of a sort of : cost There's a couple of things get : lost There are bridges you cross You didn't know you crossed Until you've crossed.

....Everyone deserves a chance to fly!

Don't wish. Don't Start. Wishing only wounds the heart.

No, you're wrong. I'm a hundred percent callow and deeply shallow.

Let the green girl go!

Popular, You're gonna be Popular! I'll teach you the proper ploys when you talk to boys! Little ways to flirt and flounce! I'll show you what shoes to wear, how to fix your hair, everything that really counts, to be POPULAR!!

GLINDA: Well,I'm a public figure now! People expect me to-- ELPHABA: Lie? GLINDA: (fiercely) Be encouraging! And what exactly have you been doing? Besides riding on around on that filthy thing! ELPHABA: Well, we can't all come and go by bubble. Whose invention was that, the Wizard's? Of course, even if it wasn't, I'm sure he'd still take credit for it. GLINDA: Yes, well, a lot of us are taking things that don't belong to us, aren't we? Uh oh! The two stare daggers at each other, then... ELPHABA: Now, wait just a clock-tick. I know it's difficult for that blissful blonde brain of yours to comprehend that someone like him could actually choose someone like me!But it's happened. It's real. And you can wave that ridiculous wand all you want, you can't change it! He never belonged to you -- he doesn't love you, he never did! He loves me!

And Goodness knows The Wicked's lives are lonely Goodness knows The Wicked die alone

I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason bringing something we must learn. And we are led to those who help us most to grow if we let them, and we help them in return. Well, I don't know if I believe that's true, but I know I'm who I am today because I knew you...

Motormouth: So this is love? Well, love is a gift and a lot of people forget that. So you two better brace yourselves for a whole lot of ugly coming your way on a never ending train of stupid. Penny: So you met my mom?

I'm in love with New York. It matches my mood. I'm not overwhelmed. It is the suitable scene for my ever ever heightened life. I love the proportions, the amplitude, the brilliance, the polish, the solidity. I look up at Radio City insolently and love it. It's all great, and Babylonian. Broadway at night. Cellophane. The newness. The vitality. True, it is only physical. But it's inspiring. Just bring your own contents, and you create a sparkle of the highest power. I'm not moved, not speechless. I stand straight, tough and I meet the impact. I feel the glow and the dancing in everything. The radio music in the taxis, scientific magic, which can all be used lyrically. That's my last word. Give New York to a poet. He can use it. It can be poetized. Or maybe that's mania of mine, to poetize. I live lightly, smoothly, actively, ears or eyes wide open, alert, oiled! I feel the glow and the dancing in every thing and the tempo is like that of my blood. I'm at once beyond, over and in New York, tasting it fully.

Elphaba: "I just wish ..." Fiyero: "What?" Elphaba: "I wish I could be beautiful ... for you." Fiyero: "Elphaba ..." Elphaba: "Don't tell me that I am. You don't need to lie to me." Fiyero: "It's not lying! It's looking at things another way.

Both: "There's been some confusion for you see my roommate is ..." Galinda: "Unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe." Elphaba: "... Blonde.

Fiyero: "Why is it that every time I see you, you're causing some sort of commotion?" Elphaba: "I don't cause commotions, I am one." Fiyero: "That's for sure." Elphaba: "Oh! So you think I should just keep my mouth shut! Is that what you're saying?" Fiyero: "No, I'm ..." Elphaba: "Do you think I want to be this way? Do you think I want to care this much? Don't you know how much easier my life would be if I didn't?" Fiyero: "Do you ever let anyone else talk?" Elphaba: "Oh, sorry ... But can I just say one more thing? You could have just walked away back there." Fiyero: "So?" Elphaba: "So, no matter how shallow and self-absorbed you tend to be ..." Fiyero: "Excuse me, there's no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow." Elphaba: "No you're not. Or you wouldn't be so unhappy.

Well, we can't all come and go by bubble!

What?" "Nothing, it's just ... you've been 'Galinda-fied'. You don't have to do that, you know?

Because happy is what happens when all your dreams come true! Well ... isn't it?

I ain't sayin' I'm no better than anybody else, but I'll be damned if I ain't just as good!

I'm through accepting limits 'cause someone says they're so. Some things I cannot change but 'till I try I'll never know. Too long I've been afraid of losing love, I guess I've lost. Well, if that's love, it comes at much too high a cost. I'd sooner buy defying gravity.

Catch me I'm falling. Please hear me calling. Catch me before it's too late!

(BENNY finds NINA , grabs her. They kiss, illuminated by fireworks.)

One day you’ll both need my sympathy and will I be there? Probably.

VANESSA, FORGET ABOUT WHAT COULDA BEEN. DANCE WITH ME, ONE LAST NIGHT, IN THE HOOD AGAIN.

YOU ARE GONNA CHANGE THE WORLD AND THEN WE’RE ALL GONNA BRAG AND SAY, “WE KNEW HER WHEN!” THIS WAS YOUR HOME.

I WISH I WAS MAD— (She kisses him.) I’M JUST TOO LATE.

KEVIN I’m sorry. CAMILA Huh. DAMN RIGHT YOU’RE SORRY.

USNAVI So, did you kick some college ass? NINA I got mine handed to me on a silver platter.

The making of In The Heights was joyful, rich, rewarding, and full of life, much like the show itself.

Fiyero: "Why is it that every time I see you, you're causing some sort of commotion?" Elphaba: "I don't cause commotions. I am one." Fiyero: "That's for sure." Elphaba: "Oh! So you think I should just keep my mouth shut! Is that what you're saying?" Fiyero: "No, I'm ..." Elphaba: "Do you think I want to be this way? Do you think I want to care this much? Don't you know how much easier my life would be if I didn't?" Fiyero: "Do you ever let anyone else talk?" Elphaba: "Oh, sorry ... But can I just say one more thing? You could have just walked away back there." Fiyero: "So?" Elphaba: "So, no matter how shallow and self-absorbed you pretend to be ..." Fiyero: "Excuse me, there's no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow." Elphaba: "No, you're not. Or you wouldn't be so unhappy.

It spoke to every demographic and every age group—it was the kind of show a fifteen-year-old could go to with her friend and have one experience, and then take her grandmother to see and have an altogether different one.

SONNY Uh, my cousin over there with his tongue hanging out, has been meaning to ask you … VANESSA Yes? SONNY What a lady such as yourself might be doing tonight? VANESSA Does your cousin dance? SONNY Like a drunk Chita Rivera.

YES! MAYBE YOU’RE RIGHT, SONNY. CALL IN THE CORONERS! MAYBE WE’RE POWERLESS, A CORNER FULL OF FOREIGNERS. MAYBE THIS NEIGHBORHOOD’S CHANGING FOREVER MAYBE TONIGHT IS OUR LAST NIGHT TOGETHER, HOWEVER! HOW DO YOU WANNA FACE IT? DO YOU WANNA WASTE IT, WHEN THE END IS SO CLOSE YOU CAN TASTE IT? YOU COULD CRY WITH YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND. I’M A-FLY THIS FLAG THAT I GOT IN MY HAND!

The Broadway incarnation of In The Heights began previews at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on February 14, 2008, almost five years to the day when I had seen the reading in the basement of the Drama Book Shop, and a little over eight years since Lin first presented the material at his twentieth birthday party in his parents’ house in Inwood, the neighborhood just north of Washington Heights where he grew up.

The 2017-18 Broadway season offered a perfect example of the difference between the performative and psychological styles of acting in musicals. At the Shubert Theatre, veteran singer and comedienne Bette Midler returned to Broadway in a revival of Hello, Dolly!, a musical that demands above all star presence. To the delight of her fans, Midler played Bette Midler as Dolly. No one in the audience wanted her to be anyone else and the part didn’t demand the plumbing of psychological depth. A block away, young Ben Platt offered a powerful example of how a talented acting singer can create a believable character through speech and song in a musical. Platt’s performance in Dear Evan Hansen (Book, Steven Levenson; Music and lyrics, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul), has made him a star but Platt never breaks character, never acknowledges the audience. Ben Platt convincingly becomes Evan Hansen in both dialogue and song. Dear Evan Hansen is a post-Sondheim musical that demands intense acting as well as singing; Hello, Dolly! demands personality.

Verse speakers and opera singers could learn a great deal if they listen to all forms of popular music from Billie Holiday to Edith Piaf, where the passion, the feeling, the intonation, the tempo all arise from the word. In Broadway jargon, this is called ‘reading’ a song. I once asked Richard Rodgers, composer of Oklahoma! and countless other musicals, whether he had a stash of melodies in a top drawer, waiting to be used. ‘Of course not!’ he said. ‘I need the words.’ Like every composer of songs, it is the words that are proposed by a lyric that awaken the tune”.

Crazy for You opens backstage at the Zangler Theatre, New York, where Bobby, desperate to break into showbusiness, performs an impromptu audition for the great impresario Bella Zangler. This is not a ‘book number’ – that’s to say, the music is not an expression of character or plot point arising from the dialogue, the defining convention of musical theatre. Instead, more prosaically, it’s a real number, a ‘prop number’: Bobby is backstage and doing the song for Zangler. So it’s sparely orchestrated – little more than a rehearsal piano and some support; it’s one chorus; and its tap-break ends with Bobby stamping on Zangler’s foot. This is grim reality: Bobby is expelled from the theatre. Outside, he makes a decision, and sings ‘I Can’t Be Bothered Now’ – the second song, but the real opening number: the first ‘book number’ in the show. There is an automobile onstage (it’s the 1930s) and, as Bobby opens the door, one showgirl, pretty in pink, steps out, then another, and another, and more and more, far more than could fit in any motor car; finally, Bobby raises the hood of the vehicle and the last chorine emerges. The audience leans back, reassured and content: Susan Stroman’s fizzy, inventive choreography has told them that what’s about to follow is romantic fantasy. More to the point, it’s true to the character of the song, and the choice of song is true to Bobby’s character and the engine of the drama: My bonds and shares May fall downstairs Who cares? Who cares? I’m dancing and I Can’t Be Bothered Now … This lyric captures the philosophy of Ira Gershwin’s entire oeuvre – which is important: the show is a celebration of Gershwin. But it’s also an exact expression of Bobby’s feelings and the reason why he heads to Dead Rock, Arkansas. So the number does everything it should: it defines the principal’s motivation; it kick-starts the plot; and it communicates the spirit of the score and the staging. Audiences don’t reason it out like that; we just eat it up. But that’s why.

Lerner held that Brigadoon was one of Minnelli’s least vivacious efforts, despite the potential offered by CinemaScope. Only the wedding scene and the chase that follows reveal Minnelli’s unique touch. Before shooting began, Freed rushed to inform Lerner that “Vincente is bubbling over with enthusiasm about Brigadoon.” But, evidently, his heart was not in this film. Early on, Minnelli made a mistake and confessed to Kelly that he really hadn’t liked the Broadway show. As a film, Brigadoon was curiously flat and rambling, lacking in warmth or charm, and the direction lacks Minnelli’s usual vitality and smooth flow. Admittedly, Lerner’s fairy-tale story was too much of a wistful fancy. Two American hunters go astray in the Scottish hills, landing in a remote village that seems to be lost in time. One of the fellows falls in love with a bonnie lass from the past, which naturally leads to some complications. Minnelli thought that it would be better to set the story in 1774, after the revolts against English rule had ended. For research about the look of the cottages, he consulted with the Scottish Tourist Board in Edinburgh. But the resulting set of the old highland village looks artificial, despite the décor, the Scottish costumes, the heather blossoms, and the scenic backdrops. Inexplicably, some of the good songs that made the stage show stand out, such as “Come to Me, Bend to Me,” “My Mother’s Wedding Day,” and “There But for You Go I,” were omitted from the film. Other songs, such as “The Heather on the Hill” and “Almost Like Being in Love,” had some charm, though not enough to sustain the musical as a whole. Moreover, the energy of the stage dances was lost in the transfer to the screen, which was odd, considering that Kelly and Charisse were the dancers. For some reason, their individual numbers were too mechanical. What should have been wistful and lyrical became an exercise in trickery and by-now-predictable style. With the exception of “The Chase,” wherein the wild Scots pursue a fugitive from their village, the ensemble dances were dull. Onstage, Agnes de Mille’s choreography gave the dance a special energetic touch, whereas Kelly’s choreography in the film was mediocre at best and uninspired at worst. It didn’t help that Kelly and Charisse made an odd, unappealing couple. While he looks thin and metallic, she seems too solemn and often just frozen. The rest of the cast was not much better. Van Johnson, as Kelly’s friend, pouts too much. As Scottish villagers, Barry Jones, Hugh Laing, and Jimmy Thompson act peculiarly, to say the least.

The show ultimately ran on Broadway for 1,184 performances, closing on January 9, 2011, and went out on two national tours.

NINA ÁMAME. BENNY LOVE ME. NINA PERHAPS I DO.

Yo, Sonny. (Gestures that SONNY should get lost.)

KEVIN (To NINA.) Excuse me. You’re the princess, Claudia is the queen. CAMILA And what does that make me? KEVIN The dictator. (KEVIN and CAMILA kiss.)

DANIELA (To GRAFFITI PETE.) Here. It’s called a broom. (To VANESSA.) It’s the Fourth of July, show some fucking spirit! (Neighbors reluctantly clean.)

DONALD TRUMP AND I ON THE LINKS, AND HE’S MY CADDY!

Cómo? Uh … dónde estás? Uno momento. Yo, cabrón, I’m trying to help you!

My boss, my boss.” You’re paving the road to someone else’s dreams. Man, strike out on your own.

(We hear the cacophony of the most beautifulhorn chart ever written.)

I’M RUNNIN’ TO MAKE IT HOME AND HOME’S WHAT VANESSA’S RUNNIN’ AWAY FROM! I’M RUNNIN’ TO MAKE IT HOME AND HOME’S WHAT VANESSA’S RUNNIN’ AWAY FROM

BENNY Exit fourteen, follow signs to Fort Tryon. NINA The U-turn off exit fifteen is quicker. BENNY It’s also illegal.

(USNAVI grabs VANESSA from CLUB GUY and dances with her. CLUB GUY is pissed.

END OF SHOW

ATENCIÓN. ATENCIÓN. ROLL DOWN YOUR WINDOWS. TURN UP YOUR RADIOS. UN MOMENTO, POR FAVOR. (CAMILA enters, stands beside him.) ATENCIÓN. ATENCIÓN. PLEASE DRIVE SLOW. LET EVERYBODY KNOW ABUELA CLAUDIA PASSED AWAY AT NOON TODAY.

ABUELA CLAUDIA REMEMBER THE STORY OF YOUR NAME? IT WAS ENGRAVED ON A PASSING SHIP ON THE DAY YOUR FAMILY CAME. YOUR FATHER SAID “USNAVI, THAT’S WHAT WE’LL NAME THE BABY.” USNAVI IT REALLY SAID U.S. NAVY, BUT HEY, I WORKED WITH WHAT THEY GAVE ME, OKAY?