Greatest Showman- The Best

The first time I saw The Greatest Showman was one of the best parts of Gardner Webb. In Gaffney, which is about 15 minutes away from GWU, has a place called The Big E. It closes itself to just GWU students at 11:00 p.m- what students usually do is see a movie. I choose Greatest Showman- due to it being a musical and due to the fact that I saw two of the actors before. I originally saw Zac Efron as Troy in High School Musical and originally saw Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean.

Of all musicals that haven’t yet made it to stage, Greatest Showman is my favorite musical. Hugh Jackman shines as Barnum- he shines a lot more in this particular role. You really get to see all of the incredible talents Hugh Jackman has. I actually was expecting Zac Efron to be amazing in this musical- and I was right. Zac has really grown up to play the part of Phillip Caryle, and it really does show in this movie. Now on to why I love this movie:

A good musical isn’t complete without amazing songs. Greatest Showman has such an amazing soundtracks. From “Million Dreams” to “Come Alive” to “This is Me” to “Rewrite the Stars”- together make it such an incredible musical. The fact that the love song happens on trapeze make Phillip’s and Ann’s relationship incredible- it was very original on what happened during “Rewrite the Stars”. Just the choreography alone is amazing- all due to various circus elements.

On top of the songs, an incredible story on how the circus was founded- yes a lot is changed from the real Barnum story, but love the particular story found in Greatest Showman. Just a story of truly accepting who you are and being accepted by others. “This is Me” really does show the “being yourself” theme. It is just an incredible musical- no other explanation.

Three Sections I Can Divide Musicals In

Well, I can easily separate meaningful musicals into three categories. Those are my childhood musicals, Fletcher musicals, and college musicals. These are all self-explanatory meaning you can easily describe all three. Let me put this into more perspective.

My childhood musicals were ALL musicals that entered my life before I started middle school. Beauty and the Beast, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Wizard of OZ, Aladdin, Lion King, Grease, Sound of Music, and Annie fit under this category.

What about the Fletcher musicals? Well, I call these Fletcher musicals because they entered my life when I was still a student at Fletcher. I went to that school from 6th -12th grade. That school was a small K-12 school. Most of the musicals I saw in this time frame were movie musicals. These musicals were Wicked, Mamma Mia, Enchanted, and The High School Musical series. So this set of musicals were the smallest.

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College Musicals- I went to two colleges. Central Piedmont Community College and Gardner Webb University were the ones I went to. There were a lot of musicals I fell in love. They were Rent, Godspell, Les Mis, South Pacific, Oklahoma, Newsies, Phantom of the Opera, Frozen, Man of La Mancha, White Christmas, Music Man, Pippin, Singing in the Rain, My Fair Lady, Greatest Showman, and Fiddler on the Roof. This time frame was where my passion for musicals came from- thanks to Les Mis, which challenged everything. That is why there is a lot. What was amazing about CPCC is just how professional they feel: I literally called their production of “Les Mis” phenomenal. CPCC is where I started to get more into theatre: I ushered twice for Les Mis and once for Some Enchanted Evening.

Non Stage Musicals I Either Like or Love

I still can’t believe I NEVER talked about these musicals. Most of the musicals I tend to talk about are the STAGE musicals. However-what about the ones that are not on stage. Those are still musicals-I decided to focus on those today, but it will NOT focus on the sequels.

Greatest Showman

For some reason, this one comes to mind first. Hugh Jackman shines as P.T Barnum (I believe he is MUCH better as P.T. Barnum than Jean Valjean). Hugh Jackman truly shows off a lot of his talents in this musical. Just like seeing Hugh Jackman in a second musical theatre role-it also was my 2nd with Zac Efron, and it really was a largely different parts did fall in love (BUT they still were different). I love the plot, the song- basically EVERYTHING.

All the High School Musical Movies

Why do I put all three together? They are a series after all. You truly follow the major characters and really them develop over a course of three movies. However, the first will always be the BEST. These movies are an important part of my musical theatre journey.

Enchanted

While you MIGHT think as an 90s girl one of the classic Disney movies was my favorite Disney movie, but NONE of them were. It actually was this movie-the combo of animated/live action; the combo of fairy tales; the incredible songs; etc. It was that incredible- it also played an important part of my musical theatre journey.

Greatest Showman Review

Yesterday, I watched the Greatest Showman and really enjoyed it. The first Friday of each month, this place called the Big E closes off their doors at 11:00 at night for Gardner Webb students to enjoy. There are usually movie options and for this movie, it was going to start at 11:55. Me being the musical fanatic that I am, I knew that I had to eventually see Greatest Showman. Greatest Showman is about the creation of P.T Barnum’s circus.

Hugh Jackman was the best choice for P.T. Barnum. This role made you really see all the talents Hugh Jackman has. It shows how talented he is due to all his singing, dancing, and acting. This my 2nd movie I had seen Hugh Jackman is. The first I saw him was Jean Valjean in the movie, Les Misérables.

I am glad I saw him in this role because it made me love him more as an actor and allowed him to express many more of his talents. Zac Efron as Phillip Caryle was wonderful and worked really nice together with Zendaya as Anne Wheeler. All of the people in the different acts were quite talented as well. You saw actors being on the trapeze, beautiful dancing, and many things.

The dance numbers had such wonderful choreography. They were able to show the founding of the circus while still having room for dance. It showed people who are different and that was unique to see. This movie being at 11:55 at night, I am glad I never fell asleep. I especially loved songs such as “Rewrite the Stars”, “A Million Dreams”, and “This is Me”. Something I always want in musicals are spectacle and dance. What was unique about “Rewrite the Stars” is that they were singing while being on the trapeze.

This circus elements are somewhat like the circus elements in the musical, Pippin, but in a different way. If you are a musical fanatic or someone who does not love musicals, you should experience this movie.