Top 10 Musicals You've Never Heard Of 

Batboy the Musical.

The fact that Ordinary Days is not well known makes my heart sad.

Ordinary Days deserves SO MUCH HYPE I love that show​@@kaitiecolbert8597

Hold on wild party had Sutton foster how did I now know this?!?!

Eugenius! Just fun, beautiful, funny, sweet with great music and humor ❤

Me, an autistic performer: 9/10 (only The Ghost Quartet eluded me), and 3/4 honorable mentions (The Beautiful Game).

I nominate Children of Eden! A Stephen Schwartz show that has yet to go to Broadway even though it's been around for a few decades. Act one is Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and a snake singing five-part harmony (I was part of the snake squad in a production in St. Louis a couple years ago). Act two is Noah and his family, as many animals as you'd expect, a bonus character who doesn't appear in the scriptural account, and THE BEST eleven o'clock number: "Ain't It Good." Look up the Paper Mill Playhouse cast recording; I think the whole thing (or close to) exists as a playlist somewhere here on the Tubes.

I am also autistic and have musicals as a special interest !

@@jenniferkerner6444 Also an autistic performer.

Me too and I watched proshot Ruthless and Ghost Quartet when pandemia stared. I bought movie version ... Rainbow so i must watch this now ❤

She said it was the Off-Broadway version.

A theatre piece has an original cast album. A soundtrack is for a film.

Saw it in New York and it was hysterical!

Wasn’t it just on Broadway, same as Parade..

My college just did it

Me too! Who did you play

Me tooo

That's a good one! The Apple Tree was done at City Center Encores! a few years ago and it was a revelation.

Which has some heartbreakingly beautiful songs! "I'll never have the moon."

It died after it went bust at the Tonies.

It’s equal parts Shade (Season 6) and Joan (AS 8).

My college did Zanna, Don't my freshman year! I played piano in the pit.

They’re not well-known amongst folks who aren’t into theater. I will say that the inclusion of The Secret Garden, Something Rotten, and Parade (at least, post-revival) are questionable, since I’d consider all of them to be mainstream musicals. Plus, Bare and The Lighting Thief are known by anyone who has more than a passing interest in musicals and Finian’s Rainbow has been done by every school theater group ever.

Not really, it’s still obscure to mainstream audiences as it doesn’t get recognized over time. Same logic goes with tv shows that were popular at one point in time but forgotten decades later to newer audiences

Bold of them to put it on the list, it was so bad the Academy didn’t even nominate it for best musical award, even though it was 1 of only 2 musicals during COVID.

@@punkwrestleReally? I’ve only heard of ppl loving that musical (especially more than the movies though that bar isn’t that high)

​@@punkwrestle Bad? I will tolerate no such slander. It is an incredible musical and deserved to be nominated.

@@punkwrestleWHATTT it was the first musical I've ever gotten into obsessively, I know every little sound they made in the soundtrack, whether it's actual lyrics or just random sounds that happened to be there

As a theater kid and Percy Jackson fangirl, I agree

Agree.

I was a little shocked that parade was on there to but I think Parade is still undated it's my second favorite musical after seeing the Broadway revival

REAL!!! My best friend and I have been talking for ages about how we wanna play Leo and Lucile Frank if we ever got the chance. Plus (at least around my theater company) Percy is very well known and we all love it.

I was shocked by this as well. Also, Parade was fairly obscure for a while, but it had a resurgence in popularity last year thanks to the production with Ben Platt.

My thoughts exactly. I consider it a fairly well known show.

Our high school performed The Secret Garden last year.

I said the same about The Unsinkable Molly Brown......I saw the movie version with Debbie Reynolds

I absolutely love this musical and listen to it often

And New York City Center's current mounting of Titanic is SENSATIONAL!

yea i think more people know about the secret garden then titanic

I didn't know that existed until I participated in a March Madness Broadway bracket. I almost lost my fucking mind lmao

YES!!!! What a score! Masterful. City Center Encores! just did a fantastic, semi-staged production that had an unbelieveable and impossibly gifted cast. A star, every one of them, with every voice a golden thread. STUNNING production that I was lucky enough to see on it's "maiden" voyage, as well as it's "final" sailing. (I went to the first show, and the last!)

@@JoesCranium Could not possibly agree more! It was STUNNING!

I clicked because of the thumbnail.

@@esthero5428 samee 🤣🤣

Real

Opinion on Urinetown? I see you're comments all the time lol

How about "Anyone Can Whistle", "The Capeman" or "Sweet Smell of Success"? All three could stand a film adaptation too, especially the last one. The original production of "Sweet Smell of Success" underperformed both critically and commercially back in 2002, due to opening 6 months after 9/11. A movie musical adaptation of the property should revive mainstream public interest in the stage musical itself (and in the 1957 film on which the musical is based). Studio: MGM Filming location: Toronto, Canada Director: Damien Chazelle Producer: Damien Chazelle (the 2002 musical had Clear Channel Entertainment AND Harvey "Scissorhands" Weinstein attached to it) Associate Producer: Olivia Hamilton Choreographer: Sergio Trujillo Assistant Choreographer: Jennie Ford Orchestrator: Justin Hurwitz Conductors: Justin Hurwitz & Damon Gupton Editor: Tom Cross Cinematographer: Linus Sandgren Costume Designer: Mary Zophres Production Designer: Florencia Martin Hair Department Head: Jaime Leigh McIntosh Makeup Department Head: Heba Thorisdottir Supervising Sound Editor/Sound Designer/Re-Recording Mixer: Ai-Ling Lee Supervising Sound Editor: Mildred Iatrou Morgan Cast: *Dan Aykroyd as JJ Hunsecker *Carrie Underwood as Susan Hunsecker (JJ's daughter, upgraded from his half-sister) *Ryan Gosling as Sidney Falco *Shawn Mendes as Steven "Dallas" Cochran *Fefe Dobson as Rita O'Rourke, Sidney's girlfriend *Jack Noseworthy as Otis Elwell, rival gossip columnist (Jack originated the role of Dallas on stage in 2002 and is married to Colombian-Canadian choreographer Sergio Trujillo) *Jonathan Frakes as NYPD Commissioner Harry Kello, Sr. *Stephen Kramer Glickman as NYPD Lieutenant Harry Kello, Jr., Commissioner Kello's son and the artistic director of the Policeman's Ball *Ed Robertson as Billy Van Cleve, owner of the Café Elysian *Ramin Karimloo as Tony, owner of the Club Voodoo *Jared Cotter as Club Zanzibar Singer *Greg Bryk as Senator *Robyn Hurder as Senator's Girlfriend *Paula Brancati as Dead Actress *Jennie Ford as Pregnant Woman *Timothy J. Alex as Tony's Caprice Bartender *Nicholas Colicos as Telethon Announcer *Sutan Amrull as Andre *Brock Hayhoe as Mae West *Anna Chazelle (Damien's sister) as Abigail Barclay, aspiring actress *Stella Aykroyd (Dan's youngest daughter) as Madge, JJ's secretary *Olivia Hamilton (Damien's wife) as Charlotte von Habsburg (formerly Pepper White) *Joshua Henry as Lester

I agree completely!

@@disney4real Thank you very much.

I feel like Aida is fairly well known

I couldn’t agree more. Interesting enough there was an attempt to make an Aida movie and Whitney Houston was cast as Aida, the movie was shelved after she passed away and hasn’t been revisited since (to the public knowledge)

The Magicians Elephant is still being developed but from what I have seen, it is going to be big when it hits the US stage.

I'd recommend watching the tony awards for it (1997)

You could put half of wildhorn's catalog on this list as he doesn't find much success here in the states. you might have a harder time convincing someone that his works are unknown in Germany or South Korea though.

Yes, another stunning score that deserves more airtime!!

YESS SCARLET PIMPERNEL IS MY FAVORITE MUSICAL AND NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT IT

@@damienb.kaiser3677 I sing 2 songs from scarlet pimpernel. Where's the Girl and Falcon in the Dive

Tuck gets done at the highschool and community level all the time. hardly would consider it unknown.

@@Bowling_Dude I did it this past year for our musical, but everyone I talked to didn’t know it was a musical

MY LOCAL THEATRE DID TUCK, MY FRIEND WAS IN IT, OMG IT WAS AMAZING AND I AGREE ITS SO UNDERRATED!!!

my twin pitched Tuck Everlasting for their spring musical and auditioned for Miles, but then the director rolled up and was like "you wanna play Jesse?" and that has been the one time my SM sibling has and WILL play a lead role

@@legendarydumpsterfire what is an SM sibling?

Best key change ever!

How Could I Ever Know. And for me, Winter's On The Wing was one I played many times in succession.

Who wrote Nevermore?

@@tracyhuddlestun2560 Jonathan Christenson

All starkid shows could be on here lol

@@littlefeeblefrogman i truly was hoping for either a starkid or tin can bros show and im a little sad they didnt make the list :(

I'm a massive fan of Nevermore and was hoping it'd be on this list! Thank you for mentioning it, I never see anyone besides me talk about it 😂

Yes! I think that if they had given ita different title it would have played more. This needs an Off Broadway revival atg a smaller theater.One of my favorite scores .

I love Bandstand so much ❤❤

It was horrible.

Bmc is well-known

Mad Hatter is one of my audition songs.

I saw Martin Guerre in London and it is a beautiful show.

@@susanpayson7843 I wish I had seen it before it was redone. The original 1995 soundtrack was gorgeous. The remake they did a few years later was less impressive to me

@@peternighswander9629 I agree. I saw it in either 1997 or 1998. Can’t remember which.

Starlight Express is due for a revival...especially when I was approximately four when I saw it on tour. (1990)

Starlight is actually running in London until next year

@@sarahdickson2189 So I've heard.

Something Rotten is playing in Stratford, Ontario for 4 months till December

“One Knight” is my husband’s and my song 🥰

I love that soundtrack, too!!!

I literally mentioned In Transit in my top 10 least known musical list in the comments. I guess for the mojo group they think not wicked or hamilton = not known but there are real not known musicals out there.

Yes! I had a friend in the cast, it was a really interesting and un-heard of concept. Beautifully staged at Circle in the Square!

AND was nominated for best musical during it's original broadway run

How is it biased? Maybe recency bias since at least 2 of the musicals were just on Broadway.

It’s all throughout social media. It’s not as underrated and less known as these

To old musical lovers yes but modern lovers nope