Transient Buckeye Intro: We are now rolling merrily along through yet another season of Big Ten football. That means that every week we need another entry in the little shop of horrors that is this feature. Back in September, @HumbleStarscream mentioned in one of the daily threads that it would be cool to see a Power Poll of Big Ten teams as Broadway showtunes. For a casual fan, I have a passing strange knowledge of recent musical theater, but I'm nowhere near the level of familiarity it would take to write a poll like that for the entire conference. Fortunately, that's not a problem, because I share a roof with one of the world's foremost experts on the history of musical theater. In fact, Ms. Transient is warming up her vocal cords even as I type this. Over to you, my angel in the wings....
Hi folks. It’s Ms. Transient Buckeye, the other half of Transient Buckeye. I’ve been voluntold about this exciting opportunity to write about football AND musicals. Mind you, I know nothing about football other than WMU won & Michigan sucks. I will give you TB’s briefing to me and my thought process about why I chose that particular show. You will also note I’m less verbose than him. [Transient Buckeye: Rude.]
#1 Indiana (5-0, 2-0): Little Shop of Horrors
Last Week: 2 High: 1 Low: 1 First Place Votes: 6 Last Place Votes: 0
Quoting TB: “Forever downtrodden, now an all-consuming death machine.” Set in Skid Row, featured a man-eating plant. Plants aren’t machines, but otherwise that sentence describes LSOH perfectly. My personal favorite musical – and the movie should have had the original theater ending. I will die on this hill.
#2 Ohio State (4-1, 2-0): Wicked
Last Week: 1 High: 1 Low: 3 FPV: 4 LPV: 0
“Once the unquestioned ruler of the universe, now looking up at the new #1.” I tell people we’re exiled to Ohio. The Wizard once ruled over Oz, now he’s deposed by a fashion plate. And pink does go good with green – I deliberately bought a pair of each color clogs & will mix & match them.
#3 Oregon (3-1, 1-0): The Great Gatsby
Last Week: 3 High: 2 Low: 8 FPV: 0 LPV: 0
“Nouveau riche, prone to failure at the worst possible time” Coming this season to our Broadway in Ohio subscription. Plot summed up pretty well with that phrase. Amazingly enough, I have never read this book.
#4 Northwestern (3-1, 1-1): 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Last Week: 7 High: 2 Low: 8 FPV: 0 LPV: 0
“Any nerd joke you want to come up with.” Mr. TB actually suggested this pairing & I agree. A bunch of misfits who definitely are not star athletes. We saw this earlier this year while on vacation in Charleston – not my favorite show.
[TB Note: This was written a couple of weeks ago, before Northwestern's rapid ascension up the standings. But I'm not changing the association, because that is not how we do things around here. We are a slipshod, unprofessional collection of amateurs, and we like it that way.]
#5 UCLA (4-0, 2-0): American Psycho
Last Week: 6 High: 3 Low: 11 FPV: 0 LPV: 0
“Preppy, earnest, good-looking but not particularly good at anything.” I’m writing this on the day that Duncan Sheik’s death was announced (composer of music & book). Good looks – the original London cast had the eye candy of Jonathan Bailey & Matt Smith. Patrick Bateman is all about superficiality. It’s total ‘80s excess – cocaine, parties, alcohol. He just basically exists though, not really good at anything (other than murder).
#6 Iowa (4-1, 1-1): Schmigadoon!
Last Week: 4 High: 4 Low: 9 FPV: 0 LPV: 0
“Stale, stodgy, forever unchanging. Bonus points for a corn reference”. Well folks, we have this previous year’s Tony winner for best musical – a pastiche of musical theater tropes and references. It’s the theatrical version of romance novels – just use the formula. The Garanimals of shows. And corn puddin’ is featured prominently in a scene.
#7 Nebraska (5-0, 2-0): Shucked
Last Week: 5 High: 3 Low: 11 FPV: 0 LPV: 0
“Trying to reclaim former glory, again, bonus points if you include corn references.” Damn, I’m good. The show’s set-up is a town trying to revive its dying cornfields. Did it succeed? Who knows? Kinda like Nebraska right now.
#8 Minnesota (4-1, 2-0): The Book of Mormon
Last Week: 10 High: 5 Low: 10 FPV: 0 LPV: 0
“Irrepressible exuberance and enthusiasm but not particularly competent.” If that line doesn’t describe Elder Cunningham, I don’t know what does. Plus one of the best on-stage quick changes for the entire ensemble in "Turn It Off." Now off to Orlando…I love you, Orlando.
[TB Note: This might be the most inspired pairing in the entire poll. Minnesota has gotten up after the loss to Mississippi State, wiped the blood off their faces (or, in P.J. Fleck's case, wiped the blood onto his face), and gone right back to proselytizing.]
#9 USC (5-1, 2-1): Gigi
Last Week: 8 High: 4 Low: 10 FPV: 0 LPV: 0
“Like Michigan, reputation for mostly undeserved arrogance but with a completely nonexistent fanbase.” I wanted to find a musical I had heard of but never heard about. Gigi is a forgotten gasp of the past that basically is ignored today.
#10 Wisconsin (4-1, 2-0): Jekyll & Hyde
Last Week: 12 High: 5 Low: 16 FPV: 0 LPV: 0
“Going through an unexpectedly painful transition.” Understatement.
[TB Note: Another team that's undergone a significant rise since this poll was written. This is the highest Wisconsin has been in any Power Poll since quite far back into the history of the Old Place.]
#11 Michigan (3-2, 0-2): Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson
Last Week: 9 High: 6 Low: 14 FPV: 0 LPV: 0
“Unfounded (or at least mostly unfounded) arrogance, universally despised.” The show itself has a cult following, but the real life man was not exactly well liked or remembered by history. Genocide, what genocide?
#12 Washington (3-2, 0-2): The Sound of Music
Last Week: 14 High: 10 Low: 13 FPV: 0 LPV: 0
“Cute, mostly likeable, generally non-threatening.” Nuns versus Nazis. Probably every GenXer’s gateway drug to musicals. At least that's what my mother made it for me. I mean, come on--Julie Andrews spinning around on the top of a mountain? Innocuous as it gets.
#13 Purdue (2-3, 1-1): Starlight Express
Last Week: 16 High: 11 Low: 15 FPV: 0 LPV: 0
“Just generally a disaster, bonus points if you can work in references to trains”. Again, another show with lots of actor injuries – BECAUSE THEY WERE ON ROLLER SKATES. And it’s about trains. The title song sung to our daughter as a baby would calm her down. She’s as weird as we are.
#14 Penn State (3-2, 0-2): Hadestown
Last Week: 11 High: 12 Low: 18 FPV: 0 LPV: 2
“Pretty much the story of Sisyphus, always pushing the boulder up the hill, never quite getting there.” Different Greek myth but still, Orpheus was walking & he just missed his goal. Then we’re gonna sing it again. I have so many thoughts about how Eurydice could have let him know she was following. Hell, a simple call and response song would work. Plot hole. Also, Pennsylvania is hell.
#15 Illinois (2-3, 0-2): 2 Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)
Last Week: 13 High: 12 Low: 18 FPV: 0 LPV: 1
My brief here was “solidly above average but not dominant. Coach looks like he ate half of the opposing team.” Nominated this past year for 8 Tony Awards in a weak season and won none. Zero. I think I nailed the brief here. And there’s dessert for the coach.
[TB Note: Yeah, I whiffed on the "solidly above average part. That's on me.]
#16 Maryland (2-3, 0-2): Spiderman – Turn Off the Dark
Last Week: 18 High: 12 Low: 18 FPV: 0 LPV: 1
“Flash in the pan, early highs followed by inevitable collapse”. Gawd, I wish I had seen this back in the day. Excitement was high when Julie Taymor teamed up with Bono for a show. Yeah, that turned out well. So many actors were injured that the show could not obtain insurance. "Wait in the Wings" has a great documentary on it on their YouTube channel.
#17 Michigan State (2-3, 0-2): Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Last Week: 15 High: 15 Low: 18 FPV: 0 LPV: 1
“Occasionally dangerous but prone to tragic/hilarious acts of self-destruction.” A horror-comedy whose protagonist’s journey for vengeance leads to his downfall. "A Little Priest" is easily one of the funniest songs in Sondheim’s canon. Our daughter’s favorite musical.
[Transient Daughter edit: Slight correction - I hold the fondest memories of seeing this show. Mom and I had been going to tour colleges during my senior year of high school and one of the ones we visited was in NYC. Of course, being the theater nerd that I am, I begged Mom to take me to see a few shows during the trip. I didn’t have to beg very hard. It was quite easy, really.
It was a dinner and a show deal. We got served meat pies (draw your own conclusions about the source) and then got to watch the actors do their theatrics across the very dinner tables once we were done. It’s the most immersive show I have ever seen live, and Norm Lewis made for a VERY impressive Sweeney Todd.
My favorite musical is Chess. Don’t ask me which version, I’m still figuring that out myself.]
#18 Rutgers (1-4, 0-2): Disaster!
Last Week: 17 High: 15 L0w: 18 FPV: 0 LPV: 5
“Just a complete disaster in every way” Yes, this is a real musical. And Jennifer Simard’s performance earned a Tony nomination. The show was also a disaster, as it closed just 9 weeks after opening night.
I also considered Diana, the Musical for Rutgers. It is a disaster. Netflix has the proshot of it. If you take a shot during stupid moments, you will die. It’s so gloriously bad, it’s almost good.
Transient Buckeye: And there you go! We're going to drop the curtain on this extended tour of Big Ten country and Broadway. Hopefully you're all a little less miserable for having read this. And let's offer an extended curtain call to my long-suffering spouse for being so willing to dip a toe into the Power Poll pool.
Archiving This Year's Power Polls:
BoilerUp89
Transient Buckeye
Transient Buckeye
Transient Buckeye
Transient Buckeye
