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Best in Show: Billy Elliot, Seagull, South Pacific, Gypsy and Blasted Top Year-End Lists
By Ernio Hernandez
December 29, 2008
Broadway's Billy Elliot, The Seagull, South Pacific, Gypsy and Off-Broadway's Blasted are among the productions lauded as 2008 comes to its final curtain.
Playbill.com has culled a collection of year-end, "best of" and "top 10" lists focusing on works of the stage — which include Broadway, Off-Broadway and some productions beyond — from various publications.
Other shows to surface on a number of lists include In the Heights, Road Show and Hair.
Following is a list of 2008's top theatrical contenders (by publication):
AP's Michael Kuchwara:
Blasted (Soho Rep)
Billy Elliot
The Seagull
Road Show (Public Theater)
A Catered Affair
Speed-the-Plow
Farragut North (Atlantic Theater Company)
Port Authority (Atlantic Theater Company)
reasons to be pretty (MCC Theater)
Hughie and Krapp's Last Tape (Stratford Shakespeare Festival)
Entertainment Weekly's Melissa Rose Bernardo:
1. Billy Elliot
2. South Pacific
3. Black Watch (BAM)
4. In the Heights
5. Happy Days (BAM)
6. Port Authority (Atlantic Theatre Company)
7. The Understudy (Williamstown Theatre Festival)
8. Next to Normal (Second Stage Theatre)
9. Rafta, Rafta... (The New Group)
10. What's That Smell: The Music of Jacob Sterling (Atlantic Theater Company)
New York Newsday's Linda Winer:
1. South Pacific
2. The Seagull
3. Billy Elliot
4. Passing Strange
5. In The Heights
6. Hair
7. All My Sons
8. Blasted
9. Black Watch
10. Garden of Earthly Delights
New Yorker's John Lahr:
The Seagull
Othello (Donmar Warehouse)
Macbeth
Endgame (BAM)
The Country Girl
South Pacific
Passion Play (Yale Repertory Theatre)
Pitmen Painters (National Theatre)
Gypsy
Discovery of America (Lincoln Center)
NY1's Roma Torre: (in alphabetical order)
All My Sons
Billy Elliot
Gypsy
In The Heights
Passing Strange
South Pacific
Speed-The-Plow
Sunday in the Park with George
The Seagull
[title of show]
New York Magazine's Dan Kois and Christopher Bonanos:
1. Fela!
2. South Pacific
3. Gypsy
4. The Seagull
5. Top Girls
6. Blasted
7. Hair
8. Hunting and Gathering
9. Les Liaisons Dangereuses
10. On the Town
The New York Times' Ben Brantley:
Billy Elliot
Blasted
Boeing-Boeing
Dividing the Estate
Gypsy
Hair
Liza's at the Palace...!
The Seagull
South Pacific
Sunday in the Park with George
The New York Times' Charles Isherwood:
Adding Machine
Chekhov Lizardbrain
Eccentricities of a Nightingale
Garden of Earthly Delights
Liza's at the Palace...!
On the Town
Our Town
Passing Strange
Streamers
What's that Smell: The Music of Jacob Sterling
Time Magazine's Richard Zoglin:
1. Billy Elliot
2. Hair
3. All My Sons
4. The Visit
5. Black Watch
6. reasons to be pretty
7. The Little Mermaid
8. Blasted
9. South Pacific
10. Farragut North
Time Out New York's David Cote:
1. Billy Elliot
2. Blasted
3. The Sound and the Fury
4. Top Girls
5. Gypsy
6. Adding Machine
7. All My Sons
8. Bride
9. Body Awareness
10. The Glass Cage
Time Out New York's Adam Feldman:
1. Gypsy
2. Happy Days
3. Waves
4. All My Sons
5. Adding Machine
6. Bride
7. Billy Elliot
8. Crooked
9. Hair
10. If You See Something Say Something
Time Out New York's Helen Shaw:
1. All My Sons
2. This Place Is a Desert
3. Die Soldaten
4. I'll Go On
5. Don Juan
6. Sunday in the Park with George
7. The Marriage of Bette and Boo
8. Trojan Women
9. The Seagull(Classic Stage Company)
10. Hey Girl
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