WHO IS YOUR MUSICAL THEATER COMPOSER?

You are a fan of Golden Age musicals harking back to the 40s and 50s. You crave a good melody paired with simple yet truthful lyrics. Perhaps the greatest musical partnership of the 20th century, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote 11 musicals from 1943-1959 including favorites "Oklahoma", "The Sound Of Music", "Carousel", "South Pacific" and "The King And I". These writers fulfill your need for lush romantic ballads sung by big choruses about cornfields, Pacific islands and state fairs. Even if you've never been to a clambake or taken a ride in a surrey before, you're a cockeyed optimist and a dreamer who believes in humanity and true love.

You are an intellectual theatergoer and prefer musicals that tackle bizarre subject matters and sound a little more complex. Melody-smelody, it's more important that the music advances the plot and character! Stephen Sondheim is one of the most important musical theater composers who gave the form a dark, dramatic edge to mirror the complex and troubling times we live in. He gave birth to musicals from "Company", "Sweeney Todd", "Into The Woods" and "Follies" to name a few. As a listener, you care a great deal about precision and pay attention to detail. No lazy half-rhymes or vague sentiments for you. Maybe not everyone completely understands your style, but they just don't have your sophisticated taste.

You love a good, old-fashioned melody that you can hum for hours. You go to the theater for fun, panache, color and light. Jerry Herman is arguably the most successful composer/lyricist of the 20th Century. His musicals include the blockbusters "Hello, Dolly!", "Mame", "Milk & Honey", "Mack & Mabel" and "La Cage Aux Folles". Nowadays his music may speak to a different era, but it is nevertheless full of craft and constantly revived. So maybe you're a bit old-fashioned, that's why it's so often said: "They don't write 'em like they used to!"

For you, everything in life is about the glitz, glamour and razzle-dazzle. You love to be in the spotlight and listen to big, jazzy numbers to make you feel like a star. Composer John Kander teamed with lyricist Fred Ebb to forge one of the longest-running and most successful creative partnerships in Broadway history. Their bold, brassy style lent to a series of enormously popular and provocative musicals including "Cabaret", "Chicago" and "Kiss of the Spider Woman". So maybe life is full of pain, death and prejudice, in the end you have to remember to laugh and love since life is a cabaret!

You are a fan of everything grand. Melody is King and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber is its faithful steward. You love heart-wrenching, memorable melodies that can be played a hundred times over the course of one evening. You appreciate a wide variety of music, from tender, operatic arias to rock and roll. Andrew Lloyd Webber brought fame to the big blockbuster musical, his shows "Phantom of The Opera" and "Cats" have set records for the longest-running Broadway musicals. So maybe the songs don't always perfectly express character or advance the plot, but they capture the emotional core where it counts. Music should also be written for the heartstrings, not just the brainstem!