Reprise and/or repetition of music in Musical Theater

The other week I was talking to a friend and he was telling me about when he saw a certain very famous musical (Phantom of the Opera). The basic comment he made was, "My wife and I were watching it and we kept looking at each other as if to say, 'haven't we heard this song already?'"

I couldn't help but think that they were sort of missing the point.

Then, I was reading an argument on a forum yesterday about repetition in musical theater. The basic argument was concerning a certain composer (Webber) who some claimed reused his music too much. The other side contended that the reuse of said music was what makes a musical great.

I hold to the latter - but...in some cases agree to the former. Repetition/Reprise of music is one of the key characteristics of a musical -- and is one of the best thing about it. However, like many things in a musical, if it's done poorly, it can hurt. It has to be handled correctly.

Obviously, handling it correctly and what is and isn't a good idea in this regard is subjective. And I expect there will always be debates amongst musical theater fans concerning it.

So in consideration of my own works, I have the definate intention to utilize repetition of music and reprise. That being said, Andrew Lloyd Webber seems to write something like 10 songs for a show and then does the entire sung-through show with those 10 songs. (I'm roughly rounding. I've never actually counted.)

Once again, whether this is a good idea or not is subjective. However, I do want to contend that with certain works of his, it works out really well. With other works, not quite so well. I think this relates to the complexity of the music being used. More complicated music (meaning less 'catchy' or immediately accessible to the 'hum factor') lends itself to lots of repetition better because it takes several times hearing it to get your ears around it. Something that is simpler and easily memorable on the first hearing can still be used effectively in reprise, but if you use it too much, I think an argument can be made against it.

In Stealthman I'm kind of trying to take a best-of-both-worlds-approach to this. That is to say, I hope that some of the work is very catchy, and some of the work takes several listens. I also intend to use a LOT of reprise and repetition...but it will work differently. The primary difference is that instead of 10 songs for the show, I have more like 30. But I intend to use them every bit as much as ALW uses his 10(ish) songs. The difference being that my usage, obviously, has to be shorter. I will use 30 second snippets here and there throughout instead of repeating entire songs. Not in every case. There are times where I will repeat entire songs (with different lyrics or what have you). But the intention is to have enough music that it doesn't feel like I'm just repeating the same things over and over again, but to also repeat what I have over and over again so it becomes very familiar and has the needed sentiment and force that good repetition allows for if handled correctly.

Added to this is the idea that a lot of my stuff counterpoints against other stuff in the show and I hope to be able to use that effectively for recitative and the like.

There's a lot of subjectivity and guess work that goes into this. I can't really judge if what I'm trying will play well or not. It may be that it overwhelms the audience, it may be that it works well, it may not have any effect on the quality of the show at all, or it may do no different than ALW's stuff does and have the same people complaining about too much repetition. It's hard to judge that sort of thing.