Yesterday I told my sister about a show that I'll be music directing soon. It's called A New Brain. It's by a Tony award-winning composer named William Finn. Finn isn't well known to the public at large. Certainly more people have heard of Andrew Lloyd-Webber or Leonard Bernstein than have heard of William Finn. But Finn is well known in the musical theatre world.

Anyway, I told my sis that A New Brain is a musical about a songwriter who makes a living writing for a children's TV show called "The Mr. Bungee Show" (Mr. Bungee is a guy in a frog costume). The songwriter has a "leak" in his brain, has to have brain surgery, has a bunch of hallucinations, and ultimately recovers and becomes a happier person for it. The musical also shows how his surgery affects his mother, his agent, his boyfriend, nurses, a doctor and even Mr. Bungee. (By the way, this really happened to Finn)

My sister asked, "And that's a musical?"

Yes.

Yes, that is a rather unorthodox subject for a musical. But it is not alone in that category. In 2001 a hit show called Urinetown emerged on Broadway. Urinetown is a futuristic show about a drought-afflicted community in which water is so scarce that private toilets are outlawed. People have to "pay to pee" in public toilets that are owned by a big, government-sanctioned toilet company. If you break the law by peeing in the bushes, you are arrested and sent to Urinetown, never to be heard from again.

 How about a musical about the love life of two gorgeous, female conjoined twins? That's Side Show.

 Or a musical about Commodore Perry forcing 19th century Japan to open its doors to trade with the West --- performed by an all-male cast in traditional Kabuki style? That's Stephen Sondheim's Pacific Overtures.

 But unusual subject matter is not unique to late 20th century shows. The original "weirdos" were a couple of normal-looking guys whose shows seem corny by today's standards, but in their day, they wrote daring, even controversial musicals. I am referring, of course, to good ol' Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Way back in 1943, their first show, Oklahoma, stunned audiences when, instead of starting with a rousing chorus number full of sexy babes, it began with a single male voice singing "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" with no orchestral accompaniment --- from offstage, no less. And the basic story line of the show is...Who is going to take Laurie to the box social? Not only that, but someone actually dies in the show. This was unheard of in musicals prior to 1943.

Rodgers and Hammerstein didn't stop their "weirdness" with Oklahoma. Their next show, Carousel, featured a bad guy --- an anti-hero --- who kills a man, then dies himself and goes to heaven. Now we're up to two deaths in one so-called musical comedy. Not to mention a beautiful ballet that doesn't show off dancing girls' legs, it actually furthers the plot. Many of R & H's subsequent shows also dealt with more daring, serious topics such as death, war, racism, and Nazism.

There are so many odd musicals out there, that I dare say that weirdness and uniqueness are more the norm than the exception. Musical theatre writers are always trying to break boundaries, expand the form and grab our attention.

And luckily, there is still sufficient interest in Hollywood to put musicals on film even today. Some recent examples: Rent (the Pulitzer Prize-winning hit about struggling artists and AIDS in NYC's Alphabet City), Sweeney Todd (a barber murders his clients and his girlfriend grinds up the bodies to make meat pies), Mamma Mia (a girl doesn't know who her father is; it could be one of three guys), Evita (the rise and death of Argentina's First Lady), Chicago (murder and media manipulation in 1930s Chicago).

In addition to these recent movies, many of Rodgers and Hammerstein's hit shows are available on DVD