10 Broadway 'Best Musical' winners you can now stream online!

10 Broadway 'Best Musical' winners you can now stream online!

The Tony Award for Best Musical is given every year in the annual Tony Awards ceremony to the very best new musical production to open on Broadway. The decision is made by a long list of theater professionals - from critics to known playwrights, and is the ceremony's longest-standing award. Check out these 10 'Best Musical' winners you can now stream online - and watch the best of Broadway from the comfort of your home.



2013 Best Musical Winner: Kinky Boots

Inspired by true events, this huge-hearted hit tells the story of two people with nothing in common – or so they think. Charlie is a factory owner struggling to save his family business, and Lola is a fabulous entertainer with a wildly exciting idea. With a little compassion and a lot of understanding, this unexpected pair learn to embrace their differences and create a line of sturdy stilettos unlike any the world has ever seen! But in the end, their most sensational achievement is their friendship. 

 


2010 Best Musical Winner: Memphis

Memphis is set in the places where rock and roll was born in the 1950s: the seedy nightclubs, radio stations and recording studios of the musically-rich Tennessee city. With an original score, it tells the fictional story of DJ Huey Calhoun, a good ole' local boy with a passion for R&B music and Felicia Farrell, an up-and-coming black singer that he meets one fateful night on Beale Street. Despite the objections of their loved ones (Huey's close-minded mama and Felicia's cautious brother, a club owner), they embark on a dangerous affair. As their careers rise, the relationship is challenged by personal ambition and the pressures of an outside world unable to accept their love.

 



2009 Best Musical Winner: Billy Elliot

Billy Elliot the Musical is a musical based on the 2000 film Billy Elliot. The music is by Elton John, and the book and lyrics are by Lee Hall, who wrote the film's screenplay. The plot revolves around Billy, a British motherless boy who trades boxing gloves for ballet shoes. The story of his personal struggle and fulfillment are balanced against a counter-story of family and community strife caused by the 1984–85 UK miners' strike in County Durham, in North Eastern England. Hall's screenplay was inspired in part by A. J. Cronin's 1935 novel about a miners' strike, The Stars Look Down, to which the musical's opening song pays homage.

 


1996 Best Musical Winner: Rent

Based on Puccini's opera La bohème, Rent tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists struggling to survive and create in New York City in the 1990s. This is a live recording of Rent's final performance after more than 12 years and 5000 shows.

 



1988 Best Musical Winner: The Phantom of the Opera

A disfigured musical genius, hidden away in the Paris Opera House, terrorises the opera company for the unwitting benefit of a young protégée whom he trains and loves. The 25th anniversary of the first public performance of Phantom of the Opera was celebrated with a grand performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

 


1983 Best Musical Winner: Cats 

Cats is a pop-cultural phenomenon that has been performed on stage for more than 50 million patrons in 26 countries for almost 18 years, resulting in more than two billion dollars in ticket sales. Now that Cats has finally made it to the small screen, attention must be paid not just by fans of this critic-proof show, but also by those entertainment mavens who have somehow avoided it until now. 

 



1981 Best Musical Winner: 42nd Street

42nd STREET is the song and dance, American dream fable of Broadway, featuring the iconic songs 42nd Street, We’re In The Money, Lullaby of Broadway, Shuffle Off To Buffalo, Dames and I Only Have Eyes For You. With the West End’s biggest cast, this is a musical like no other, entertainment doesn’t get bigger than this. Young Peggy Sawyer is fresh off the bus from small-town America and just another face in the chorus line on Broadway’s newest show. But when the leading lady gets injured, Peggy might just have the shot at stardom she’s always dreamed of. 

 


1979 Best Musical Winner: Sweeney Todd

Times are hard in 1846 London and one must make do. Nellie Lovett adds something extra to the meat pies she peddles on Fleet Street. The secret ingredient: freshly murdered victims of her partner in crime, barber Sweeney Todd. Composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim refashions a macabre tale into a musical masterwork in this dazzling performance of the 1979 Broadway hit originally staged by Harold Prince. In her Tony-winning role, Angela Lansbury plays Nellie. George Hearn turns his stage role of twisted Sweeney into an Emmy-winning triumph. The score coils around itself in every-tightening spirals. The lines ripple with black humor and madness. Enter Sweeney's tonsorial parlor. Attend the tale. 

 



1952 Best Musical Winner: The King and I

Set in 1860s Bangkok, the musical tells the story of the unconventional and tempestuous relationship that develops between the King of Siam and Anna, a British schoolteacher whom the modernist King, in an imperialistic world, brings to Siam to teach his many wives and children.

 


1949 Best Musical: Kiss Me, Kate

A live performance of the 1999 revival, taped in London in the theatre in which it was staged, and in front of a live audience. Kiss Me, Kate is a musical written by Samuel and Bella Spewack with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The story involves the production of a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and the conflict on and off-stage between Fred Graham, the show's director, producer, and star, and his leading lady, his ex-wife Lilli Vanessi. A secondary romance concerns Lois Lane, the actress playing Bianca, and her gambler boyfriend, Bill, who runs afoul of some gangsters.