Showtunes -- Common Words Trivia Quiz

Answer: Oliver!

In "The Beauty and the Beast," Belle sings "Home" as she wonders what her life will be like after she is condemned to live forever in the Beast's castle.

"Is this home?
Is this what I must learn to believe in?
Try to find
Something good in this tragic place"

In "Les Miserables," Jean Valjean sings "Bring Him Home" as a prayer for his adopted daughter's beloved to survive the attack on the barricade.

"You can take
You can give
Let him be
Let him live
If I die, let me die
Let him live"

In "The Scarlet Pimpernel," Marguerite and her brother Armand comfort each other with "You Are My Home" as both await being sent to the guillotine.

"You are my home
You make me strong
And in this world of strangers
I belong to someone
You are all I know
You're all I have
I won't let go"

"Oliver!" contains the song "Consider Yourself" to which the first line is "Consider yourself at home," but other than that does not contain one of the three above songs.

Answer: Carnival

"Mr. Mistoffelees" ("The Original Conjouring Cat") is, of course, from "Cats."

"He is quiet, he is small, he is black
From his ears to the tip of his tail
He can creep through the tiniest crack
He can walk on the narrowest rail
He can pick any card from a pack
He is equally cunning with dice
He is always deceiving you into believing
That he's only hunting for mice."

"Mister Cellophane" is from "Chicago." Amos Hart sings "Mister Cellophane" as he laments on the fact that nobody notices him, even after his wife, Roxie, reveals that she is "pregnant."

"Cellophane
Mister Cellophane
Shoulda been my name
Mister Cellophane
'Cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I'm there."

"Mister Snow" is a sweet, but one-dimensional song from "Carousel" sung by Carrie as she tells Julie about her secret engagement to Enoch Snow.

"His name is Mister Snow
And an unstanded man is he.
He comes home every night in his round-bottom boat
With a net full of herring from the sea.
An almost perfect beau
As refined as a girl could wish
But he spends so much time in his round-bottomed boat
That he can't seem to lose the smell of fish."

Answer: Oliver!

In "Les Miserables," Cosette sings "In My Life" as she realizes that she has fallen in love with Marius whom she bumped into in the streets only the day before.

"In my life
I'm no longer alone
Now the love in my life is so near.
Find me now, find me here!"

In "Annie," Annie and the other orphans sing "It's the Hard-Knock Life" after they have been ordered to clean the orphanage in the middle of the night because Annie was caught trying to run away.

"Got no folks to speak of, so
It's the hard-knock row we hoe
Cotton blankets, 'stead of wool
Empty bellies, 'stead of full
It's the hard-knock life."

In "Thoroughly Modern Millie," Millie Dillmount comes to New York a Kansas farmgirl with big dreams and sings "Not For the Life of Me" as she vows to throw her old life away and start over in the big city.

"Burn the bridge, bet the store
Baby's coming home no more.
Not for the life of me.
Break the lock, post my bail
Done my time, I'm outta jail
Not for the life of me."

"Oliver!" does contain the song "It's a Fine Life," sung by Nancy, so it does share the common word, but it was not one of the choices.

Answer: Brigadoon

"I Can't Be Bothered Now" is from the 1992 musical "Crazy For You," which is loosely based on the Gershwin's 1930 show "Girl Crazy." Dancer Bobby Child sings "I Can't Be Bothered Now," surrounded by "Follies" girls, as an escape from his overbearing mother, who wants him to become a banker, and his even more overbearing fiancee, who wants him to settle down.

"My bonds and shares
May fall downstairs
Who cares, who cares?
I'm dancing and I can't be bothered now."

From "Chicago," "I Can't Do It Alone" is, as it is introduced in the show, "Miss Velma Kelly in an act of desperation." After Roxie replaces Velma as Chicago's media darling, Velma makes a last-ditch effort to steal back the limelight by asking Roxie to replace Velma's dead sister in her vaudeville act.

"My sister and I had an act that couldn't flop
My sister and I were headed straight for the top
My sister and I earned a thou a week at least
But my sister is now, unfortunately, deceased."

In "The Beauty and the Beast," The Beast sings "If I Can't Love Her," after Belle runs away and he realizes that the spell may never be broken.

"No passion could reach me
No lesson could teach me
How I could have loved her and make her love me too
If I can't love her, then who?"

Answer: A Chorus Line

"One Short Day" is from "Wicked," and is sung by Elphaba (a.k.a. the Wicked Witch of the West) and Glinda as they make their way through the Emerald City to see the Wizard. Elphaba is entranced by the Emerald City because for the first time she feels that she fits in.

"One short day in the Emerald city
One short day full of so much to do"
Ev'ry way that you look in this city
There's something exquisite
You'll want to visit
Before the day's through!"

"One Song Glory" is one of several "Rent" anthems. This one is sung a Roger, an HIV-positive songwriter who dreams of writing one last song before he dies.

"One song
Glory
One song
Before I go
Glory
One song to leave behind."

"One Day More" is the showstopping company number from "Les Miserables" that closes out act one. While this song is multi-faceted, it is about the ensemble's determination against all odds on the eve of the barricade uprising.

"One day to a new beginning
Raise the flag of freedom high
Every man will be a king
There's a new world for the winning
Do you hear the people sing?"

The song from "A Chorus Line" is simply "One."

Answer: The Pajama Game

From "Hairspray," "It Takes Two" serves as Link Larkin's love song to Tracey Turnblad that is, on the surface, sung as an act for the Corny Collins Show, the teenage dance show in which both characters star.

"A king ain't a king
Without the power behind the throne
A prince is a pauper, babe,
Without a chick to call his own
So please, darling, choose me
I don't wanna rule alone."

"Two Ladies," is from "Cabaret." Like many of the songs from the show, "Two Ladies" is sung to parallel what is happening outside. In "Two Ladies," The Emcee's comical stage romance with two chorus girls is used to mirror Sally Bowles's relationship with both Brian and Max.

Emcee: We switch partners daily
To play as we please
Girls: Twosies beats onesies
Emcee: But nothing beats threes
I sleep in the middle
Girl 1: I'm left
Girl 2: and I'm right
Emcee: But there's room on the bottom
If you drop in some night.

In the original Broadway and movie versions of "Damn Yankees," "Two Lost Souls" is sung between Lola and Joe Hardy as they enjoy a night on the town. However, in the 1994 Revival, the song was instead given to Lola and Applegate.

"Two lost souls on the highway of life
We ain't even got a sister or brother
But ain't it just great?
Ain't it just grand?
We've got each other!"

Answer: Damn Yankees

"At the End of the Day" is the song from "Les Miserables" where we are first introduced to the suffering poor of France (prior to that we have only been introduced to Jean Valjean).

"At the end of the day you're another day older
And that's all you can say for the life of the poor
It's a struggle, it's a war
And there's nothing that anyone's giving
One more day standing about
What is it for?
One day less to be living!"

"Once-A-Year Day" is a production number from "The Pajama Game" which takes place during the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory's company picnic.

"I feel like hopping up and down
Like a kangaroo
Jumping fences, climbing trees
What pleases me is what I'll do
'Cause this is my once-a-year day
Once-a-year day. Everyone's entitled
To be wild, be a child
Be a goof, raise the roof
Once a year."

"Another Day" is the poignant song from "Rent" that introduces the principle message of the show "no day but today." The song follows protagonists Roger and Mimi as well as the ensemble and their struggle with AIDS and to live every day as their last.

"There's only us
There's only this
Forget, regret
Or life is yours to miss
No other road
No other way
No day but today."

Answer: Miss Saigon

In "The Lion King," Simba sings "Endless Night" as he struggles to put his past and the death of his father behind him.

"You'd promised you'd be there
Whenever I needed you
Whenever I call your name
You're not anywhere
I'm trying to hold on
Just waiting to hear your voice
One word, just a word will do
To end this nightmare."

"The Music of the Night" is, of course, from "The Phantom of the Opera." The Phantom passionately sings "The Music of the Night" to Christine, about his obsession for her and for his music.

"Softly, deftly
Music shall surround you
Feel it, hear it
Closing in around you
Open up your mind
Let your fantasies unwind
In this darkness which
You know you cannot fight
The darkness of the music of the night."

"Tonight's the Night" is a fairly inconsequential song from the musical "Crazy For You," the 1992 Gershwin musical loosely based on the 1939 show "Girl Crazy." "Tonight's the Night" is sung by the ensemble as they prepare to put on a show in Deadrock, Nevada.

"There's no fund in being an angel child--
I hear the call of the wild.
If the worst should happen, it serves me right.
Tonight's the night."

"Miss Saigon" features the song "The Last Night of the World."

Answer: Annie

In "Wicked," Doctor Dillamond, a goat professor at Shiz University, warns Elphaba that "Something Bad" is happening to the Animals in Oz.

"Only rumors--but still
Enough to give pause
To anyone with paws
Something bad is happening in Oz...
Under the surface, behind the scenes
Something baaaaaad
(spoken) Sorry...'bad'"

"Something Good," was added to the score of "The Sound of Music" specifically for the movie (it replaced the song "The Ordinary Couple" from the Original Broadway show) and has been included in subsequent versions of the show. "Something Good" is sung by Maria and Captain Von Trapp as they sing of their love for each other.

"For here you are, standing there, loving me
Whether or not you should
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good."

In "Beauty and the Beast," "Something There" is sung by Belle and the Beast at the beginning of Act II as they notice changes in their feelings for one another.

"There's something sweet and almost kind
But he was mean and he was coarse and unrefined
And now he's dear and so unsure
I wonder why I didn't see it there before?"

Answer: Les Miserables

From "Miss Saigon", "The American Dream" is sung by the Engineer as he dreams of opportunity in The United States.

"What's that I smell in the air? The American dream
Sweet as a new millionaire--the American dream
Pre-packed, ready-to-wear--the American dream
Fat, like a chocolate eclair as you suck out the cream
Luck--by the tail. How can you fail?
And best of all, it's for sale
The American Dream"

In "Joseph...", Joseph sings "Any Dream will Do" to tell of his journey and of the power of dreaming.

"May I return to the beginning?
The light is dimming, and the dream is too.
The world and I, we are still waiting
Still hesitating; any dream will do."

"The Impossible Dream", the most famous song from "Man of La Mancha", is sung by Don Quixote as he strives to "reach the unreachable star."

"To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
to bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go."

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