Questioning Songs in Stage Musicals (Part 1) Quiz

Answer: Spamalot

The Lady of the Lake sings "Lady Diva's Lament (Whatever Happened to My Part?)" from the Monty Python-themed laugh out loud musical parody "Spamalot". Eric Idle of the Python troupe and John Du Prez wrote the music and lyrics. The specific Monty Python movie this musical is based on is "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". The songs breaks the 4th wall as the Lady of the Lake addresses the audience directly, complaining about the writers of the musical forgetting all about her:
"Whatever happened to my part?
It was exciting and it was large!
I'm not a man, so I can't be King...
So I must be... the Queen!"

Answer: Mamma Mia!

In the jukebox musical "Mamma Mia!", featuring ABBA songs written by Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus, "Does Your Mother Know" is lifted from ABBA's 1979 album "Voulez Vous" and used here for the characters Tanya and Pepper to sing. Pepper is a young hotel worker who flirts with and pursues the older Tanya, a wealthy divorcée who has come to the Greek island to attend her friend Donna's daughter's wedding. Tanya responds to his advances:
"Well, I could dance with you honey
If you think it's funny
But does your mother know that you're out?"

Answer: Bells Are Ringing

"Is It a Crime?" is a solo number by the protagonist, Ella Peterson from the 1956 musical "Bells Are Ringing" with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Ella works for a telephone answering service in New York City, and often breaks the rules of her job, by getting involved with her clients' lives in her attempts to help them. She sings this song when she is confronted by a policeman named Inspector Barnes, who suspects the answering service is a front for illegal activities.
"Is it a crime...
Inspector, I'm puzzled.
We're taught two things as we go through life:
One, "Be thy brother's keeper,"
And two, "Mind your own business."
With a laugh, and a smile, and a song."

Answer: Passion

"Is This What You Call Love?" is from the one-act musical "Passion" (1994), with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Lapine, adapted from the 1981 film "Passione d'Amore", which was based on the 1869 novel "Fosca" by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti. The song is sung by a young soldier named Giorgio to his Colonel's ailing cousin, Fosca, who is obsessively in love with Girogio.
"Is this what you call love?
This endless and insatiable
Smothering pursuit of me.
You think that this is love?"

Answer: Wicked

"What Is This Feeling?", from the smash hit musical Wicked, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, is a duet sung by the two main characters, Galinda Upland and Elphaba Thropp, who are thrust together unwillingly when the headmistress, Madame Morrible, assigns them to be roommates at Shiz University.
The popular, bubbly blonde Galinda and the misunderstood, green-skinned Elphaba sing about not liking each other:
"What is this feeling?
So sudden and new?
I felt the moment
I laid eyes on you!"
"Unadulterated loathing!"

Answer: The Scarlet Pimpernel

Sung by the protagonist, Sir Percy Blakeney, "Where's the Girl?" is from the 1997 musical "The Scarlet Pimpernel", with music by Frank Wildhorn and lyrics by Nan Knighton. Percy has created his dandyish alter ego to disguise his true identity as the heroic Scarlet Pimpernel, at the cost of the respect and love of his wife, Marguerite. In the song he expresses his frustration over sacrificing his own happiness and wife's admiration in exchange for his mission to save other people during the French Revolution.
"Where's the girl who looked at me the way she did?
The girl who made me feel like I was more than what I was...
Where's the man she saw in me?
Where's the man I used to be?
Where's the girl?"

Answer: Funny Girl

In the musical "Funny Girl", Fanny Brice is married to gambler Nick Arnstein, who is charming but unreliable, which puts a strain on their marriage. He is jealous of Fanny's greater success, and when he tries to make up for losing their money in a casino investment, he winds up getting arrested for embezzlement. With music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Bob Merrill, Fanny sings "Who Are You Now?" when visiting Nick in prison, wondering what happened to the man she married.
"Who are you now?
The man that I love?
Or a stranger who...
Looks as you do?"
"I'm still me...
And I still love you."

Answer: My Fair Lady

Frederick Loewe (music) and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner wrote the witty song "Why Can't The English?", sung by the protagonist Professor Henry Higgins, in "My Fair Lady". In the scene, Higgins finds himself in a crowd of Londoners from various social classes including his fellow phonetician Colonel Pickering, and a flower girl with a strong Cockney accent, Eliza Doolittle. Higgins is disgusted with her lower class accent and sings the rant about the English people's inability to speak "properly."
"Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
This verbal class distinction by now should be antique."
"An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him."

Answer: A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder

From the Tony Award-winning musical "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" (music by Steven Lutvak, book and lyrics by Robert L. Freedman) comes the song "Why are all the D'ysquiths Dying?" sung by a chorus of mourners after Monty Navarro has murdered several D'Ysquith family members. It's a dark comedy and in the spirit of the film "Kind Hearts and Coronets" all the murdered family victims are played by the same actor.
The mourners sing:
"Why are all the D'Ysquiths dying?
What grisly sort of plague is going round?
It seems with every day
A D'Ysquith slips away
And here we are assembled putting another one in the ground"

Answer: Love Never Dies

Andrew Lloyd Webber is the creator of the musical "Love Never Dies", which features the song "Why Does She Love Me?", taking place a decade after the events of "The Phantom of the Opera" in Phantasma, the Phantom's amusement park kingdom, in New York's Coney Island. The Phantom has lured Christine Daaé to his enclave whereupon he finds out that her young son Gustave, is his own child, conceived those many years ago in Paris the night before she left. The Phantom wonders why she is capable of such love when she rejected his own love for her.
"Why does she love me?
Why does she love this thing I've made?
This fair, fine child...
This thing of beauty, light and grace...
When she could not love me?"
"He is the child I could never be!
He is the truth that proves the world is laughing, laughing at me!"