Playbill Staff Favorites: 10 Outstanding New Musical Theater Songs of 2024

Since another year is coming to an end, we are especially grateful to Playbill for all the musicals promoted in New York this year, which offers our new songs to obsess. From a power ballade that will undoubtedly become the new go-to audition song, to character songs for robots and bodies, to funky ’70-year-olds-we no doubt doubt that the songs we first heard in 2024 will become musical theater classics.

Below are 10 songs from new musical scores that we listen to on repeat. If you like these musicals that we have shouted out, we wonder if you will agree with us that this is the best song that show. If you are new to the musicals on this list, we hope that our choice will inspire you to experience the show completely. Listen to Playbill’s 10 favorite new musical theater songs below.

‘If you are in love’ of Maybe happy ending

So, a confession. When Maybe happy ending was announced and I read the intriguing -together about two robots that fell in love, I rolled my eyes. Then they released a music video from a song from the score, “When you’re in love.” That immediately changed his mind, and I knew it was a musical that I had to pay attention to. The lyrics of Hue Park are truly fantastic, with a surprising new message that you do not regularly hear in love songs, how to surrender yourself to love is to surrender yourself to inevitable pain – and why it is entirely worth it. But even as knowledgeable as the lyrics of the song, it was the music that really grabbed me. Will Aronson is a fantastic melody writer – which can be a fairly rare quality! It is even better how deeply emotional his music is. All the songs in Maybe happy endingand especially “when you’re love”, sounds exactly like Park’s fantastic lyrics say, which I think is the characteristic of a truly gifted composer. The game of the music and the lyrics really send the entire score.

And as long as our nerd level is set out here, there is a somewhat dissonant bridge that leads to a modulation that gives me the most feelings of any song I have heard for some time (listen to the 1:37 Time stamp). Aronson remains in these harmonies that are begging for resolution, giving you this tremendous feeling of something great, which makes the ultimate key change like such a payout that it is overwhelming. It is just an expert musicalization of that feeling to pass on to one’s feelings, to be driven to let your guard down and eventually be vulnerable enough with someone to tell them that you are in love. Moments like this are what makes musical theater so effective, so indelible. I was not familiar with Aronson and Park yet Maybe happy endingBut now I want to hear everything they write. .Logan Culwell-Block, Managing News Editor

“Stay gold” of The outsiders

I thought The outsiders Was full of good songs when I watched it for the first time, but one song held more than the other with me – and got more plays from me on Spotify since the casting album came out. ‘Stay Gold’ performed by Sky Lakota-Lynch as Johnny Cade and Brody Grant as Ponyboy, is an exciting ballad with a second act. The lyrics – simple, yet full of meaning – can easily sit on the melody and do not reach forced rhymes. “I had time to think,” Sing Lakota-Lynch. “I thought I wasn’t ready to die. It turns out that I was wrong. ‘ Unusual there is no bridge. Instead, the song has a simple, three-part AAA shape (most musical theater songs are AABA-or if you are Jason Robert Brown, AABCADGQMLZA). But because the melodic material is beautiful and the choir is delivered so well, I don’t need any extra musical material. Instead, Lakota-Lynch is simply joined by Grant while trading the upper harmony in the last verse. This is a very striking song on which (imo) sealed the agreement The outsiders As 2024’s best musical. .Ethan Treiman, video editor

“Worth” of “of Enough

If you list our list of 15 favorite shows of 2024then you are not surprised that I choose a song Enough (After all, I saw the show three times on Broadway, twice with my own money). But the truly challenging task is to choose only one song from Shaina Taub’s Tony-winning score: “The March (our demand equality)”? “The little ones are at the gates”? “A letter from Harry’s mother”? It’s like asking me to choose my favorite musical theater diva – it’s essential for different reasons. But if I have to choose a song, the one I play most, it would be ‘worth it’. While most of the song in Enough are some of the biggest protest songs ever written, I go back to “Worthing” over and over. For one it is the rare ballad in the show. And this is where Alice Paul (played by Taub) takes a breathing and asks herself if the struggle for women’s rights is worth making the sacrifices – namely raising a man and a family. This is a question that any ambitious person can relate to, but it is the one that women feel the deepest – that question for career (with IT personality) and motherhood, can you both do, or should you always be sacrificed? And the song is beautiful in its simplicity. “Is it worth it?” Be repeated over and over in the chorus, and slowly build every time it is repeated until Taub connects throughout the cast to ask the same question, in harmony with a minimal orchestral support. It is the most sore, primary cry we take to heaven before Taub brings us elegantly to earth: “I swear I will make it worth it.” What an end!

And Taub told us before That Jeanine Tesori inspired her to write this song so that it only elevates greatness. .Deep Tran, editor -in -chief.

“Shame in my body” of Teeth

2024 was a banner year for off-broadway musicals. While a myriad of wonderful material is produced, my heart belongs to the song style of various well -known names that have thrown their creative spirits in the strangest idea on which they can get their hands. My first choice is TeethMichael R. Jackson and Anna K. Jacobs’ musical adjustment of the 2007 horror film of the same name. It may be a laughter riot, but the strong understanding of how shame the inner lives of young women in the evangelical space depicted in ‘shame in my body’ stop me in my tracks every time I listen to the performances of the shows. Some of the lyrical phrase phrase may evoke the crackers, but at the highlight of the bridge, your heart will be sure for Dawn and all the young women in PKG, who set the stage perfect for the retribution of abomination. Painful salvation indeed. .Margaret Hall, staff writer

“Stay” of Lempicka

I would have recalled my gay theater card if I didn’t include ‘stay’, the show-stop, heartbreaking anthem Lempicka (written by Matt Gould and Carson Kreitze), performed by the absolute goddess This is amber iman (lykyk) in my review of 2024. It’s not just a song; it’s a moment. Iman doesn’t sing the damn song, his lives it. It’s like seeds and Nina Simone had a lovechild, and that Lovechild decided to break your heart while reminding you why musical theater exists in the first place. Her voice is a pure side dipped in anxiety, and let me tell you, you will feel every gram of it as if it is your personal heart strings. When she hit the last note, you are a puddle on the floor and beg Rafaela to keep … to stay. And let’s not ignore the drama! It’s not just a love song – it’s a pleada ultimatumand a spiritual awakening rolled into one.

Written with the kind of emotional precision that feels like Gould and Carson who have been hacked in your inner feelings are ‘stay’ an intestines of longing, sensuality and passion with a complete tilt. It is the perfect storm of tender storytelling and vocal fireworks, which seamlessly mixes a timeless feeling with a sharp, modern edge. If that climactic crescendo hits, you’re done. Cooked. Emotionally fried. “Stay” not just ask for your attention – it demands your soul, and honestly? You will give it willingly. When I saw that Iman’s actions were, I was upset. It was a master class in vulnerability, but had so much power. Iman is the professor I didn’t know I needed. ‘Stay’ is a dream combination of a musical theater from a musical theater from a truly gifted artist and a writing team that gave us one of the best ballads of the year. All three have delivered so hard that it wants to call your ex, confess your feelings and then block them immediately. .Jeffrey Vizcaíno, director of social media

“For the tin” of Death becomes her

Few shows made me laugh so hard in a theater Death becomes her. The song that is the cherry above the show is the opening number and Megan Hilty’s version of “for the gaze” (yes, it’s a pun). The song introduces Hilty’s character, Madeline Ashton, a star of the stage and screen that is addicted to attention and strives to keep it possible in any way. What better way to showcase her fantastic and character error than in a classic Broadway number with five (!) Fast changes, smart word game and Hilty’s powerful belt. “The look/gays love me,” she sings, and all of us too! .Meredith Ammons, Coordinator on Social Media

“Morton Salt Girl” of Days of wine and roses

Days of wine and roses Unfortunately, he only had a short run on Broadway, which makes me all the more happy that it got a cast – and a fantastic one. Adam Guettel’s scores are always something of a revelation, but just more than you have world-class singer actors like Kelli O’hara and Brian d’Arcy James who handle things. There are so many songs and moments I can in the spotlight, but the one I constantly return to is ‘Morton Salt Girl’, in which O’hara’s Kirsten sings of the feeling of her husband’s choice to become sober. It is a heartbreaking window in an aspect of addiction that we do not think about regularly, and on a real guettel way, which has been explored to great complexity in the music. Guettel is one of the writers who really requires the best in technical abilities to do everything he writes in his songs, and I mean that both in terms of being able to sing it and act in terms of them. Needless to say, O’Hara was more than the task. Her final “What about the church we built? This is where you will find me” – what “find” on a wonderful singing, emotionally accomplishing A – clamped me my pearls when I saw the show. I will never forget it! .Logan Culwell-Block, Managing News Editor

“My days” of The notebook

Let’s get one thing right: If you haven’t heard the song “My Days” playing several times while browsing this spring through Instagram and Tiktok … Are you even a real theater child? Yes, the song that Broadway and the Internet took with Storm is without a doubt a lead of the year. With music and lyrics by pop singer Ingrid Michaelson and performed by Joy Woods, is the song everything you want from a new Broadway Power Ballad: a young woman who makes an important life decision via song? Check. Remarks that so ho Oh was sung that you are afraid of the glass in the room, but at the same time excited from your seat to beg for more? Check. And finally, a melody that is so addictive that the only way to facilitate your yearning is to listen to it is that it is played your Spotify -Twed number 1? Big check.

In Michaelson’s debut as a musical composer and lyricist, she was wonderfully over the moment a person decided to choose their own happiness. The song is a glorious epiphany of Allie who liberates herself and abandons the expectations she and her family set on her. She does not choose a man but chooses a life that his will. And the song is not just a power ballade, but an declaration of independence. And how do you sing it? At the top of your lungs, Belf Fr to the Rooftops (which is exactly how Joy performs the song in the equally viral music video for the song). Whether young or older, the song sounded with a lot, and had Woods’ performance Steadily and enchanted Broadway fans. Not only will this song be sung at concerts, audition rooms and bedrooms around the world for years, but it will certainly be shrouded with my desk for the foreseeable future. .Jeffrey Vizcaíno, director of social media

“Bright” of Stereophonic

If Shaina Taub did not win the Tony Award for Best Score, I would like it to go to Will Butler for his original songs for Stereophonic. While David Adjmi’s screenplay is a master class in hyperrealism, it is the score of Butler that increases the play to an unforgettable theater experience, which allows us to see the unnamed band’s grandeur without explaining it to the audience. It is a difficult task to create original songs for a fictional rock band that can be imaginable radio hits; Butler not only wrote one song that I could see in the top fortifies, but various. Yet no song on the Stereophonic Album More Display Butler and Adjmi’s genius use of music as a character and story progress as ‘bright’. In the show you hear three different versions of the song – one as a rough demo with a piano, one as a uptempo -bop, and the third as a breeding, dramatic national anthem to the potholes of fame. And with every version you hear, the voice of Diana (originally played by Sarah Pidgeon) becomes more and more powerful as her character starts to define herself artistically until the audience finally testifies to her and the group’s full power in the final version of “Bright.” Together with evocative lyrics, period acurates’ 70s tools, and Pidgeon’s flame-crawling choir, and you make the perfect pop rock song to listen to while driving on a highway with the windows. .Deep tran, editor -in -chief

“Up to the stars” of Dead outlaw

My other favorite song comes from this year, undeniably, My favorite musical of the last decade. Dead outlaw By David Yazbek, Erik Della Penna and Itamar Moses are one of the strangest musicals I saw on any stage, and I loved every second of his too well-to-value and turns, all of which were ripped directly from the real life and death of Elmer McCurdy (a layout found as a mummy). I’m going to wait insane for the cast; there is only footage out of two songs available. But months later, I can still undertake most of the songs, just to think of the moments, because the melodies were so stiff that they immediately pushed on my brain.

If I am forced to turn off the perfect evening for one moment, I turn my eye from McCurdy to Coroner Thomas Noguchi. ‘To the stars’, who see how Thom Sesma’s crownmaker reflects on the litany of fame corps that crossed his plate, is a perfect character song that has a little Frank Sinatra who does ‘Fly Me to the Moon’. From Marilyn Monroe to Natalie Wood, the pop culture in ‘to the stars’ refers to Sesma’s mature tenor, which allows the long-loving-but-under-actor to get his chance in the spotlight. With Dead outlaw When I come to Broadway in April 2025, I can’t wait for a whole new legion of theater goers to fall in love with sesma, and the crazy wonder it is Dead outlaw. —Margaret Hall, staff writer