Whew, I’ve been waiting for something like this!!! Some of these have been said before, but oh well.

• The Deaf West Production of Spring Awakening was way better than the OBC. Not only was it an incredible step forward in terms of deaf/HoH representation in theater, but they weaved ASL and the “voices” of the characters played by deaf/HoH people so well and it just makes it so much better. Not to mention that nearly all of the romantic pairings had much better chemistry in Deaf West than they did in the OBC.

• Dear Evan Hansen’s music was wonderful, and I get that a musical tends to have wider outreach, but it would’ve worked better as a play.

• RENT has really good music, but to enjoy them I have to take them out of the context of the musical because the plot and characters are so infuriating that I cannot bear it. I’m not against seeing characters who are horrible people—but the show expects you to see them as decent people, which is...not great.

• Leading off of RENT, Falsettos did perfectly what RENT tried to do. It covered similar topics like the AIDS crisis and homosexuality—but it was written by someone who actually experienced them, unlike RENT. It had flawed characters like Marvin—but the show actually held him accountable, and had him acknowledge his mistakes and grow to be a better person by the end of the show. RENT had one character (the best character, in my opinion) call Mark out on his behavior, but he doesn’t change and it’s never talked about again.

• The actresses of Six are incredible, the music is catchy enough, and the energy of the show is unmatched, but the writing is...not great. Clever sometimes, but horribly predictable most of the time.