The Who's 'Tommy'

Went to production of The Who's Tommy at Circle Theater, then feeling nostalgic, watched The Who's performance of it on YouTube. (I wonder if Townshend ever envisioned that it would be choreographed.) In any event, this is an excellent production, and works well in a small black-box theater. It also highlights an important era in pop music, when the resident songwriters were working on the heels of an eclectic mix of music history--a melange of jazz, classical, musicals, etc. pushing it through the grinder of the 60s and 70s. What you have at the other end are well-crafted songs that can be easily re-orchestrated for the stage, mostly because they have melodies and people can sing and dance to them. (A good song is measured by its ability to span at least one generation, and these songs are almost through the second: the entire cast is probably younger than 30.)