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What is the Best Christmas Song from the musical stage? Is it “A New Deal For Christmas” from Annie? “We Need A Little Christmas” from Mame? “Christmas Bells” from Rent? Some other tune? Now’s your chance to weigh in on this holiday debate by casting your vote on the SoundsofBroadway.com Best Christmas Song Bracket Challenge! - https://soundsofbroadway.com/b... Aluminum Frame

“We’ve selected 32 songs and broken them down into four Brackets,” stated Stuart Brown, who developed the 24/7 online Broadway radio station, SoundsofBroadway.com. “There are a lot of familiar Christmas songs like “Hard Candy Christmas” from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, “Be a Santa” from Subways are for Sleeping, and “Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher” from Billy Elliot. There are also a number of songs from lesser known musicals like Rex, Pickwick, Greenwillow, and Flahooley. One of my personal favorites is from the 1966 Off-Broadway revue, The Mad Show, titled "The Gift of Maggie (And Others). "The show had music by Mary Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim, using the nom de plume of Esteban Rio Nido, contributed lyrics to one of the production’s songs."

The Christmas Song Bracket Challenge will have a number of voting rounds. Round One, which runs through December 20, will feature the eight matchups comprising the first two brackets. New matchups will be posted each Wednesday. “I know there will be many unfamiliar selections,” said Brown, who programs each week’s SoundsofBroadway.com’s playlists from hundreds of Off-Broadway, Broadway and London cast recordings. “However, we have embedded an mp3 player below the graphic for each entry so people can listen to a song before casting their ballot.”

The Christmas Song Bracket Challenge was inspired by the current episode of Brown’s podcast, On Broadway - https://broadwayradioprograms.... - with theater critic and author Peter Filichia. They discussed his new book, The Book of Broadway Musical Debates, Disputes, and Disagreements. “Broadway musical fans love to argue over anything,” said the podcast host. “What better way to spend the holidays then bickering over the best Christmas song in musical theater history?”

SoundsofBroadway.com began operations in March 2019. The musical selections feature popular and well-known shows and also songs from obscure and less popular shows. Stuart Brown, who is a member of the Outer Critics Circle and President of the CT Critics Circle, has been attending New York theatrical productions since the original production of Grease in 1972.

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