Sung-through musicals

In a sung-through musical, the story is carried almost entirely by music, with little or no spoken dialogue between songs. Andrew Lloyd Webber made the form famous with Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, and The Phantom of the Opera, and Les Miserables and Miss Saigon followed the same approach. Shows like Sweeney Todd and Falsettos use nearly continuous music to keep the drama moving.

Each show below links to a guide with the plot, songs, and characters. Because these shows tell the story through music, the song list in each guide doubles as a scene-by-scene map of the plot, which makes them a good place to start before listening to a cast album.

16 musicals on this list.