TYPES OF SINGING ON BROADWAY TODAY
By: Kevin Michale Jones and Sara Teixeira
Broadway is more vocally and stylistically demanding today than it has ever been. Last year,
Shenandoah Conservatory released a study in Journal of Voice titled “Trends in Musical
Theatre Voice: An Analysis of Audition Requirements for Singers.” In this study, the authors
gathered over 1,000 professional musical theatre audition job listings from Backstage.com in
order to identify the musical and vocal genres that are being requested most often for musical
theatre singer-actors today. According to the authors, four main genres came up most
frequently in the listings: Legit, Traditional Musical Theatre, Contemporary Musical Theatre,
and Pop/Rock. The study includes percentages for each of these along with a lot of other great
information and insights, but I will not include that information here (let’s just say the Legit
genre was requested far less than the other three).
LEGIT
This type of singing is heavily rooted in traditional, classical voice training and styles. It usually
features many of the same distinguishing characteristics as classical/operatic singing, such as:
consistent vibrato, tall and round vowels, smooth register transitions, a ‘balanced’ tone
quality, crisp/proper diction, etc. Today, this vocal genre is most often associated with
musicals from the ‘Golden Age’ of Broadway (c. 1943-1964). Some celebrated legit singeractors from that time period include Julie Andrews, Alfred Drake, Barbara Cook, and John Raitt.
CONTEMPORARY LEGIT
This type of singing is still hugely influenced by the traditional and classical voice training and
styles but it allows some more freedom when it comes to adding other qualities to the voice,
such as speech quality and mix/belt. This can be the case of Les Miserábles and The Phantom
of the Opera. There are also contemporary musicals (written nowadays) that feature
permutations of legit singing like The Light in the Piazza, Grey Gardens, Finding Neverland and
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. These are classified as Contempory Legit shows.
Some notable contemporary legit performers include Kelli O’Hara, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra
McDonald, and James Barbour
TRADITIONAL MUSICAL THEATRE (BELT)*
This type of singing grew out of Tin Pan Alley in the early 20th century. It is a speech-based
vocal genre that features crisp, percussive diction. Functionally, it incorporates
thyroarytenoid-dominant production for both genders (aka ‘chest voice’ and ‘chest/mix’).
Musical theatre belting originated in this genre- though the belt technique was first used for
character/comedic roles only. In the 1930s, Ethel Merman helped legitimize this type of singing
for Broadway leading ladies. Some celebrated traditional musical theatre belt performers
include George Cohan, Ethel Merman, Carol Burnett, and Joel Grey. Today, this type of singing
is primarily utilized on Broadway in revivals of certain older shows. Examples of musicals that
predominantly feature this vocal genre include Cabaret, Chicago, City of Angels, and even The
Producers.
CONTEMPORARY MUSICAL THEATRE
This type of singing combines characteristics of traditional musical theatre belt singing with
contemporary pop/rock influences. It features ‘bright’, speech-based, mostly straight-tone
production and frequently requires higher belting than traditional musical theatre singing. Pop
and rock-type vocal ornamentation and embellishments are utilized at times, but the vocalism
still has a decidedly ‘musical theatre’ sound (aka it does not sound like singing you would hear
on the radio today). The text and lyrics are usually the driving force in this genre. Some
celebrated contemporary musical theatre singer-actors include Sutton Foster, Norbert Leo
Butz, Sherie Renee Scott, and Christian Borle. Examples of musicals that predominantly feature
this type of singing include Wicked, Avenue Q, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and The 25th Annual
Putnam County Spelling Bee.
POP/ROCK
This type of singing is heavily influenced by commercial music vocal styles like pop, rock,
country, hip-hop, r&b, and others. It is an empathetic, reactive, and emotion-based genre of
singing that embraces vocal distortions like growls, vocal fry, breathy tone, screams, glottal
stops, and vowel manipulation. Men and women sometimes sing in similar ranges in this
genre, and abrupt registration shifts are common. It is not unusual for stylistic authenticity to
take precedence over text/lyrics, and there is often a heavy reliance on electronic
amplification and instruments. Some celebrated pop/rock musical theatre singer-actors
include Adam Pascal, Heather Headley, Aaron Tveit, and Jessie Mueller. Examples of musicals
that predominantly feature this type of singing include Rent, Spring Awakening, Next to
Normal, and Once.
* The Legit vocal genre is sometimes referred to as ‘Traditional Musical Theatre’ as well, and
that is why I included ‘Belt’ in parenthesis here to differentiate the two.