I.
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining music, songs, spoken dialogue and dance.
a. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is
communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment
as an integrated whole.
II.
Musical theatre works, usually referred to as "musicals", are performed around the world. They may
be presented in large venues, such as big budget West End and Broadway theatre productions in
London and New York City, or in smaller Off-Broadway or regional productions, on tour, or by
amateur groups in schools, theatres and other performance spaces.
a. In addition to Britain and the U.S., there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in Germany, Austria,
Philippines, France, Canada, Japan, Eastern Europe, Australia, and other countries.
III.
The three main components of a musical:
a. the music
b. the lyrics,
c.
the book.
i. The book of a musical refers to the "play" or story of the show – in effect its spoken (not
sung) lines; however, "book" can also refer to the dialogue and lyrics together, which are
sometimes referred to (as in opera) as the libretto (Italian for “little book”).
ii. As with a well-crafted operetta or opera, a "book" musical's moments of greatest dramatic
intensity are often performed in song. Proverbially, "when the emotion becomes too
strong for speech (or recitative) you sing; when it becomes too strong for song, you
dance."
iii. A song is (ideally at any rate) crafted to suit the character (or characters) and their
situation within the story
IV.
There is no fixed length for a musical, and it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several
acts and several hours in length (or even a multi-evening presentation);
a. however, most musicals range from one and a half hours to three hours.
b. Musicals today are typically presented in two acts, with one intermission ten to 20 minutes in
length.
c. The first act is almost always somewhat longer than the second act, and generally introduces
most of the music.
d. A musical may be built around 4-6 main theme tunes that are reprised throughout the show, or
consist of a series of songs not directly musically related.
e. Spoken dialogue is generally interspersed between musical numbers, although the use of "sung
dialogue" or recitative is not unknown, especially in so-called "sung-through" musicals such as
Les Misérables ar Jesus Christ Superstar
V.
While an opera singer is primarily a singer and only secondarily an actor, a musical theatre singer is
usually an actor first, who can at least hold a tune and "put over" a song, but is often not a
professional singer as such.
a. Composers of music for musicals often have to take the limitations of such performers into
account, and theatres staging musicals generally use amplification of the actors' singing voices in
a way that would normally be disapproved of in an operatic context.
b. None of these features is truly "defining", and in practice it is often difficult to distinguish among
the various kinds of light musical theatre, including "operetta", "comic opera", "light opera",
"burletta", "musical play", "musical comedy", "extravaganza", "burlesque", "travesty", "music
hall", and even "revue".
c. Some works (e.g. by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim) have received both "musical
theatre" and "operatic" treatment. Similarly, some older operettas or light operas have had
modern productions or adaptations that treated them as musicals.
i. Sondheim said: "I really think that when something plays Broadway it's a musical, and
when it plays in an opera house it's opera. That's it. It's the terrain, the countryside, the
expectations of the audience that make it one thing or another."[2]
ii. As with a well-crafted operetta or opera, a "book" musical's moments of greatest dramatic
intensity are often performed in song. Proverbially, "when the emotion becomes too
strong for speech (or recitative) you sing; when it becomes too strong for song, you
dance." A song is (ideally at any rate) crafted to suit the character (or characters) and
their situation within the story; although there have been times in the history of the
musical (e.g. the 1920s) when this integration between music and story has been tenuous.
Ancient Greece and middle ages
I.
Musical theatre in Europe dates back to the theatre of the ancient Greeks, who included music and
dance in their stage comedies and tragedies as early as the 5th century B.C.
II.
Aeschylus and Sophocles even composed their own music to accompany their plays.
III.
The Third Century B.C. Roman comedies of Plautus included song and dance routines performed
with orchestrations. The popularity of theatre declined somewhat in the Roman Empire, but some
innovations were made: to make the dance steps more audible in large open air theatres, Roman
actors attached metal chips called "sabilla" to their stage footwear – the first tap shoes.
Renaissance to the 1700s
I.
By the Renaissance, medieval traveling liturgical pieces had evolved into commedia dell'arte, an
Italian tradition where raucous clowns improvised their way through familiar stories,
a. and from there, opera buffa.
i. Molière turned several of his farcical comedies into musical entertainments with songs
II.
Other musical theatre forms developed by the 19th century, such as vaudeville, British music hall,
melodrama and burlesque.
a. Melodrama's popularity, in particular, was popularized partly because most London theatres
were licensed only as music halls and not allowed to present plays without music. In any event,
what a piece was called did not necessarily define what it was.
i. The Broadway extravaganza The Magic Deer (1852) advertised itself as "A Serio
Comico Tragico Operatical Historical Extravaganzical Burletical Tale of Enchantment."
III.
The first recorded long running play of any kind was The Beggar's Opera, which ran for 62
successive performances in 1728.
IV.
New York (and so, America) did not have a significant theatre presence until 1752, when William
Hallam sent a company of twelve actors to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager.
a. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice
and The Anatomist.
b. The company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad-operas such as The
Beggar’s Opera and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida.
c. By the 1840s, P.T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan (theatre
in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, seeking less
expensive real estate prices, and did not arrive in the Times Square area until the 1920s and
1930s).
d. Broadway's first "long-run" musical was a 50 performance hit called The Elves in 1857. New
York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keene's "musical burletta"
Seven Sisters (1860) shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances.
Development of musical comedy
I.
The first theatre piece that conforms to the modern conception of a musical, adding dance and
original music that helped to tell the story, is generally considered to be The Black Crook, which
premiered in New York on September 12, 1866.
a. The production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a
record-breaking 474 performances.
b. The length of runs in the theatre changed rapidly around the same time that the modern musical
was born.
c. As transportation improved, poverty in London and New York diminished, and street lighting
made for safer travel at night, the number of potential patrons for the growing number of theatres
increased enormously.
d. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits and improved
production values.
II.
The Roaring Twenties
a. The motion picture mounted a challenge to the stage.
b. At first, films were silent and presented only a limited challenge to theatre.
c. But by the end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer could be presented with synchronized
sound, and critics wondered if the cinema would replace live theatre altogether.
d. The musicals of the Roaring Twenties, borrowing from vaudeville, music hall and other light
entertainments, tended to ignore plot in favor of emphasizing star actors and actresses, big dance
routines, and popular songs.
e. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, popular music was dominated by theatre
writers. Many shows were revues with little plot.
i. For instance, Florenz Ziegfeld produced annual spectacular song-and-dance revues on
Broadway featuring extravagant sets and elaborate costumes, but there was little to tie the
various numbers together.
1930s
I.
The Great Depression affected theatre audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, as people had little
money to spend on entertainment.
II.
In addition, "talkie" films at low prices presented a strong challenge to theatre of all kinds.
III.
Only a few shows exceeded a run on Broadway or in London of 500 performances. Still, for those
who could afford it, this was an exciting time in the development of musical theatre.
IV.
Encouraged by the success of Show Boat, creative teams began following the "format" of that
popular hit. Of Thee I Sing (1931), a political satire with music by George Gershwin and lyrics by Ira
Gershwin and Morrie Ryskind, was the first musical to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
The Golden Age (1943 to 1968)
I.
The Golden Age of the Broadway musical is generally considered to have begun with Oklahoma!
(1943) and to have ended with Hair (1968).
1940s
a. Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! had a cohesive (if somewhat slim) plot, songs that
furthered the action of the story, and featured dream ballets which advanced the plot and
developed the characters, rather than using dance as an excuse to parade scantily-clad women
across the stage.
b. Rodgers and Hammerstein hired ballet choreographer Agnes de Mille, who used everyday
motions to help the characters express their ideas.
c. It defied musical conventions by raising its first act curtain not on a bevy of chorus girls, but
rather on a woman churning butter, with an off-stage voice singing the opening lines of Oh, What
a Beautiful Mornin'.
d. It was the first "blockbuster" Broadway show, running a total of 2,212 performances, and was
made into a hit film. It remains one of the most frequently produced of the team's projects.
e. The two collaborators created an extraordinary collection of some of musical theatre's best loved
and most enduring classics, including Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I
(1951), and The Sound of Music (1959). Some of these musicals, including Oklahoma!,
Carousel, South Pacific and The Sound of Music, treat more serious subject matter than most
earlier shows.
1950s
f. As in Oklahoma!, dance was an integral part of West Side Story (1957), which transported
Romeo and Juliet to modern day New York City and converted the feuding Montague and
Capulet families into opposing ethnic gangs, the Sharks and the Jets.
g. The book was adapted by Arthur Laurents, with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by
newcomer Stephen Sondheim.
h. It was embraced by the critics but failed to be a popular choice for the "blue-haired matinee
ladies,"
i. The 1950s ended with a big bang, however, with The Sound of Music, the last musical written by
Rodgers and Hammerstein, which became another hit for Mary Martin and, especially after the
release of its extremely successful 1965 film version, has become one of the most popular
musicals in history.
1960s
j. In 1960, The Fantasticks was first produced off-Broadway.
k. This intimate allegorical show would quietly run for over 40 years at the Sullivan Street Theatre
in Greenwich Village, becoming by far the longest-running musical in history.
l. he 1960s would then see a number of traditional blockbusters like Fiddler on the Roof and Hello,
Dolly! before moving to more risqué pieces like Cabaret and ending with the emergence of the
rock musical.
m. Stephen Sondheim had considerable impact on musical theatre history beginning in this decade:
i. The first project for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics was A Funny Thing
Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962, 964 performances), with a book based on the
works of Plautus by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, and starring Zero Mostel.
1. Sondheim moved the musical beyond its concentration on the romantic plots
typical of earlier eras; his work tended to be darker, exploring the grittier sides of
life both present and past
2. While some critics have argued that some of Sondheim’s musicals are less
popular with the public because of their unusual lyrical sophistication and musical
complexity, others have praised these features of his work, as well as the interplay
of lyrics and music in his shows.
n. The musical started to diverge from the relatively narrow confines of the 1950s.
o. Rock music would be used in several Broadway musicals, beginning with Hair, which featured
not only rock music but also nudity and controversial opinions about the Vietnam War.
1970s
I.
After the success of Hair, rock musicals flourished in the 1970s, with Jesus Christ Superstar,
Godspell, Grease and Two Gentlemen of Verona.
II.
Some of these rock musicals began with "concept albums" and then moved to film or stage, such as
Tommy.
III.
Others had no dialogue or were otherwise reminiscent of opera, with dramatic, emotional themes;
these were referred to as rock operas.
IV.
The musical also went in other directions. S
a. hows like Raisin, Dreamgirls, Purlie, and The Wiz brought a significant African-American
influence to Broadway.
b. More and more different musical genres were turned into musicals either on or off-Broadway.
Automotive companies and other types of corporations hired Broadway talent to write corporate
musicals, private shows which were only seen by their employees or customers.
V.
1976 brought one of the great contemporary musicals to the stage: A Chorus Line
a. emerged from recorded group therapy-style sessions Michael Bennett.
b. From hundreds of hours of tapes, James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nick Dante fashioned a book about
an audition for a musical, incorporating into it many of the real-life stories of those who had sat
in on the sessions — and some of whom eventually played variations of themselves or each other
in the show.
c. Advance word-of-mouth— that something extraordinary was about to explode - boosted box
office sales, and after critics ran out of superlatives to describe what they witnessed on opening
night, what initially had been planned as a limited engagement eventually moved to the Shubert
Theatre uptown for a run that seemed to last forever. The show swept the Tony Awards and won
the Pulitzer Prize, and its hit song, What I Did for Love, became an instant standard.
1980s and 1990s
I.
The 1980s and 1990s saw the influence of European "mega-musicals" or "pop operas," which
typically featured a pop-influenced score and had large casts and sets and were identified as much by
their notable effects — a falling chandelier (in Phantom), a helicopter landing on stage (in Miss
Saigon) — as they were by anything else in the production.
II.
Many were based on novels or other works of literature.
a. The most important writers of mega-musicals include the French team of Claude-Michel
Schönberg and Alain Boublil, responsible for Les Misérables, which became the longest-running
international musical hit in history.
b. The team, in collaboration with Richard Maltby, Jr., continued to produce hits with Miss Saigon
(inspired by Madame Butterfly).
c. The British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, saw similar mega-success with Evita, based on the
life of Argentina's Eva Perón; Cats, derived from the poems of T. S. Eliot; The Phantom of the
Opera, derived from the novel "Le Fantôme de l'Opéra" written by Gaston Leroux; and Sunset
Boulevard (from the classic film of the same name).
d. Several of these mega-musicals ran (or are still running) for decades in both New York and
London.
e. The 90s also saw the influence of large corporations on the production of musicals.
i. The most important has been The Walt Disney Company, which began adapting some of
its animated movie musicals—such as Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King—for the
stage, and also created original stage productions like Aida, with music by Elton John.
ii. Disney continues to create new musicals for Broadway and West End theatres, most
recently with its adaptation of its 1999 animated feature, Tarzan.
f. The growing scale (and cost) of musicals led to some concern that musicals were eschewing
substance in favor of style.
g. There also had been a concern that the musical had lost touch with the tastes of the general
public, that the cost of musicals was escalating beyond the budget of many theatregoers, and that
the musical was increasingly doomed to be viewed by a smaller and smaller audience.
i. Jonathan Larson's musical Rent (based on the opera La Bohème) attempted to increase the
popularity of musicals among a younger audience.
1. It features a cast of twentysomethings, and the score is heavily rock-influenced.
2. The musical became a hit, even with its composer dying of an aortic aneurysm on
the night of the final dress rehearsal at New York Theatre Workshop, before he
could see it reach Broadway.
a. A group of young fans, styled RENTheads, line up at the Nederlander
Theatre hours early in hopes of winning the lottery for $20 front row
tickets, and some have seen the show more than 50 times.
b. Other writers who have attempted to bring a taste of modern rock music to
the stage include Jason Robert Brown. (writer of Last Five Years)
2000s
I.
In recent years, familiarity has been embraced by producers anxious to guarantee that they recoup
their considerable investments, if not show a healthy profit.
II.
Some are willing to take (usually modest-budget) chances on the new and unusual, such as
Urinetown (2001), Bombay Dreams (2002; about the "Bollywood" musicals churned out by Indian
cinema), Avenue Q (2003; utilizes puppets to tell its adult-themed story), and The 25th Annual
Putnam County Spelling Bee (2005; people watching the show can become "spellers" in the show).
III.
The musical is being pulled in a number of different directions. Gone are the days when a sole
producer backs a production.
IV.
Corporate sponsors dominate Broadway, and often alliances are formed to stage musicals which
require an investment of $10 million or more.
V.
In 2002, the credits for Thoroughly Modern Millie listed ten producers, and among those names were
entities comprised of several individuals.
VI.
It also appears that the spectacle format is on the rise again, returning to the times when Romans
would have mock sea battles on stage.
a. This was true of Starlight Express and is most apparent in the musical adaptation of The Lord of
the Rings that ran in Toronto, Canada in 2006, and opened for previews in May 2007 at the
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London, billed as the biggest stage production in musical theatre
history.
b. The expensive production lost money in Toronto.
c. Conversely, The Drowsy Chaperone, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Xanadu and
others are part of a Broadway trend to present musicals uninterrupted by an intermission, with
short running time of less than two hours. The latter two, together with works like Avenue Q,
also represent a trend towards presenting smaller-scale, small cast musicals that are able to show
a good profit in a smaller house.