Musical Theatre
An American Tradition
The American Musical
 First plays set to music in 1920s with
George Gershwin, Irving Berlin and others
 Called Musical Comedies
 Featured a slightly silly story, plenty of tuneful
melodies and chorus of dancers
 In 1927, Showboat by Jerome Kern
changed everything
 Dealt with serious subject matters (racism,
spousal abuse and abandonment)
 Tied songs into the plot of the play as a way of
telling the story
Famous Composers
 Musicals are not referred to by their
author but by their composer
 Famous Composers of Musicals are:
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Gilbert and Sullivan
Rodgers and Hammerstein
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Schwartz
Rodgers and Hammerstein
 Richard Rodgers (1902 – 1979) and Oscar
Hammerstein II (1895 – 1960) were a wellknown American songwriting duo, usually
referred to as Rodgers and Hammerstein.
 They are most famous for creating a string
of immensely popular Broadway musicals in
the 1940s and 1950s, during what is
considered the golden age of the medium.
 They first began writing together as
students at Columbia University, where
they met working on the Varsity Show.
Oklahoma! (1943)
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In Oklahoma territory in 1906, cowboy Curly McLain looks
forward to the beautiful day ahead as he wanders into Laurey
Williams's yard. There will be a box social dance that night,
which includes an auction of lunch baskets prepared by the
local girls (to raise funds for a schoolhouse). The man who
wins each lunch basket will eat the lunch with the girl who
prepared it. Curly asks Laurey to go with him, but she
refuses.
The sinister and dark-hearted farm hand Jud Fry has set his
sights on Laurey and asks her to the dance. She accepts to
spite Curly, despite being afraid of Jud. At the social, the
menfolk join in an upbeat barn dance.
Jud confronts Laurey about his feelings for her. When she admits that she
doesn't return them, he threatens her. She then fires him as her farm hand,
screaming at him to get off of her property. Jud furiously threatens Laurey
before he departs. Laurey bursts into tears and calls for Curly. She tells him
that she has fired Jud and is frightened by what Jud might do now. Curly,
seeing that she has turned to him for guidance and safety, reassures her
and proposes to her, and she accepts
Three weeks later, a drunken Jud reappears the morning after Curly and
Laurey's wedding. He attacks Curly with a knife. As Curly dodges a blow,
Jud falls on his own knife and dies on the spot. At Aunt Eller's urging, the
wedding guests hold a makeshift trial for Curly. The judge, Ado Annie's
father, declares the verdict: "not guilty!" and everyone rejoices
The King and I (1951)
 Mrs. Anna Leonowens and her son Louis
arrive in Bangkok, where she has
contracted to teach English to the children
of the royal household. She threatens to
leave when the house she had been
promised is not available, but falls in love
with the children.
 A new slave, a gift of a vassal king,
translates "Uncle Tom's Cabin" into a
Siamese ballet, expressing her
unhappiness at being with the King. She
attempts to escape with her lover.
 Anna and the King fall in love, but her
British upbringing inhibits her from joining
his harem. She is just about to leave Siam
when she hears of the King's imminent
death, and returns to help his son, her
favorite pupil, rule his people.
The Sound of Music (1959)
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In 1930's Austria, a young woman named Maria is
failing miserably in her attempts to become a nun.
When the Navy captain Georg Von Trapp writes to
the convent asking for a governess that can handle
his seven mischievous children, Maria is given the
job. The Captain's wife is dead, and he is often
away, and runs the household as strictly as he does
the ships he sails on.
The children are unhappy and resentful of the
governesses that their father keeps hiring, and
have managed to run each of them off one by one.
When Maria arrives, she is initially met with the
same hostility, but her kindness, understanding,
and sense of fun soon draws them to her and brings
some much-needed joy into all their lives--including
the Captain's.
Eventually he and Maria find themselves falling in
love, even though Georg is already engaged to a
Baroness and Maria is still a postulant. The
romance makes them both start questioning the
decisions they have made.
Their personal conflicts soon become
overshadowed, however, by world events. Austria
is about to come under the control of Germany, and
the Captain may soon find himself drafted into the
German navy and forced to fight against his own
country.
Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber
 Born 22 March 1948
 Lloyd Webber began
writing his own music
at a young age.
 He wrote his first
published suite of six
pieces at the age of
nine. He also put on
"productions" with
brother Julian and his
aunt Viola in his toy
theatre
 Knighted in 1992
Joseph and the Amazing
Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968)
 The story is based on
the Biblical story of
Joseph in Egypt, found
in the book of Genesis.
It is set in a frame in
which a narrator is
telling a story to
children, encouraging
them to dream. She
then tells the story of
Joseph, another
dreamer.
Evita (1976)
 Based on the life of
Argentine political
leader Eva Perón, the
second wife of
Argentinean president
Juan Perón. The story
follows Evita's early
life, acting career, rise
to power, charity work,
feminist involvement
and eventual death.
Cats (1981)
 Based on Old Possum's Book of
Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot.
 The cats gather on stage and
explain the Jellicle tribe and
their purpose. The cats spot
the human audience and
explain how the different cats
of the tribe are named. This is
followed by a dance from
Victoria the White Cat that
signals the beginning of the
Jellicle Ball and Munkustrap
tells us that tonight is the night
when Old Deuteronomy will
choose a cat to be reborn into
a new life on the Heaviside
Layer.
The Phantom of the Opera (1986)
 Tells the story of a
chorus girl, Christine,
in Paris’s Opera house,
who is trained to sing
by a mysterious
phantom who
torments the theater.
 The Phantom is in
love with Christine
but she falls in love
with her childhood
sweetheart and must
choose between the
man she loves and
the man who inspired
her to sing.
Stephen Sondheim
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Stephen Joshua Sondheim was
born March 22, 1930 in New York
City
In 1940, his parents divorced and
he moved to Pennsylvania with his
mother, making friends with his
neighbor Oscar Hammerstein
His first “musical” was written in
1945 in high school called By
George
He went to college to major in
mathematics and during his
summer vacation in 1947, became
a gopher on the set of Rodgers' and
Hammerstein's Allegro
In 1956, he is chosen to write the
lyrics for West Side Story with
music by Leonard Bernstein
West Side Story (1957)
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Based on William Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet
Set in Manhattan's West Side in
the mid-1950s, the musical
explores the rivalry between two
teenage gangs of different
ethnic and cultural backgrounds
(the "American" Jets and the
Puerto Rican Sharks).
The young protagonist, Anton
("Tony"), who belongs to the
White gang, falls in love with
Maria, the sister of the leader of
the rival Puerto Rican gang.
In the end, Tony is killed by
Chino and Maria puts an end to
the gang’s violence. She goes to
shoot herself but can’t pull the
trigger and lives.
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Gypsy (1959) 
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Rose and her two daughters, Baby June and
Louise, play the vaudeville circuit around the
United States during the Great Depression.
Rose, the archetype of a stage mother, is
aggressive and domineering, pushing her
children to perform.
While June is an extroverted, talented child
star, the older girl, Louise, is shy. The kiddie
act has one song, "Let Me Entertain You", that
they sing over and over again, with June
always as the center-piece and Louise often as
one of the "boys". Rose has big dreams for the
girls but encounters setbacks
As the girls grow up, June, now billed as
Dainty June, tires of life on the road and her
mother's smothering pushiness, and she runs
away with one of the boys in the act. Rose
optimistically vows that she will make Louise
a star
Louise grows into a young woman, and Rose
has built a pale imitation of the Dainty June
Act for her. With no vaudeville venues left,
Louise and her second rate act wind up at a
burlesque house in Wichita, Kansas. Rose is
anguished, as she sees what a booking in
burlesque means to her dreams of success.
Ultimately, Louise becomes a major burlesque
star and does not need her mother any longer.
Rose, sad and feeling useless, asks "Why did I
do it? When is it my turn?" She fantasizes
about her own lit up runway and cheering
audience, but finally admits "I did it for me."
Mother and daughter tentatively step toward
reconciliation in the end.
A Funny Thing Happened on the
Way to the Forum (1962)
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it tells the bawdy story of a slave named
Pseudolus and his attempts to win his
freedom by helping his young master woo the
girl next door. The plot displays many classic
elements of farce, including puns, a twotiered set with many doors, cases of mistaken
identity (frequently involving characters
disguising themselves as one another), and
satirical comments on social class.
The musical centers around the denizens of
three adjacent houses in ancient Rome. In the
center is the house of Senex, who lives there
with wife Domina, son Hero and several
slaves, including head slave Hysterium and
the musical's main character Pseudolus, who
wishes to buy, win, or steal his freedom. He is
the slave of young Hero, son of Senex and
Domina. One of the neighboring houses is
owned by Marcus Lycus, who is a buyer and
seller of beautiful women; the other belongs
to the ancient Erronius, who is abroad
searching for his long-lost children (stolen in
infancy by pirates).
Sweeny Todd (1979)
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In the play, Sweeny Todd was known as Benjamin
Barker, a middle class barber, married to Lucy Barker
with an infant daughter Johanna. The villainous Judge
Turpin exiles Barker to Australia on false charges in
order to have Lucy to himself. Mrs. Lovett tells Todd
that Lucy poisoned herself after Turpin raped her, and
that Turpin adopted baby Johanna as his ward. By the
time Todd returns to London, Johanna has become a
young woman and falls in love with a sailor, Anthony,
with whom she plans to elope.
Mrs. Lovett takes in an orphan boy, Tobias Ragg, after Sweeney kills
Toby's previous guardian, (a former assistant of Todd who tries to
blackmail him). After Turpin escapes his grasp, Todd swears revenge
upon the entire world, resolving to kill as many people as he can; Mrs.
Lovett then suggests they turn his victims' remains into pies. With this
plan in action, both Todd and Mrs. Lovett become incredibly successful.
In the musical's climactic scene, Todd finally kills Judge Turpin, as well
as an insane beggar woman — who turns out to be none other than Lucy,
Todd's long-lost wife. When Mrs. Lovett confesses that she hid Lucy's
identity in order to have Todd to herself, he throws her into a furnace to
burn to death. As he grieves over his wife's body, Toby — who wants
revenge for the murder of the only mother he's ever known — sneaks up
behind him. Todd lifts his head, willingly allowing Toby to slit his throat.
He dies with his wife's body in his arms.
Into the Woods (1987)
 The musical intertwines the
plots of several Brothers Grimm
fairy tales and follows them
further to explore the
consequences of the characters'
wishes and quests. The main
characters are taken from the
stories of Little Red Riding
Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk,
Rapunzel, and Cinderella, tied
together by a more original
story involving a Baker and his
wife and their quest to begin a
family, most likely taken from
the original story of Rapunzel
by the Brothers Grimm. It also
includes references to several
other well-known tales.
Stephan Schwartz
 Born March 6, 1948 in
New York City and
grew up in the area of
Williston Park, where
he attended Mineola
High School.
 He studied piano and
composition at the
Juilliard School of
Music while in high
school and graduated
from Carnegie Mellon
University in 1968 with
a B.F.A. in Drama.
Godspell (1971)
 The structure of the
musical is that of a
series of parables,
taken primarily from
the Gospel of Matthew.
These are then
interspersed with a
variety of modern
music set primarily to
lyrics from traditional
hymns, with the
passion of Christ
treated briefly near the
end of performance.
Wicked (2003)
 Wicked tells the story of Elphaba,
the future Wicked Witch of the
West and her relationship with
Glinda, the Good Witch of the
North.
 Their friendship struggles through
their opposing personalities and
viewpoints, rivalry over the same
love-interest, their reactions to
the Wizard's corrupt government,
and, ultimately, Elphaba's public
fall from grace.
 The plot is set mostly before
Dorothy's arrival from Kansas,
and includes several references
to well-known scenes and
dialogue in the 1939 film The
Wizard of Oz as a backstory.
Other Famous Musicals
Annie Get Your Gun (1946) by Irving Berlin
Kiss Me Kate (1948) by Cole Porter
Guys and Dolls (1950) by Frank Loesser
My Fair Lady (1956) by Alan Jay Lerner and
Frederick Loewe
 Hello, Dolly (1964) by Jerry Herman
 Fiddler on the Roof (1964) by Jerry Bock and
Sheldon Harnick
 A Chorus Line (1975) by Marvin Hamlisch
and Edward Kleban
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