12Musical Theatre
© Paul Kolnik
Copyright © McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
© 2015 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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The Connections Between Music and Drama
• Greek tragedy• Opera• Shakespeare• Nineteenth-century
melodrama• Popular entertainment in
the nineteenth century• The musical is predominately
an American form that evolved in the twentieth century
• What is the appeal of music • and dance?
Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera
© 2015 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Types of Musical Theatre• Opera
– Drama set entirely to music• Operetta
– Predominately drama set to music but with some spoken portions (usually a romantic story)
• Musical comedy – Developed in America in the 1920s—light, comic story
interspersed with popular music• Musical
– Evolved from the operetta and musical comedy• Revue
– Comic sketches and vignettes alternated with musical numbers—no single story and stand-alone songs
© Michal Daniel
© 2015 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
1920s and 1930s American Musicals
• Show Boat—the landmark musical of its age– Produced in 1927– Serious story
(romance between a white man and a woman
of mixed-race)– Songs integrated into
the plot– Elimination of the
chorus line– Produced by Joseph Kern
and Oscar Hammerstein II– Lyrics of wit “You’re the Top”, “Anything Goes”
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© Catherine Ashmore
© 2015 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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1920s and 1930s American Musicals
• Other landmark productions of the time:– 1931: Of Thee I Sing (George and Ira
Gershwin)– 1935: Porgy and Bess (George Gershwin,
DuBose Heyward, and Ira Gershwin)– 1940: Pal Joey (Richard Rodgers and Lorenz
Hart)– Dealing with American themes of race,
presidential elections, the antihero.
© 2015 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Musical Theatre of the 1940s and 1950s
• Oklahoma!– Richard Rodgers and
Oscar Hammerstein II – First collaboration
– Integration of music, dance, and story— Agnes de Mille, choreographer
– Songs integrated with story, violence onstage, ballet.
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© Martha Swope
Guys and Dolls, words and music by Frank Loesser.
© 2015 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Musical Theatre of the 1940s and 1950s
• Other landmark musicals of the period:– Carousel (1945) / South Pacific (1949) – Guys & Dolls (1950) / The King & I (1951) – My Fair Lady (1956) / West Side Story (1957) – The Sound of Music (1959)– Surge in choreography, composers and
lyricists – range and depth.
© 2015 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Musicals from the 1960s through the 1980s
• End of the golden age – Fiddler on the Roof (1964) – jewish family, pogrom– Hair (1967)—representative of the anti-establishment
culture of young America, fragmented– A Chorus Line (1975)—emphasized the connections
between choreographer, dancers, and the musical• Emergence of the concept musical
– Stephen Sondheim (Follies / Company)– Andrew Lloyd Webber (Cats / Starlight Express)
• The British invasion (1970s-1980s)– Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Macintosh
© 2015 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Musicals from the 1960s through the 1980s
• Sunday in the Park with George– Stephen Sondheim – the “concept musical”
in which the production is built around an idea or a theme rather than a story.
– Follies and Assassins
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© Martha Swope
© 2015 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Musicals from 1990 to the Present
• Four current trends on Broadway:– Revivals from the past – less risk to produce
• Chicago / Annie / Cabaret / Pippin– Contemporary shows
• Rent / Avenue Q / Hamilton / In the Heights– Musicals from films
• Monty Python’s Spamalot / The Producers / Hairspray– Musicals from popular music
• Mamma Mia! / Rock of Ages
• What will the future musical encompass?• Why have musicals remained so popular?
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