Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals.
Although music has been a part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during the 19th century, with many structural elements established by the
Musicals are performed around the world. They may be presented in large venues, such as big-budget Broadway or West End productions in New York City or London. Alternatively, musicals may be staged in smaller venues, such as off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway, regional theatre, fringe theatre, or community theatre productions, or on tour. Musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces. In addition to the United States and Britain, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in continental Europe, Asia, Australasia, Canada and Latin America.
Definitions and scope
Book musicals
Since the 20th century, the "book musical" has been defined as a musical play where songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made story with serious dramatic goals and which is able to evoke genuine emotions other than laughter..
There is no fixed length for a musical. While it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several
Moments of greatest dramatic intensity in a book musical are often performed in song. Proverbially, "when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing; when it becomes too strong for song, you dance."[5] In a book musical, a song is ideally 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. from the 1890s to the 1920s) when this integration between music and story has been tenuous. As The New York Times critic Ben Brantley described the ideal of song in theatre when reviewing the 2008 revival of Gypsy: "There is no separation at all between song and character, which is what happens in those uncommon moments when musicals reach upward to achieve their ideal reasons to be."[6] Typically, many fewer words are sung in a five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore, there is less time to develop drama in a musical than in a straight play of equivalent length, since a musical usually devotes more time to music than to dialogue. Within the compressed nature of a musical, the writers must develop the characters and the plot.
The material presented in a musical may be original, or it may be adapted from novels (Wicked and Man of La Mancha), plays (Hello, Dolly! and Carousel), classic legends (Camelot), historical events (Evita and Hamilton) or films (The Producers and Billy Elliot). On the other hand, many successful musical theatre works have been adapted for musical films, such as West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Oliver! and Chicago.
Comparisons with opera
Musical theatre is closely related to the theatrical form of opera, but the two are usually distinguished by weighing a number of factors. First, musicals generally have a greater focus on spoken dialogue.
Finally, musicals usually avoid certain operatic conventions. In particular, a musical is almost always performed in the language of its audience. Musicals produced on Broadway or in the West End, for instance, are invariably sung in English, even if they were originally written in another language. While an opera singer is primarily a singer and only secondarily an actor (and rarely needs to dance), a musical theatre performer is often an actor first but must also be a singer and dancer. Someone who is equally accomplished at all three is referred to as a "triple threat". Composers of music for musicals often consider the vocal demands of roles with musical theatre performers in mind. Today, large theatres that stage musicals generally use microphones and amplification of the actors' singing voices in a way that would generally be disapproved of in an operatic context.[9]
Some works, including those by George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, have been made into both musical theatre and operatic productions.[10][11] Similarly, some older operettas or light operas (such as The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan) have been produced in modern adaptations that treat them as musicals. For some works, production styles are almost as important as the work's musical or dramatic content in defining into which art form the piece falls.[12] 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."[13] There remains an overlap in form between lighter operatic forms and more musically complex or ambitious musicals. In practice, it is often difficult to distinguish among the various kinds of musical theatre, including "musical play", "musical comedy", "operetta" and "light opera".[14]
Like opera, the singing in musical theatre is generally accompanied by an instrumental ensemble called a
Eastern traditions and other forms
There are various
comics has developed in recent decades.Shorter or simplified "junior" versions of many musicals are available for schools and youth groups, and very short works created or adapted for performance by children are sometimes called minimusicals.[19][20]
History
Early antecedents
The antecedents of musical theatre in Europe can be traced back to the theatre of ancient Greece, where music and dance were included in stage comedies and tragedies during the 5th century BCE.[21][22] The music from the ancient forms is lost, however, and they had little influence on later development of musical theatre.[23] In the 12th and 13th centuries, religious dramas taught the liturgy. Groups of actors would use outdoor Pageant wagons (stages on wheels) to tell each part of the story. Poetic forms sometimes alternated with the prose dialogues, and liturgical chants gave way to new melodies.[24]
The European
From the 18th century, the most popular forms of musical theatre in Britain were
Colonial America did not have a significant theatre presence until 1752, when London entrepreneur William Hallam sent a company of actors to the colonies managed by his brother
1850s to 1880s
Around 1850, the French composer
In America, mid-19th century musical theatre entertainments included crude
As transportation improved, poverty in London and New York diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night, the number of patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays ran longer, leading to better profits and improved production values, and men began to bring their families to the theatre. The first musical theatre piece to exceed 500 consecutive performances was the French operetta
1890s to the new century
A Trip to Chinatown (1891) was Broadway's long-run champion (until Irene in 1919), running for 657 performances, but New York runs continued to be relatively short, with a few exceptions, compared with London runs, until the 1920s.[33] Gilbert and Sullivan were widely pirated and also were imitated in New York by productions such as Reginald De Koven's Robin Hood (1891) and John Philip Sousa's El Capitan (1896). A Trip to Coontown (1898) was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans on Broadway (largely inspired by the routines of the minstrel shows), followed by ragtime-tinged shows. Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 20th century, composed of songs written in New York's Tin Pan Alley, including those by George M. Cohan, who worked to create an American style distinct from the Gilbert and Sullivan works. The most successful New York shows were often followed by extensive national tours.[49]
Meanwhile, musicals took over the London stage in the Gay Nineties, led by producer George Edwardes, who perceived that audiences wanted a new alternative to the Savoy-style comic operas and their intellectual, political, absurdist satire. He experimented with a modern-dress, family-friendly musical theatre style, with breezy, popular songs, snappy, romantic banter, and stylish spectacle at the Gaiety and his other theatres. These drew on the traditions of comic opera and used elements of burlesque and of the Harrigan and Hart pieces. He replaced the bawdy women of burlesque with his "respectable" corps of Gaiety Girls to complete the musical and visual fun. The success of the first of these, In Town (1892) and A Gaiety Girl (1893) set the style for the next three decades. The plots were generally light, romantic "poor maiden loves aristocrat and wins him against all odds" shows, with music by Ivan Caryll, Sidney Jones and Lionel Monckton. These shows were immediately widely copied in America, and Edwardian musical comedy swept away the earlier musical forms of comic opera and operetta. The Geisha (1896) was one of the most successful in the 1890s, running for more than two years and achieving great international success.
The Belle of New York (1898) became the first American musical to run for over a year in London. The British musical comedy Florodora (1899) was a popular success on both sides of the Atlantic, as was A Chinese Honeymoon (1901), which ran for a record-setting 1,074 performances in London and 376 in New York.[34] After the turn of the 20th century, Seymour Hicks joined forces with Edwardes and American producer Charles Frohman to create another decade of popular shows. Other enduring Edwardian musical comedy hits included The Arcadians (1909) and The Quaker Girl (1910).[50]
Early 20th century
Virtually eliminated from the English-speaking stage by competition from the ubiquitous Edwardian musical comedies, operettas returned to London and Broadway in 1907 with The Merry Widow, and adaptations of continental operettas became direct competitors with musicals. Franz Lehár and Oscar Straus composed new operettas that were popular in English until World War I.[51] In America, Victor Herbert produced a string of enduring operettas including The Fortune Teller (1898), Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle. Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906) and Naughty Marietta (1910).
In the 1910s, the team of
These shows built and polished the mold from which almost all later major musical comedies evolved. ... The characters and situations were, within the limitations of musical comedy license, believable and the humor came from the situations or the nature of the characters. Kern's exquisitely flowing melodies were employed to further the action or develop characterization. ... [Edwardian] musical comedy was often guilty of inserting songs in a hit-or-miss fashion. The Princess Theatre musicals brought about a change in approach. P. G. Wodehouse, the most observant, literate and witty lyricist of his day, and the team of Bolton, Wodehouse and Kern had an influence felt to this day.[52]
The theatre-going public needed escapist entertainment during the dark times of
The musicals of the Roaring Twenties, borrowing from vaudeville, music hall and other light entertainments, tended to emphasize big dance routines and popular songs at the expense of plot. Typical of the decade were lighthearted productions like Sally; Lady, Be Good; No, No, Nanette; Oh, Kay!; and Funny Face. Despite forgettable stories, these musicals featured stars such as Marilyn Miller and Fred Astaire and produced dozens of enduring popular songs by Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart. Popular music was dominated by musical theatre standards, such as "Fascinating Rhythm", "Tea for Two" and "Someone to Watch Over Me". Many shows were revues, series of sketches and songs with little or no connection between them. The best-known of these were the annual Ziegfeld Follies, spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway featuring extravagant sets, elaborate costumes and beautiful chorus girls.[23] These spectacles also raised production values, and mounting a musical generally became more expensive.[37] Shuffle Along (1921), an all-African American show was a hit on Broadway.[56] A new generation of composers of operettas also emerged in the 1920s, such as Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg, to create a series of popular Broadway hits.[57]
In London, writer-stars such as
Show Boat and the Great Depression
Progressing far beyond the comparatively frivolous musicals and sentimental operettas of the decade, Broadway's Show Boat (1927), represented an even more complete integration of book and score than the Princess Theatre musicals, with dramatic themes told through the music, dialogue, setting and movement. This was accomplished by combining the lyricism of Kern's music with the skillful libretto of Oscar Hammerstein II. One historian wrote, "Here we come to a completely new genre – the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now ... everything else was subservient to that play. Now ... came complete integration of song, humor and production numbers into a single and inextricable artistic entity."[60]
As the Great Depression set in during the post-Broadway national tour of Show Boat, the public turned back to mostly light, escapist song-and-dance entertainment.[52] Audiences on both sides of the Atlantic had little money to spend on entertainment, and only a few stage shows anywhere exceeded a run of 500 performances during the decade. The revue The Band Wagon (1931) starred dancing partners Fred Astaire and his sister Adele, while Porter's Anything Goes (1934) confirmed Ethel Merman's position as the First Lady of musical theatre, a title she maintained for many years. Coward and Novello continued to deliver old fashioned, sentimental musicals, such as The Dancing Years, while Rodgers and Hart returned from Hollywood to create a series of successful Broadway shows, including On Your Toes (1936, with Ray Bolger, the first Broadway musical to make dramatic use of classical dance), Babes in Arms (1937) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938). Porter added Du Barry Was a Lady (1939). The longest-running piece of musical theatre of the 1930s in the US was Hellzapoppin (1938), a revue with audience participation, which played for 1,404 performances, setting a new Broadway record.[53] In Britain, Me and My Girl ran for 1,646 performances.[55]
Still, a few creative teams began to build on Show Boat's innovations. Of Thee I Sing (1931), a political satire by the Gershwins, was the first musical awarded the Pulitzer Prize.[23][61] As Thousands Cheer (1933), a revue by Irving Berlin and Moss Hart in which each song or sketch was based on a newspaper headline, marked the first Broadway show in which an African-American, Ethel Waters, starred alongside white actors. Waters' numbers included "Supper Time", a woman's lament for her husband who has been lynched.[62] The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (1935) featured an all African-American cast and blended operatic, folk and jazz idioms. The Cradle Will Rock (1937), directed by Orson Welles, was a highly political pro-union piece that, despite the controversy surrounding it, ran for 108 performances.[37] Rodgers and Hart's I'd Rather Be Right (1937) was a political satire with George M. Cohan as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Kurt Weill's Knickerbocker Holiday depicted New York City's early history while good-naturedly satirizing Roosevelt's good intentions.
The motion picture mounted a challenge to the stage. Silent films had presented only limited competition, but by the end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer could be presented with synchronized sound. "Talkie" films at low prices effectively killed off vaudeville by the early 1930s.[63] Despite the economic woes of the 1930s and the competition from film, the musical survived. In fact, it continued to evolve thematically beyond the gags and showgirls musicals of the Gay Nineties and Roaring Twenties and the sentimental romance of operetta, adding technical expertise and the fast-paced staging and naturalistic dialogue style led by director George Abbott.[23]
The Golden Age (1940s to 1960s)
1940s
The 1940s would begin with more hits from Porter, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, Weill and Gershwin, some with runs over 500 performances as the economy rebounded, but artistic change was in the air.
"After Oklahoma!, Rodgers and Hammerstein were the most important contributors to the musical-play form... The examples they set in creating vital plays, often rich with social thought, provided the necessary encouragement for other gifted writers to create musical plays of their own".[60] 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 treat more serious subject matter than most earlier shows: the villain in Oklahoma! is a suspected murderer and psychopath; Carousel deals with spousal abuse, thievery, suicide and the afterlife; South Pacific explores miscegenation even more thoroughly than Show Boat; the hero of The King and I dies onstage; and the backdrop of The Sound of Music is the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938.
The show's creativity stimulated Rodgers and Hammerstein's contemporaries and ushered in the "Golden Age" of American musical theatre.
1950s
The 1950s were crucial to the development of the American musical.
Another record was set by The Threepenny Opera, which ran for 2,707 performances, becoming the longest-running off-Broadway musical until The Fantasticks. The production also broke ground by showing that musicals could be profitable off-Broadway in a small-scale, small orchestra format. This was confirmed in 1959 when a revival of Jerome Kern and P. G. Wodehouse's Leave It to Jane ran for more than two years. The 1959–1960 off-Broadway season included a dozen musicals and revues including Little Mary Sunshine, The Fantasticks and Ernest in Love, a musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde's 1895 hit The Importance of Being Earnest.[69]
West Side Story (1957) transported Romeo and Juliet to modern day New York City and converted the feuding Montague and Capulet families into opposing ethnic gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The book was adapted by Arthur Laurents, with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by newcomer Stephen Sondheim. It was praised by critics for its innovations in music and choreography[70][71] but was less commercially successful than the same year's The Music Man, written and composed by Meredith Willson, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical that year.[72] West Side Story would get a film adaptation in 1961, which proved successful both critically and commercially.[73][74] Laurents and Sondheim teamed up again for Gypsy (1959), with Jule Styne providing the music for a story about Rose Thompson Hovick, the mother of the titular stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.
Although directors and choreographers have had a major influence on musical theatre style since at least the 19th century,
During the Golden Age, automotive companies and other large corporations began to hire Broadway talent to write corporate musicals, private shows only seen by their employees or customers.[79][80] The 1950s ended with Rodgers and Hammerstein's last hit, The Sound of Music, which also became another hit for Mary Martin. It ran for 1,443 performances and shared the Tony Award for Best Musical. Together with its extremely successful 1965 film version, it has become one of the most popular musicals in history.
1960s
In 1960, The Fantasticks was first produced off-Broadway. This intimate allegorical show would quietly run for over 40 years at the Sullivan Street Theatre in
The first project for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics was
While some critics have argued that some of Sondheim's musicals lack commercial appeal, others have praised their lyrical sophistication and musical complexity, as well as the interplay of lyrics and music in his shows. Some of Sondheim's notable innovations include a show presented in reverse (Merrily We Roll Along) and the above-mentioned Anyone Can Whistle, in which the first act ends with the cast informing the audience that they are mad.
Jerry Herman played a significant role in American musical theatre, beginning with his first Broadway production, Milk and Honey (1961, 563 performances), about the founding of the state of Israel, and continuing with the blockbuster hits Hello, Dolly! (1964, 2,844 performances), Mame (1966, 1,508 performances), and La Cage aux Folles (1983, 1,761 performances). Even his less successful shows like Dear World (1969) and Mack and Mabel (1974) have had memorable scores (Mack and Mabel was later reworked into a London hit). Writing both words and music, many of Herman's show tunes have become popular standards, including "Hello, Dolly!", "We Need a Little Christmas", "I Am What I Am", "Mame", "The Best of Times", "Before the Parade Passes By", "Put On Your Sunday Clothes", "It Only Takes a Moment", "Bosom Buddies" and "I Won't Send Roses", recorded by such artists as Louis Armstrong, Eydie Gormé, Barbra Streisand, Petula Clark and Bernadette Peters. Herman's songbook has been the subject of two popular musical revues, Jerry's Girls (Broadway, 1985) and Showtune (off-Broadway, 2003).
The musical started to diverge from the relatively narrow confines of the 1950s. 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, race relations and other social issues.[81]
Social themes
After Show Boat and
Tolerance as an important theme in musicals has continued in recent decades. The final expression of West Side Story left a message of racial tolerance. By the end of the 1960s, musicals became racially integrated, with black and white cast members even covering each other's roles, as they did in Hair.
1970s to present
1970s
After the success of Hair,
brought a significant African-American influence to Broadway. More varied musical genres and styles were incorporated into musicals both on and especially off-Broadway. At the same time, Stephen Sondheim found success with some of his musicals, as mentioned above.In 1975, the dance musical
Broadway audiences welcomed musicals that varied from the golden age style and substance.
1980s
The 1980s saw the influence of European "megamusicals" on Broadway, in the West End and elsewhere. These typically feature a pop-influenced score, large casts and spectacular sets and special effects – a falling chandelier (in The Phantom of the Opera); a helicopter landing on stage (in Miss Saigon) – and big budgets. Some were based on novels or other works of literature. The British team of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and producer Cameron Mackintosh started the megamusical phenomenon with their 1981 musical Cats, based on the poems of T. S. Eliot, which overtook A Chorus Line to become the longest-running Broadway show. Lloyd Webber followed up with Starlight Express (1984), performed on roller skates; The Phantom of the Opera (1986; also with Mackintosh), derived from the novel of the same name; and Sunset Boulevard (1993), from the 1950 film of the same name. Phantom would surpass Cats to become the longest-running show in Broadway history, a record it still holds.[87][88] The French team of Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil wrote Les Misérables, based on the novel of the same name, whose 1985 London production was produced by Mackintosh and became, and still is, the longest-running musical in West End and Broadway history. The team produced another hit with Miss Saigon (1989), which was inspired by the Puccini opera Madama Butterfly.[87][88]
The megamusicals' huge budgets redefined expectations for financial success on Broadway and in the West End. In earlier years, it was possible for a show to be considered a hit after a run of several hundred performances, but with multimillion-dollar production costs, a show must run for years simply to turn a profit. Megamusicals were also reproduced in productions around the world, multiplying their profit potential while expanding the global audience for musical theatre.[88]
1990s
In the 1990s, a new generation of theatrical composers emerged, including Jason Robert Brown and Michael John LaChiusa, who began with productions off-Broadway. The most conspicuous success of these artists was Jonathan Larson's show Rent (1996), a rock musical (based on the opera La bohème) about a struggling community of artists in Manhattan. While the cost of tickets to Broadway and West End musicals was escalating beyond the budget of many theatregoers, Rent was marketed to increase the popularity of musicals among a younger audience. It featured a young cast and a heavily rock-influenced score; the musical became a hit. Its young fans, many of them students, calling themselves RENTheads], camped out at the Nederlander Theatre in hopes of winning the lottery for $20 front row tickets, and some saw the show dozens of times. Other shows on Broadway followed Rent's lead by offering heavily discounted day-of-performance or standing-room tickets, although often the discounts are offered only to students.[89]
The 1990s also saw the influence of large corporations on the production of musicals. The most important has been
Despite the growing number of large-scale musicals in the 1980s and 1990s, a number of lower-budget, smaller-scale musicals managed to find critical and financial success, such as Falsettoland, Little Shop of Horrors, Bat Boy: The Musical and Blood Brothers, which ran for 10,013 performances.[92] The topics of these pieces vary widely, and the music ranges from rock to pop, but they often are produced off-Broadway, or for smaller London theatres, and some of these stagings have been regarded as imaginative and innovative.[93]
2000s–present
Trends
In the new century, familiarity has been embraced by producers and investors anxious to guarantee that they recoup their considerable investments. Some took (usually modest-budget) chances on new and creative material, such as Urinetown (2001), Avenue Q (2003), The Light in the Piazza (2005), Spring Awakening (2006), In the Heights (2008), Next to Normal (2009), American Idiot (2010) and The Book of Mormon (2011). Hamilton (2015), transformed "under-dramatized American history" into an unusual hip-hop inflected hit.[94] In 2011, Sondheim argued that of all forms of "contemporary pop music", rap was "the closest to traditional musical theatre" and was "one pathway to the future."[95]
However, most major-market 21st-century productions have taken a safe route, with revivals of familiar fare, such as
Today, it is less likely that a sole producer, such as David Merrick or Cameron Mackintosh, backs a production. Corporate sponsors dominate Broadway, and often alliances are formed to stage musicals, which require an investment of $10 million or more. In 2002, the credits for Thoroughly Modern Millie listed ten producers, and among those names were entities composed of several individuals.[97] Typically, off-Broadway and regional theatres tend to produce smaller and therefore less expensive musicals, and development of new musicals has increasingly taken place outside of New York and London or in smaller venues. For example, Spring Awakening, Fun Home and Hamilton were developed off-Broadway before being launched on Broadway.
Several musicals returned to the spectacle format that was so successful in the 1980s, recalling extravaganzas that have been presented at times, throughout theatre history, since the ancient Romans staged mock sea battles. Examples include the musical adaptations of Lord of the Rings (2007), Gone with the Wind (2008) and Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark (2011). These musicals involved songwriters with little theatrical experience, and the expensive productions generally lost money. Conversely, The Drowsy Chaperone, Avenue Q, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Xanadu and Fun Home, among others, have been presented in smaller-scale productions, mostly uninterrupted by an intermission, with short running times, and enjoyed financial success. In 2013, Time magazine reported that a trend off-Broadway has been "immersive" theatre, citing shows such as Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 (2012) and Here Lies Love (2013) in which the staging takes place around and within the audience.[98] The shows set a joint record, each receiving 11 nominations for Lucille Lortel Awards,[99] and feature contemporary scores.[100][101]
In 2013,
Jukebox musicals
Another trend has been to create a minimal plot to fit a collection of songs that have already been hits. Following the earlier success of
Film and TV musicals
Live-action film musicals were nearly dead in the 1980s and early 1990s, with exceptions of
Made for TV musical films were popular in the 1990s, such as Gypsy (1993), Cinderella (1997) and Annie (1999). Several made for TV musicals in the first decade of the 21st century were adaptations of the stage version, such as South Pacific (2001), The Music Man (2003) and Once Upon a Mattress (2005), and a televised version of the stage musical Legally Blonde in 2007. Additionally, several musicals were filmed on stage and broadcast on Public Television, for example Contact in 2002 and Kiss Me, Kate and Oklahoma! in 2003. The made-for-TV musical High School Musical (2006), and its several sequels, enjoyed particular success and were adapted for stage musicals and other media.
In 2013,
Some television shows have set episodes as a musical. Examples include episodes of
There have also been musicals made for the internet, including
2020–2021 theatre shutdown
The
Due to the closures and loss of ticket sales, many theatre companies were placed in financial peril. Some governments offered emergency aid to the arts.[133][134][135] Some musical theatre markets began to reopen in fits and starts by early 2021,[136] with West End theatres postponing their reopening from June to July,[137] and Broadway starting in September.[138] Throughout 2021, however, spikes in the pandemic have caused some closures even after markets reopened.[139][140]
International musicals
The U.S. and Britain were the most active sources of book musicals from the 19th century through much of the 20th century (although Europe produced various forms of popular
Musicals from other English-speaking countries (notably Australia and Canada) often do well locally and occasionally even reach Broadway or the West End (e.g., The Boy from Oz and The Drowsy Chaperone). South Africa has an active musical theatre scene, with revues like African Footprint and Umoja and book musicals, such as Kat and the Kings and Sarafina! touring internationally. Locally, musicals like Vere, Love and Green Onions, Over the Rainbow: the all-new all-gay... extravaganza and Bangbroek Mountain and In Briefs – a queer little Musical have been produced successfully.
Successful musicals from continental Europe include shows from (among other countries) Germany (
Japan has recently seen the growth of an indigenous form of musical theatre, both animated and live action, mostly based on
Beginning with a 2002 tour of Les Misérables, various Western musicals have been imported to mainland China and staged in English.[142] Attempts at localizing Western productions in China began in 2008 when Fame was produced in Mandarin with a full Chinese cast at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing.[143] Since then, other western productions have been staged in China in Mandarin with a Chinese cast. The first Chinese production in the style of Western musical theatre was The Gold Sand in 2005.[142] In addition, Li Dun, a well-known Chinese producer, produced Butterflies, based on a classic Chinese love tragedy, in 2007 as well as Love U Teresa in 2011.[142]
Amateur and school productions
Musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces.[144][145] Although amateur theatre has existed for centuries, even in the New World,[146] François Cellier and Cunningham Bridgeman wrote, in 1914, that prior to the late 19th century, amateur actors were treated with contempt by professionals. After the formation of amateur Gilbert and Sullivan companies licensed to perform the Savoy operas, professionals recognized that the amateur societies "support the culture of music and the drama. They are now accepted as useful training schools for the legitimate stage, and from the volunteer ranks have sprung many present-day favourites."[147] The National Operatic and Dramatic Association was founded in the UK in 1899. It reported, in 1914, that nearly 200 amateur dramatic societies were producing Gilbert and Sullivan works in Britain that year.[147] Similarly, more than 100 community theatres were founded in the US in the early 20th century. This number has grown to an estimated 18,000 in the US.[146] The Educational Theater Association in the US has nearly 5,000 member schools.[148]
Relevance
The Broadway League announced that in the 2007–08 season, 12.27 million tickets were purchased for Broadway shows for a gross sale amount of almost a billion dollars.[149] The League further reported that during the 2006–07 season, approximately 65% of Broadway tickets were purchased by tourists, and that foreign tourists were 16% of attendees.[150] The Society of London Theatre reported that 2007 set a record for attendance in London. Total attendees in the major commercial and grant-aided theatres in Central London were 13.6 million, and total ticket revenues were £469.7 million.[151] The international musicals scene has been increasingly active in recent decades. Nevertheless, Stephen Sondheim commented in the year 2000:
You have two kinds of shows on Broadway – revivals and the same kind of musicals over and over again, all spectacles. You get your tickets for The Lion King a year in advance, and essentially a family ... pass on to their children the idea that that's what the theater is – a spectacular musical you see once a year, a stage version of a movie. It has nothing to do with theater at all. It has to do with seeing what is familiar. ... I don't think the theatre will die per se, but it's never going to be what it was. ... It's a tourist attraction."[152]
However, noting the success in recent decades of original material, and creative re-imaginings of film, plays and literature, theatre historian John Kenrick countered:
Is the Musical dead? ... Absolutely not! Changing? Always! The musical has been changing ever since Offenbach did his first rewrite in the 1850s. And change is the clearest sign that the musical is still a living, growing genre. Will we ever return to the so-called 'golden age', with musicals at the center of popular culture? Probably not. Public taste has undergone fundamental changes, and the commercial arts can only flow where the paying public allows.[37]
See also
- Cast recording
- Lists of musicals
- List of musicals filmed live on stage
- Long-running musical theatre productions
- Music theatre
- Parsi theatre
- 2.5D musical
Notes and references
- ^ Morley, p. 15
- ^ Everett and Laird, p. 137
- ^ a b Rubin and Solórzano, p. 438
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4411-4874-2.
- ^ Wattenberg, Ben. The American Musical, Part 2, PBS.org, May 24, 2007, accessed February 7, 2017
- ^ Brantley, Ben. "Curtain Up! It's Patti's Turn at Gypsy", The New York Times, March 28, 2008, accessed May 26, 2009
- ^ a b Cohen and Sherman, p. 233
- ^ Tommasini, Anthony. "Opera? Musical? Please Respect the Difference", The New York Times, July 7, 2011, accessed December 13, 2017
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- ^ These may include electric guitar, electric bass synthesizer and drum kit.
- ^ Show index with links to orchestration information Archived 2010-02-13 at the Wayback Machine, MTIshows.com, accessed October 4, 2015
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- ^ Hoppin, pp. 180–181
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- ^ See, generally, Index to The Gaiety, a British musical theatre publication about Victorian and Edwardian musical theatre.
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- ^ a b Kenrick, John. "The 1980s", History of Musical Film, musicals101.com, accessed July 11, 2014; and Kenrick, John. "The 1990s: Disney & Beyond", History of Musical Film, musicals101.com, accessed July 11, 2014
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- ^ "Review: Twelfth Night Live from The Maltings Theatre – Theatre Weekly". 12 June 2020. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
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- ^ Cave, Damien and Michael Paulson. "Broadway Is Dark. London Is Quiet. But in Australia, It's Showtime", The New York Times, February 27, 2021
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- ^ Jha, p. 1970
- ^ a b c Zhou, Xiaoyan. Taking the Stage, Beijing Review, 2011, p. 42
- ^ Milestones: 2005–2009, Town Square Productions, accessed September 30, 2013
- ^ Major organizations representing amateur theatre groups include National Operatic and Dramatic Association in the UK, American Association of Community Theatre in the US, and the International Amateur Theatre Association. School groups include the Educational Theater Association, which has 5,000 member school groups in the US. See Nadworny, Elissa. "The Most Popular High School Plays and Musicals", NPR, November 13, 2015, accessed March 14, 2016
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- ^ a b Lynch, Twink. "Community Theatre History", American Association of Community Theatre, accessed March 14, 2016
- ^ a b Cellier, François; Cunningham, Bridgeman (1914). Gilbert and Sullivan and Their Operas. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons. pp. 393–394.
- ^ Nadworny, Elissa. "The Most Popular High School Plays and Musicals", NPR.org, November 13, 2015, accessed March 14, 2016
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- ^ Rich, Frank. "Conversations with Sondheim". New York Times Magazine, March 12, 2000
Cited books
- Allain, Paul; Harvie, Jen (2014). The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance. ISBN 978-0-4156-3631-5.
- Allen, Robert C. (c. 1991). Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture. University of North Carolina. ISBN 978-0-8078-1960-9.
- ISBN 0-19-516700-7.
- Buelow, George J. (2004). A History of Baroque Music. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34365-9.
- ISBN 978-0-521-79273-8. Archived from the originalon 2013-01-12. Retrieved 2009-05-26.
- Cohen, Robert; Sherman, Donovan (2020). Theatre: Brief (Twelfth ed.). New York City: McGraw-Hill Education. OCLC 1073038874.
- Everett, William A.; ISBN 978-0-521-79189-2.
- OCLC 966051934.
- Gokulsing, K. Moti; Dissanayake, Wimal (2004) [1998]. Indian popular cinema : a narrative of cultural change (Revised and updated ed.). Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham. p. 161. ISBN 978-1-85856-329-9.
- Herbert, Ian, ed. (1972). Who's Who in the Theatre (fifteenth ed.). London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons. ISBN 978-0-273-31528-5.
- ISBN 978-0-393-09080-2.
- Horn, Barbara Lee (1991). The Age of Hair: Evolution and Impact of Broadway's First Rock Musical. New York: Greenwood Press. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-313-27564-7.
- Jha, Subhash K. (2005). The Essential Guide to Bollywood. Roli Books. ISBN 81-7436-378-5.
- Jones, John B. (2003). Our Musicals, Ourselves. Hanover: University Press of New England. ISBN 978-0-87451-904-4.
- Lord, Suzanne (2003). Brinkman, David (ed.). Music from the Age of Shakespeare : A Cultural History. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-31713-2.
- Lubbock, Mark (2002) [1962]. "American musical theatre: an introduction". The Complete Book of Light Opera (1st ed.). London: Putnam. pp. 753–756.
- ISBN 978-0-500-01398-4.
- Parker, John, ed. (1925). Who's Who in the Theatre (fifth ed.). London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons. OCLC 10013159.
- ISBN 978-0-19-285445-2.
- Rubin, Don; ISBN 0-415-05929-1.
- ISBN 978-0-19-283414-0.
- Wilmeth, Don B.; Miller, Tice L., eds. (1996). Cambridge Guide to American Theatre (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-56444-1.
- Wollman, E. L. (2006). The Theater Will Rock: a History of the Rock Musical: From Hair to Hedwig. Michigan: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-11576-6.
Further reading
- Bauch, Marc. The American Musical. Marburg, Germany: Tectum Verlag, 2003. ISBN 3-8288-8458-X
- ISBN 1-57912-390-2.
- ISBN 0-19-502356-0
- Botto, Louis; Mitchell, Brian Stokes (2002). At This Theatre: 100 Years of Broadway Shows, Stories and Stars. New York; Milwaukee, WI: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books/Playbill. ISBN 978-1-55783-566-6.
- Bryant, Jye (2018). Writing & Staging A New Musical: A Handbook. ISBN 9781730897412.
- ISBN 0-929587-79-0
- Ewen, David (1961). The Story of American Musical Theater. First ed. Philadelphia: Chilton. v, 208 p.
- Gänzl, Kurt. The Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre (3 Volumes). New York: Schirmer Books, 2001.
- Kantor, Michael; ISBN 0-8212-2905-2.
- ISBN 0-19-512851-6.
- Stempel, Larry. Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theater (W. W. Norton, 2010) 826 pages; comprehensive history since the mid-19th century.
- Traubner, Richard. Operetta: A Theatrical History. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1983
External links
- Internet Broadway Database – Cast and production lists, song lists and award lists
- Guidetomusicaltheatre.com – synopses, cast lists, song lists, etc.
- The Broadway Musical Home
- History of musicals (V&A museum website) (archived 12 April 2011)
- Castalbumdb – Musical Cast Album Database
- Synopses and character descriptions of most major musicals (StageAgent.com)