Chapter 14

1
Chapter 14 The American Musical

• When Broadway history is being made, you can feel
  it. What you feel is a seismic emotional jolt
  that sends the audience, as one, right out of its
  wits.
• Frank Rich

2
Chapter Summary

• The forty-two block neighborhood around Times
  Square, identified as New Yorks central theatre
  district, has been home to great plays and
  musicals since the turn of the century.

3
Musical Theatre Precedents

• Dates from colonial period
• Ballad operas
• After American Revolution
• Comic operas
• By 1840s
• Melodrama
• Burlesques
• Musical spectacles
• Minstrel shows
• Perpetuated stereotypes

4
Musical Theatre Precedents

• After Civil War
• Burlesque and minstrelsy still popular
• The Black Crook (1866)
• Cited as starting point for American musical
  theatre
• U.S. premiere of Gilbert and Sullivans HMS
  Pinafore in 1879
• Made British operetta dominant musical form until
  turn of century

5
An American Musical Idiom

• Librettos (story line or book)
• Originally allowed for songs, dances, specialty
  acts unrelated to plot
• This loose format led to development of revue
• Musical form featuring songs, dances, skits
• The Passing Show (1894)
• Ziegfelds Follies (1907)

6
An American Musical IdiomEarly 20th Century

• Revues, comic operettas, musical comedies
  dominant
• Ragtime
• Introduced by black musicians
• Irving Berlins Watch Your Step (1914)
• Noble Sissle and Eubie Blakes Shuffle Along
  (1921)
• First black musical to play a major Broadway
  theatre

7
An American Musical IdiomEarly 20th Century

• Princess musicals
• Created by Jerome Kern (composer) Guy Bolton and
  P. G. Wodehouse (librettists)
• Intimate musicals for small casts, small
  orchestra
• Kerns Show Boat (1927)
• Incorporated serious themes (miscegenation,
  passing, addiction)
• Paved way for serious musical plays of 1940s and
  50s

8
An American Musical Idiom George and Ira
Gershwin

• Developed jazz-influenced musical theatre
• Of Thee I Sing
• First musical to win Pulitzer Prize for Drama
• Well-known songs
• I Got Rhythm
• Embraceable You
• Porgy and Bess (1935)
• Based on Porgy by Dorothy and DuBose Heywood
• Gershwins most enduring work

9
An American Musical Idiom The 19271928 Season

• High point in history of Broadway stage
• 250 shows produced
• Also point of decline
• Stock market crash, Depression, advent of sound
  films led to decline in theatre attendance

10
Post-WW II Musical TheatreRogers and
Hammersteins Oklahoma! (1943)

• Broadway firsts
• Murder onstage
• Dream ballet
• No opening chorus number
• Set new standard for integration of story and
  song
• Introduced dramatic ballet that advanced story
• Longest-running musical on Broadway up to that
  time

11
Musical Theatre at Midcentury

• Operetta and musical theatre flourished
• Musicals and their stars became household names
• My Fair Lady, Julie Andrews
• Fiddler on the Roof, Zero Mostel
• Gypsy, Ethel Merman
• Hello, Dolly!, Carol Channing
• New creative teams
• Lerner and Loewe
• Adler and Ross
• Burrows and Loesser
• Bernstein and Sondheim

12
Musical Theatre at Midcentury

• West Side Story (1957)
• Operetta score by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen
  Sondheim
• Book by Arthur Laurents
• Energetic choreography by Jerome Robbins
• Recreates Romeo and Juliet among NY street gangs
• Addressed violence, urban decay head-on

13
Sixties Alternatives to Broadway Musicals

• Vietnam era (19551975) brought new sounds and
  subjects onto musical stages
• Rock music
• Antiwar protest
• Hair (1967)
• Brought new elements to Broadway
• Cursing
• Frontal nudity
• References to taboo subjects (homosexuality,
  miscegenation, antipatriotism)
• Helped show that spectacle wasnt necessary

14
New Directions The Concept Musical

• Composer, lyricist, director, and choreographer
  create show loosely tied around a theme
• Lacks elements of traditional storytelling
• Popularized by Stephen Sondheim

15
New Directions The Concept Musical

• Company (1970)
• Series of vignettes arranged around bachelors
  birthday party
• Essentially plotless
• Addressed issues of contemporary urban life
• Follies (1971)
• Built around reunion of former Follies performers
  (and the ghosts that haunt them)
• Psychological examination of characters

16
New Directions The Concept Musical

• A Chorus Line (1975)
• Michael Bennett, choreographer and director
• Series of vignettes in which dancers at an
  audition reveal personal information
  (psychological striptease)
• Renowned for inspired choreography
• Intimate big musical

17
New Directions Rock Opera

• Rent (1996)
• Jonathan Larson
• Update of Puccinis La Bohéme
• Addresses issues related to AIDS, early death
• Music played onstage by five-member band

18
British Megamusicals

• Sung-through musicals in which spectacle was as
  important as music
• Big names
• Andrew Lloyd Webber (composer)
• Sir Cameron Mackintosh (producer)
• Dominated Broadway in 1980s
• Cats
• The Phantom of the Opera
• Les Misérables
• Miss Saigon

19
British Megamusicals Miss Saigon (1989)

• Based on Puccinis Madama Butterfly
• Larger-than-life spectacle used to underscore
  sociopolitical message
• Images of children in wartime
• Helicopter used onstage to recreate American
  evacuation of Saigon
• Sounds of rotors beating accompanied by
  thundering orchestration

20
Broadways Audiences

• All ages, ethnicities, nationalities
• Well-to-do
• Tickets 65 to more than 100
• Buying tickets
• Fewer patrons waiting in line at box office
• Ticketron
• Telecharge
• TKTS (day-of-performance ticket sales)
• Theatre Development Fund
• Sells 25 million seats annually

21
Core Concepts

• American musical theatre dates from colonial
  times.
• The form evolved from burlesque and minstrel
  shows, through operetta and revues, incorporating
  music from ragtime and jazz.
• By midcentury, story and song are fully
  integrated into a dramatic whole.
• Broadway musical evolved into concept musical,
  rock opera.
• Brritish megamusicals dominated Broadway in the
  1980s.