Musical Theatre  Can be Comic, Tragic, Melodramatic, etc.  A product of American talent and creativity.  Origins:  Greek theatre – choral segments accompanied by music and dance  Melodrama – music accompanied the play  Vaudeville and Burlesque – music and dance acts.  Opera  Set entirely to music.  Arias – strong melodic solos  Duets, trios, quartets, etc.  transitional segments called recitatives.  Begun in Florence, Italy around 1600 as a drama set to music.  Used myth, history and contemporary fictional and real events as source material.  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard Wagner (Vagner), Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini  Vivid characters and stories with plot twists and unexpected reversals.  Music and score predominate.  Types of Musical Theatre  Operetta, Musical Comedy, Musical Theatre, Revue  Operetta  Not entirely set to music  Romantic story in a far-off locale  An air of Make-believe  Beautiful soaring melodies  Musical Comedy  Emerged in the US in the 1920’s  Light comic story interspersed with popular music  Often far-fetched or even silly, but did relate to contemporary people and events.  Musical/ Musical Theatre  Evolved out of operetta and musical comedy  Show Boat, Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady  Revue  Sketches and vignettes alternate with musical numbers.  No single story line  Scenes and story line stand alone and have very little relationship to each other.

 Antecedents  Operetta  Burlesque  Vaudeville – A series of Variety Acts – Music, sketches, juggling, animal acts  Minstrel show – White performers wearing black face.  George M. Cohan – performer, writer, composer  Yankee Doodle Dandy and Give my Regards to Broadway  Realistic Dialogue with a central story line (Book or libretto)  1920’s and 1930’s: Musical Comedies  Often frivolous story line  Songs were Standards – popular music of the time and played on radio.  Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rogers, Jerome Kern  Clever and witty lyrics  1927 – Show Boat about life on a Mississippi Riverboat – an American story  Also featured a secondary romance between an African American woman and white man.  No chorus line of girls  Porgy and Bess  Set in a black community in Charleston, SC  About Porgy a crippled man who falls for Bess  Pal Joey  Central character is an anti-hero  A nightclub singer who takes advantage of a woman to get ahead.  Musical theatre 1940’s and 1950’s  Oklahoma! By Rogers and Hammerstein  Included a ballet (dream ballet)  Entire piece – story, music, lyrics, dances – fit together in tone mood and intention  Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, The Sound of Music  Choreography became an integral part of the form.  Dance training necessary  Irving Berlin: Annie Get your Gun  Cole Porter: Kiss me Kate  Frank Loesser: Guys and Dolls  Lerner and Loewe: My Fair Lady  Bernstein and Sondheim: West Side Story  Broad Range of subjects and styles

 Musicals from the 1960’s to the 1980’s  Fiddler on the Roof 1964 – Jerry Bock  Marked the end of the Golden Age of musicals  Hair – 1967  No real story line  Encapsulated the radical ideals of the 60’s  Fewer musicals were written through the 70’s  Concept musicals emerged  Follies – Former stars of the Zeigfeld Follies look back at their lives  A Chorus Line- About dancers auditioning for a Broadway show.  Also highlighted the choreographer becoming director

 Emergence of the British composers in creation of musicals  Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice: Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita  Webber: Cats, The Phantom of the Opera  Les Miserables  Musicals from 1990 to Present  Revival of “classic” musicals  Cost – Tried and true shows make money  Fresh, off-beat musicals  Rent, Urinetown, Avenue Q  Musicals based on Film  The Producers, Spamalot, Hairspray, Legally Blonde, The Lion King, etc  Musicals out of music of former popular stars and groups  Mamma Mia – based on ABBA  Summary  Opera – set entirely to music  Operetta – some dialogue with fanciful story lines  Musical comedy – American creation light story interspersed with popular music  Musical - 1940’s to late 60’s golden age of musicals  Concept Musical – Based on an idea rather than story line  Currently – Revivals, Offbeat or experimental musicals, musicals from films, musicals based on popular music.