HOT MIKADO Education Pack

HOT MIKADO Education Pack Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................3 The Musical: a history ...............................................................................................4 Famous Musicals: A Selective Chronology ........................................................6 Hot Mikado: a history ...............................................................................................8 Kabuki ........................................................................................................................10 Interview with Diego Pitarch ................................................................................13 Interview with Sarah Travis ...................................................................................15 Credits ........................................................................................................................16 This Education Pack was designed & written by Beth Flintoff, with additional material by Matthew Dewsbury and Nick Hobbes . Photographs by Robert Day 2 Introduction This pack has been designed to complement your visit to see Hot Mikado at The Watermill Theatre and on tour. Most of the pack is aimed at drama students and anyone with an interest in the subjects raised by the play. While there are some images, the pack has been deliberately kept simple from a graphic point of view so that most pages can easily be photocopied for use in the classroom. Your feedback is most welcome, please email any comments you have to [email protected]. I hope you find the pack useful. Beth Flintoff Deputy Outreach Director The Watermill Theatre Bagnor, Newbury, Berks RG20 8AE www.watermill.org.uk 3 The Musical: an introduction Musical theatre in Europe dates The three main components of a back to the theatre of the ancient musical are the music, the lyrics, Greeks, who included music and and the book. The book of a dance in their stage comedies and musical refers to the story of the tragedies in the 5th century BC. show – in effect its spoken (not The Romans introduced technical sung) lines; however, "book" can innovations. also refer to the dialogue and lyrics together, which are sometimes For example, to make the dance referred to (as in opera) as the steps more audible in large open ‘libretto’(Italian for “little book”). The air theatres, Roman actors music and lyrics together form the attached metal chips called score of the musical. "sabilla " to their stage footwear – the first tap shoes. The interpretation of the musical by the creative team heavily By the Middle Ages, theatre in influences the way that the musical Europe consisted mostly of is presented. The creative team travelling minstrels and small includes a director, musical performing troupes of performers director, and usually a singing and offering slapstick choreographer (in this case, Craig comedy. Revel Horwood is both director and choreographer). In the 12th and 13th centuries, religious dramas, such as The Play A musical may be built around four of Herod and The Play of Daniel to six main theme tunes that are taught the liturgy, set to church reprised throughout the show, or chants. Later, ‘Mystery Plays’ were consist of a series of songs not created that told a biblical story in a directly musically related. Spoken sequence of entertaining parts. dialogue is generally interspersed These plays developed into an between musical numbers, autonomous form of musical although the use of "sung dialogue" theatre, with poetic forms or recitative is not unknown, sometimes alternating with the especially in so-called "sung- prose dialogues and liturgical through" musicals such as Les chants. Misérables and Evita . 4 Actor-Musician Musicals "Actor-musicianship" is the term that's London. Sweeney Todd ran for six- used in the U.K. for a sort of months at the Trafalgar Studios and shorthand. I think it's a multi-skilled then the New Ambassadors Theatre. It way of telling a story — it should opened on Broadway in 2005 with an probably be called "all hands on deck." American cast and won two prestigious Tony Awards. John Doyle, Associate Director, The Watermill Theatre The concept of actor-musician productions has become popular in Actor/musician work (in which the these straightened times, where multi- actors provide the orchestra as well as talented actors save the cost of hiring the singing, acting and dancing) really musicians. began to establish itself at The Watermill from 1998 with Cabaret . The In the last decade actor-musicianship style was pioneered by the director has become a career in its own right, John Doyle and musical director and one of John Doyle’s original Sarah Travis. company at The Watermill, Jeremy Harrison, runs a well-known Actor The work has attracted critical acclaim Musician Degree course at Rose and national awards. Three Bruford Drama College in London. productions have transferred to Darren Tighe as Nanki-Poo. Photo by Robert Day. 5 Famous Musicals: A Selective Chronology 1728 The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay – a famous early ballad opera 1866 The Black Crook - generally considered to be the first musical. It premiered in New York and was a staggering 5 ½ hrs long, but was extremely popular. 1885 The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan, one of their popular family-friendly comic operas, on which The Watermill’s production of Hot Mikado is based. 1927 Show Boat – a groundbreaking musical which finally offered a more complete integration of book and score, it was created by Edna Ferber, Oscar Hammerstein, P.G Wodehouse, and Jerome Kern. It influenced hugely the development of the musical. 1935 Porgy and Bess by George Gerwshwin, which had a more operatic style, foreshadowing the more operatic musicals such as West Side Story and Sweeney Todd. 1943 Oklahoma by Rogers and Hammerstein furthered the revolution begiun by Show Boat , tightly integrating plot, songs, character and dance. It famously began with a lone voice singing ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’, instead of the traditional chorus line of dancing girls. 1957 West Side Story , by Leonard Bernstein and with lyrics by the newcomer Stephen Sondheim, ths musical updated Romeo and Juliet to modern day New York City, causing great controversy among audiences. 1959 The Sound of Music by Rogers and Hammerstein opened on broadway, before being made into a film starring Julie Andrews in 1965. It is one of the most popular musicals ever made. 1964 Anyone can Whistle , an early musical by Stephen Sondheim, was a famous flop, despite starring Angela Lansbury 1967 Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical opened off-broadway. Its profanity, nudity, depiction of sexuality and drugs caused huge controversy. It also sparked a trend of ‘rock’ musicals. 1975 A Chorus Line – a musical that grew out of group therapy-style sessions with supporting actors from Broadway. It won the Pulitzer Prize and enjoyed a long run on Broadway. 6 1970s The development of politically themed musicals such as Cabaret (about the rise of Nazism), Chicago (murder and prohibition), Evita (the political biography of Eva Peronin Argentina), led to darker big-budget musicals such as ... 1980 Les Miserables by Boublil and Schonberg, based on the book by Victor Hugo – the longest running West End musical in history. 1989 Miss Saigon , also by Boublil and Schonberg – a modern adaptation of the Puccini Opera Madama Butterfly. The musical is reputed to be inspired by a photograph of a Vietnamese woman leaving her child at the aiport so he can fly to be with his father, an ex-GI. 1989 Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story was the first of the ‘Juke Box’ musicals – where a minimal plot is used to put together a collection of hit songs. Later musicals have been made featuring the music of the Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, and the famously successful Mamma Mia , featuring the music from Abba, which has also been made into a film. 1994 Beauty and the Beast – the first of the stage musicals from a Walt Disney film, it has now played world-wide in 115 cities. 2006 How do you solve a problem like Maria? was the first of the television reality series devoted to finding the next star of a musical, whilst also publicising the show itself. It has since become a popular way for producers to market their productions, with the competition winners becoming stars in their own right. Darren Tighe as Nanki -Poo and Abiona Omonua as Yum -Yum . Photo by Robert Day. 7 Hot Mikado: a history A brief look at the origins and history of Hot Mikado The history of Hot Mikado starts back or commercial gain, the Federal in 1885 when Gilbert and Sullivan Theatre Project allowed American produced what would go on to be theatre to enjoy a surprisingly rich perhaps their most famous operetta, period of variety and theatre The Mikado , which cashed in on the innovation, with great or soon to be interest in Japan and the orient then great names such as Orson Welles, sweeping through London. Harold Clurman, Clifford Odets, Marc Blitzstein, Elmer Rice, Robert Fifty years later The Mikado had Sherwood, William Saroyan, and S N become a venerable and highly Behrman all contributing to the effort. popular show on both sides of the Atlantic, with hundreds of productions In 1938, the Chicago arm of the FTP watched by thousands of dedicated produced a version of The Mikado with Gilbert and Sullivan fans virtually every an all black cast called The Swing year. Mikado . Although it was essentially the Gilbert and Sullivan classic,

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