Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that includes acting, dance, songs, and spoken dialogue. These enacted stories with songs that are essential to the plot are often referred to as musicals.

Modern musicals developed from early twentieth-century light opera. They further developed into two primary forms of musical theatre: musical comedy and musical play. Musical plays follow the format of opera. Musical comedies are primarily meant to entertain, while musical plays seek to also inform. For example, South Pacific, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, and The King and I are musical plays with much more detail in their narratives and a focus on political and social issues. Musical comedies such as Anything Goes, with a story packed with numerous disguises and improbable romances, ask the audience to overlook holes in the plot.

Dance in musical plays tends to be much more artfully choreographed as well, because it moves the narrative forward. Musical comedy dance numbers, while important to the plot, are developed with an emphasis on entertainment.

Background

Theatrical performances that include music were common in ancient Greece and Rome, although these productions have little in common with modern musical theatre. The Greek chorus, for example, was a group of performers who commented on the main action of a play, with song as well as dance and spoken word. Beginning about the sixth century BCE, the importance of the chorus was reduced, until it simply provided music between acts.

The roots of modern musical theatre lie in opera, specifically the ballad opera. These comic operas developed during the eighteenth century in England. They comprised spoken dialogue broken up by songs. Early examples used common music from ballads or folk songs with new lyrics. Over time, music from well-known operas was adapted for ballad operas. Eventually, composers created unique music for ballad operas.

Some theatre historians call the ballad opera The Beggar's Opera the first musical. The 1728 work pokes fun at Italian opera and provides a satirical look at politics. While members of high society, magical figures, and royalty typically populate Italian operas of the era, The Beggar's Opera focuses on criminals, specifically thieves and prostitutes. Johann Christoph Pepusch selected sixty-nine popular songs of the day for the work. John Gay wrote new lyrics, often conveying ideas opposite to the original songs for comedic effect. The Beggar's Opera was wildly successful, and it inspired others to create similar works. The ballad opera enjoyed popularity for about a decade, about the length of time it took composers to repurpose all the popular tunes available. Light comic operas eventually replaced ballad operas.

During the Victorian era, the focus of musical theatre was on chorus girls, comedy, and song and dance numbers. Variety shows, burlesque, minstrel shows, comic operas, and vaudeville were among the most popular forms of entertainment. In some cases, a plot loosely tied the various elements together but was of less importance than the crowd-pleasing big song-and-dance numbers.

Savoy operas arose during the 1870s in London's Savoy Theatre. Arthur Sullivan and W.S. Gilbert created many highly regarded and popular musicals, including H.M.S. Pinafore(1878), The Pirates of Penzance (1879), and The Mikado (1885). Gilbert and Sullivan's compositions are intricate and demanding. The works require actors who can sing. The chorus work is an integral aspect of the story rather than a musical interlude to amuse the audience.

In the United States during the late nineteenth century, musical stage shows were primarily minstrel shows. These featured male actors singing, dancing, and performing comedic routines. The actors wore blackface—makeup to make them appear African American. The shows themselves did not have a narrative.

After Gilbert and Sullivan's success with the Savoy operas, however, American fans of popular musical entertainment were interested in more than variety shows. Many American plays featured musical numbers; however, these were usually included because audiences wanted to hear music. Since theatres employed orchestras or musicians, the owners wanted to make the most of their investment and insisted the musicians be used during performances. The songs did not advance the plot, but they were instead meant to entertain the audience.

The Black Crook (1866) is often called the first American musical, although its music and dance elements were added because of a tragic event. A businessman arranged for two shows in two New York theatres at the same time. One was a dramatic play, while the other was a French ballet. The theatre where the dancers were to perform was destroyed by fire, and the businessman was responsible for the ballet corps' expenses. He needed to find a way to get the dancers on stage before a paying audience because he was losing money. He combined the dance and drama and used the most advanced technical and staging methods of the day. For example, the ballet dancers were featured in a battle scene in hell and were suspended by wires for an aerial ballet. The audience was astounded—New York had never before seen anything like this spectacle. The show, with a cast of more than a hundred performers, was a huge success. At a time when a run of twenty shows was a success, The Black Crook ran for 484 performances. It was on tour for many years and returned to Broadway multiple times. The show made the producers millions of dollars.

While The Black Crook was not the first production to include music and dance, it was the first example of a show with large dance numbers and a lavish production. These came to be hallmarks of Broadway musicals. The music and dance was added to the production later, however, and much of it was not integral to advancing the plot. So The Black Crook misses the mark of being a genuine musical.

Musical theatre continued to progress in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Shows primarily were musical comedies or operettas. The former were dazzling displays with jazz-influenced scores by George and Ira Gershwin and other composers and songwriters. Operettas are usually light, short operas.

The turning point for musical theatre arrived in 1927. Composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein created Show Boat. Kern had for some time been working to meld song and story in his works. Hammerstein had been occupied by writing operettas, which had little in the way of story or impact. Hammerstein used his understanding of operettas and American musical comedy to create a hybrid of the styles that told a story and added emotional depth to the plot. Much of the musical takes place on a riverboat on the Mississippi River. It featured the first integrated cast on Broadway and addresses social issues, such as race relations and alcoholism. Show Boat, which debuted at Ziegfeld Theatre on December 27, 1927, had a run of 572 performances. It was revived multiple times and was also adapted for film.

During the next sixteen years, song-and-dance numbers became more organically related to the plot. In 1943, one of the most important pairings in musical theatre came together. Hammerstein heard from Richard Rodgers, an old acquaintance from his university days. Composer Rodgers had found success working with lyricist Lorenz Hart creating songs including "Blue Moon" (1934) and shows such as Babes in Arms (1937). Following Hart's death, Rodgers asked Hammerstein to work with him on an adaptation of Green Grow the Lilacs(1930), a play that had been poorly received. Hammerstein wrote the lyrics, and Rodgers set them to music. Their first attempt, Away We Go, was a failure. They regrouped, revised the work, and returned in March of 1943 with Oklahoma!

Historians single out Oklahoma! as the first true American musical. Rodgers and Hammerstein agreed that the narrative and journeys of the characters were the most important elements of the work. Comedy was secondary. They recruited Agnes de Mille to choreograph the dancing. De Mille broke new ground with Oklahoma! The dances she created advanced the plot and revealed the inner workings of the characters. "The Dream Ballet," also called "Laurey Makes Up Her Mind," has been held up as an example of dance adding depth to a story. The dance is a dream sequence experienced by the female lead. Laurey is interested in two men who have been courting her. Curly is kind and good, but Jud has an air of danger about him. At first, Laurey and Curly share a romantic dance. They then separate to prepare for their wedding. When Laurey arrives at the church, however, she finds Jud waiting for her instead. Laurey has a nightmarish dance with Jud, during which he reveals his true self and kills Curly. De Mille reveals more about the characters and their relationships in the dance than could be expressed through a song or dialogue.

Oklahoma! was an immediate hit, and the line to get in on the second night stretched around several city blocks. It remained on Broadway for 2,212 performances, and many songs, including "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" and "People Will Say We're in Love," became hits. The production, which was later adapted for film, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1944.

The partnership of Rodgers and Hammerstein flourished. The pair created numerous hits, including Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1952), and The Sound of Music (1959). They collected another Pulitzer Prize, two Grammy Awards, thirty-four Tony Awards, and fifteen Academy Awards. The duo changed the direction of Broadway musical theatre.

Overview

Broadway has continued to develop musical theatre that offers insight into life and society. As society and popular culture changes, so does musical theatre. Often, musicals are revived and bring new insight to issues.

Developments in music, for example, have strongly influenced musicals. Rock and roll became popular during the 1950s, and it debuted on Broadway in the 1960 musical Bye Bye Birdie. Rock music drove the action again in 1967, when an off-Broadway production looked at the decade's counterculture in Hair. Grease, which debuted off-Broadway in 1972, took audiences back to the birth of rock and roll. The Who's Tommy brought the band's hit rock album to life in 1993, and rock musical Rent opened in 1996. Other genres have also been hits in musicals. For example, Dreamgirls, which debuted in 1981, features a Motown sound. Jazz dominates in Jelly's Last Jam, a 1992 Tony Award winner. Hamilton, a hip-hop musical about founding father Alexander Hamilton, debuted in 2015 and the cast recording debuted at number twelve on the Billboard 200 chart two months later. The show won eleven Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Pop music heavily influenced the soundtracks of the historical musical Six (2019), about the six wives of England's King Henry VIII, and the jukebox musical & Juliet (2019).

Musical theatre frequently addresses social issues, in particular those preoccupying the nation during eras of change. Racial discrimination and women's rights, for example, are addressed in Ragtime (1996), The Color Purple (2004), and Hairspray (2002). Hairspray also tackles the issue of body image, as plus-size teen Tracy Turnblad pursues her dream of grooving on a televised local dance program. Wicked (2003) explores themes of equality, privilege, and animal cruelty. Falsettos (1992), Rent, and many other works have dealt with AIDS. The Book of Mormon (2011), which follows two Mormon missionaries to Africa where they attempt to share their faith, addresses multiple concerns, including AIDS, hunger, and tyranny. The characters of Dear Evan Hansen (2015) cope with bullying and suicide, while Next to Normal (2008) addresses depression, drug abuse, and mental illness. Even topics such as labor practices and worker exploitation have found a place on Broadway stages, for example in the musical Newsies (2011). Cabaret (1966), which is set in a nightclub in Berlin, Germany, as the Nazis rise to power, looks at politics and homophobia in society. The rock musical Spring Awakening (2006), which is also set in Germany, addresses sexuality, abortion, suicide, and the generational divide.

Musical theatre often reflects society and the issues that concern it, even if a show is set in another time or place. Hamilton, one of the twenty top-grossing Broadway shows of all time as of late 2017, takes place during the Revolutionary War and postwar years of the life of Alexander Hamilton. Yet, its themes of immigration and race resonated during the 2016 presidential election, when Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of limited immigration and a promise to build a wall on the US border with Mexico. With one exception—the actor portraying King George III—the original cast of Hamilton comprised people of color. The casting was particularly striking during a time when racial tensions were high in many American communities.

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