Transcript American Musical Theatre

American Musical Theatre
A staged production utilizing dialogue,
songs and dance to tell a story.
Presentation Contents
 History
 How to make a musical for the stage
 Musical Profile of South Pacific
 Musical Profile of Fiddler on the Roof
 Musical Profile of A Chorus Line
 Future of the genre
Before there were Musicals
 “While contemporary musical theatre got its form from
the French and Viennese Operettas of the 1800s, the art
form took its comic soul from the variety entertainments
that delighted America from the mid-1800s onwards, from
minstrel shows to vaudeville to burlesque” (John Kenrick,
Musical Theatre, A History).
Let’s start at the very beginning
• Musical performances imitated these earlier styles of
performance before giving way to the innovations of the
early 1900s.
• By the 1920s, American musical comedy had gained world
wide attention, but it was The Great Depression of the
1930s that influenced musicals to tackle more dramatic
storylines, proving that the genre could suit the country’s
many moods and provide much needed entertainment
during the darkest of times.
Here to stay
•
By the 1940s it was clear that Americans were going to keep
making and watching musicals! Composers and lyricists like
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein were fully integrating
every song and dance into the play to further develop the
characters or the plot. It is this fully integrated musical form
that is now considered the standard for American Musical
Theatre.
•
In the 1950s, the music of Broadway musicals was the most
popular music of the western world.
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Great stories and memorable songs and dances have been
created every year since, on Broadway and in smaller theatres
all around America.
Elements of a Musical
Musicals are not just written- they are collaborative creations that
must be put together piece by piece.
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The Score is written by the Composer. This is the music for the
entire show, not just for the songs. Usually songs are integrated
into the story when:
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The scene is changing (transition)
A character has made some realization or decision
Two characters are in love (ballad)
The story needs a pick me up and so dialogue and song are blended
into a musical scene usually with several characters
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The Lyrics are the words to the songs.
•
The Book is the dialogue that the actors speak, also known as
the script.
Key Players
• The Director organizes all of the elements and key players into
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his or her overall vision for the performance.
The Choreographer creates the dances and manages the overall
movements of the performance to match the directors’ vision.
The Musical Director conducts the actors while singing as well as
the instrumentalists who play the score.
The Set Designer plans and oversees the creation of the illusory
world in which the production takes place.
The Costume Designer decides and oversees the creation of what
all of the actors will wear.
The Lighting Designer makes sure that everything on stage is
seen or not seen according to their plan, sets the mood of each
scene and indicates the weather and time of day.
South Pacific
Music by Richard Rodgers
1949
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein
Book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan
Production History: The story draws together characters and plot elements from several of the
stories in Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener. The musical won the Pulitzer Prize for
Drama in 1950. The 2008 revival won seven Tony Awards including the award for Best Musical
Revival.
Famous Songs: “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair”, “Some Enchanted Evening”,
“I’m In Love with a Wonderful Guy”
Act 1
On a South Pacific island during World War II, a U.S. Navy nurse named Nellie Forbush has fallen in love with an expatriate
French plantation owner named Emile de Becque who is also in love with her. She learns of his dark past, he once
committed a murder, and chooses to love him anyway.
Also in Act I you meet the American sailors who are joined by a U.S. Marine Lieutenant named Joseph Cable. On a visit to a
nearby island Bali Ha’i, Cable falls in love with a Tonkinese girl named Liat.
Meanwhile, Emile surprises Nellie by introducing her to his two children from a previous marriage to a native Polynesian
woman who is now deceased. Nellie feels unable to overcome her deep-seated racial prejudices and tearfully leaves Emile.
Act 2
The second Act begins with a Thanksgiving day party full of song and dance. When Liat’s mother reveals that she
desperatley wants Liat and Cable to marry, Cable laments that he cannot marry her because she is Tonkinese and his family
would not allow it.
Cable and Emile then go off together on a mission to spy on Japanese ships from a nearby Japanese island. Cable is killed
and Emile narrowly escapes. When Nellie learns of the mission and of the danger that Emile is in, she realizes that she
doesn’t care about her prejudices and loves him anyway. While waiting for Emile to come home, Emile’s children teach her a
Polynesian song. Emile surprises the three of them when he joins in the singing because he has arrived home safely.
A South Pacific Montage
Fiddler on the Roof
Music by Jerry Bock
1964
Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick
Book by Joseph Stein
Dominant themes: Family and Religious Customs being challenged
Production History: The musical is based on the book Tevye and his Daughters by Sholem Aleichem.
It ran for over 3,000 performances on Broadway and won nine Tony Awards including Best
Musical, score, book, direction and choreography. Fiddler has been revived on Broadway four
times and has been produced in London and toured through Europe, Australia and Israel.
Famous Songs: “If I Were a Rich Man”, “Matchmaker, Matchmaker”, “Sunrise, Sunset”, “Far From
the Home I Love”
Act 1
We learn that the year is 1905 and that the Jews in this small Russian village are as safe as a fiddler perched on a peaked
roof. The main character in the play is Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman with five daughters. It is tradition for a matchmaker to
find husbands for Jewish girls, but Tevye’s oldest daughter Tzeitel resists the village matchmaker’s choice for her and wants
to marry her childhood friend Motel, a poor tailor. After some soul searching Tevye agrees to the match even though it is a
breach in tradition and he has already agreed with the matchmater’s choice and promised his daughter to another man. We
also find out that Tevye’s second daughter Hodel is falling in love with the family’s progressive minded tutor Perchik, and
that his third daughter Chava has been secretly befriended by a Russian youth Fyedka who loans her a book. The first act
closes with the happy wedding of Motel and Tzeitel which is then destroyed by a group of Russians who are
“demonstrating” in the village.
Act 2
Perchik asks Hodel to marry him and again Teyve consents even though they have gone outside of the Jewish tradition of
using a matchmaker and made their own choice based on love. But when the family discovers that Chava and Fyedka are in
love, Tevye will not approve their marriage because Fyedka is Russian and not Jewish. Chava resists and Tevye says that she
is dead to him. Then the village constable arrives and tells everyone that the Jews are expelled from their village and must
be gone in three days. At the end of the play as Tevye leaves his home with his wife and two youngest daughters he finally
sends the message “God be with you” to his daughter Chava who he will never see again.
“If I Were a Rich Man”
A Chorus Line
1975
Music by Marvin Hamlisch
Lyrics by Edward Kleban
Book by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante
Dominant themes: Coming of Age, Being a Dancer
Production History: This concept musical was the brainchild of its director and
choreographer Michael Bennet who tape recorded memories and stories of other
Broadway dancers to create the play. A Chorus Line won nine Tony Awards and the
1796 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It is the longest running Broadway musical originally
produced in the United States.
Famous Songs: “I Hope I Get It”, “Dance: Ten, Looks: Three”, “The Music and the Mirror”,
“What I Did for Love”, “One”
Synopsis
A Chorus Line is set on the bare stage of a Broadway theatre during an audition for a musical. At the beginning of the play
only 17 dancers are left in the running and the director, Zach, tells them that he only needs four boys and four girls. He says
that he wants to learn more about each of them and reluctantly the dancers each reveal their pasts.
The first candidate, Mike, explains that he is the youngest of 12 children. He recalls his first experience with dance,
watching his sister's dance class when he was a pre-schooler. Bobby tries to hide the unhappiness of his childhood by
making jokes. Opening up, Sheila reveals that her mother married at a young age and her father neither loved nor cared
for them. The dancers go downstairs to learn a song for the next section of the audition, but Cassie stays onstage to talk to
Zach. She is a veteran dancer who has had some notable successes as a soloist. They have a history together: Zach had cast
her in a featured part previously, and they had lived together for several years. Zach tells Cassie that she is too good for the
chorus and shouldn't be at this audition. But she hasn't been able to find solo work and is willing to "come home" to the
chorus where she can at least express her passion for dance. When Paul falls and injures his knee during a tap sequence all
of the dancers realize that their careers could also end in an instant. After the final 8 dancers are selected the finale begins
and the rehearsal cloths are replaced by identical spangled gold costumes. As each dancer joins the group, all the actors
return, it is suddenly difficult to to distinguish one from the other: ironically, each character who was an individual to the
audience only moments ago becomes a seemingly anonymous member of a neverending ensemble.
“One”
What happened next?
 After the creation of the concept musical like A Chorus Line, more producers
and creators turned to new ideas and more outlandish stories. For example
Sweeny Todd with it’s operatic score, the science fiction spoof Little Shop of
Horrors and Cats depicting a gathering of felines in a garbage-strewn alley
where only one cat will be able to ascend to heaven.
 Broadway began making spectacular recreations of movies like Beauty and
the Beast and The Lion King.
The Future
Change is the clearest sign that the musical is still a living, growing genre.
 The success of original material like
Urinetown, Avenue Q, Spelling Bee
and In the Heights, as well as
creative re-imaginings of film
properties, including Thoroughly
Modern Millie, Hairspray, Billy Elliot
and The Color Purple, and plays
turned-musicals such as Spring
Awakening prompted theatre
historian John Kenrick to write: "Is
the Musical dead? ...Absolutely not!
Changing? Always!
Works Cited
 Denny Flinn, Musical!:a grand tour: the rise, glory and fall
of an American Institution (1997).
 John Kenrick, Musical Theatre, A History (2008).
 www.tonyawards.com