Transcript Chapter 14 – The American Musical

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
Chapter Summary
• The forty-two block neighborhood around Times Square,
identified as New York’s central theatre district, has been
home to great plays and musicals since the turn of the
century.
Musical Theatre: Precedents
• Dates from colonial period:
– Ballad operas
• After American Revolution:
– Comic operas
• By 1840s:
– Melodrama
– Burlesques
– Musical spectacles
– Minstrel shows:
• Perpetuated stereotypes
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 Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore
in 1879:
– Made British operetta dominant musical form until
turn of century
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)
– Ziegfeld’s Follies (1907)
An American Musical Idiom:
Early 20th Century
• Revues, comic operettas, musical comedies dominant
• Ragtime:
– Introduced by black musicians
– Irving Berlin’s Watch Your Step (1914)
• Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake’s Shuffle Along (1921):
– First black musical to play a major Broadway theatre
An American Musical Idiom:
Early 20th Century
• “Princess musicals”:
– Created by Jerome Kern (composer) Guy Bolton and
P. G. Wodehouse (librettists)
– Intimate musicals for small casts, small orchestra
• Kern’s Show Boat (1927):
– Incorporated serious themes (miscegenation,
“passing,” addiction)
– Paved way for serious musical plays of 1940s and
’50s
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
– Gershwin’s most enduring work
An American Musical Idiom:
The 1927–1928 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
Post-WW II Musical Theatre:
Rogers and Hammerstein’s 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
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
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
Sixties Alternatives to Broadway
Musicals
• Vietnam era (1955–1975) 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 wasn’t necessary
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
New Directions: The Concept Musical
• Company (1970):
– Series of vignettes arranged around bachelor’s
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
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”
New Directions: Rock Opera
• Rent (1996):
– Jonathan Larson
– Update of Puccini’s La Bohéme
– Addresses issues related to AIDS, early death
– Music played onstage by five-member band
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
British Megamusicals:
Miss Saigon (1989)
• Based on Puccini’s 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
Broadway’s 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
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.