Broadway Theatre
As said in Wicked, “I don’t know if I’ve been changed for the better, but because I knew you I have been changed for good.” This quote is true for me and many other people who have discovered comfort in Broadway Theatre. I polled a facebook group what their favorite Broadway show was out of Wicked, Phanton of the Opera, Hamilton, and Dear Evan Hansen to see what the two most popular shows are. A total of fifty people answered and Wicked came out on top with nineteen votes and Phantom of the Opera came in second with fourteen votes. Broadway is a popular genre that many people enjoy and Broadway has opened many musicals and plays. In my speech, I will be discussing a short history of Broadway and then the shows Wicked and Phantom of the Opera. Now as the show begins, please turn off cell-phones, thank you and enjoy the show! Scene 1, Act 1. What is Broadway? Broadway is the theatre district located in Manhatten in New York City; it consists of 40 professional theatres that contain 500 or more seats. According to theaterseatstore.com, if a performance wants to be considered Broadway it must be held in one of these theatres and for a performance to
…show more content…
As sung by Glinda the Good in Wicked, “Popular, your gonna be popular, just not quite as popular as me.” This wickedly awesome musical fills in the backstory of the Wicked Witch of the West and follows Elphaba and Glinda through there college life. The Musical consists of 22 songs written by Stephen Schwartz and is based on the 1995 book by Gregory Maguire. According to The Daily Beast, in 2013 there were 38 million theatre-goers and $3.1 billion in ticket sales. But when the show started in 2003, some of the reviewers did not think it would last long. The New York Times said that “Wicked does not, alas, speak hopefully for the future of the Broadway Musical. Wicked also brought a major stage presence to Kristin Chenoweth (Glinda/Galinda) and Indina Menzel (Elphaba). End Scene 1, Act
On Saturday, December 21 at 8:00 p.m., I saw the play Wicked in Chicago at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts with my family. I had always heard how spectacular the play was. My parents even saw it on Broadway in New York years ago and absolutely loved it and wouldn’t stop talking about it. Well let me tell you, describing Wicked as being a spectacular show is dead on, maybe even an understatement. Wicked was by far one of the best plays I’ve ever seen! Between the actors, lighting, scenery, and music, it was an amazing show and grabbed your attention at all times. I would highly recommend seeing this phenomenal production to all ages!
Motion pictures from Hollywood had taken Broadway’s place as the king of entertainment. The main reason behind this was that because it was culturally relevant and coming out with new flashy techniques such as Todd-AO and Cinerama.
This fearlessness was something that Broadway idealized, ultimately opening the doors for playwrights and composers to speak their mind by means of the shows they produced. A few leading shows in this field were the musicals Chicago, Pacific Overtures, and A Chorus Line. Each of the three plays tackled their own social injustices all while also embedding individualized views of the glorified American Dream inside their works. Chicago and A Chorus Line take you behind the scenes in the world of Broadway, one tackling the injustices of the media and glorification of crime, and the other puts a light on the “small people” often forgotten in
When studying musical theater, or any type of theater, you cannot just expect to start at Wicked, without understanding how shows of that magnitude came to be. We look at musical theater today, and sit in the theater seats, in awe at the spectacle that we were so fortunate to get orchestra tickets to. Yet, when studying, we need to begin somewhere. This episode is that somewhere. It highlights an individual crucial to the creation of the modern day production. Through his work, other directors and producers have been able to bring their ideas to the stage. Florenz Ziegfeld is an inspiration to any student, artist, or anyone with a passion for musical theater. Miles Krueger said, “The history of Musical Theater is divided into two eras- everything before Showboat and everything
African American Theatre interests me, since African American actors, actresses, and playwrights have overcome so many obstacles, and yet some of the best people in film are African American. It interests me that they have endured so much rough history in this country, and yet many people forget about their rough history and admire many talented African American associated with the theatre. I like how the African American theatre deviates from an integrated society, to a simple black society. Many African American based plays and films show a simple African American family and how they live their lives, in the midst of so many obstacles they face. While watching several of the African American films assigned for this
Musical theatre is a type of theatrical performance combining music, dance, acting and spoken dialogue. Written by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, ‘West Side Story’ is a classic American musical based on William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’. The through-composed score and lyrics are used to portray different characters and their cultures, the rivalry between the Jets and Sharks, and the emotions felt as the story progresses. This essay will be exploring the music and how effective the score is in realising the world and characters of the musical. Furthermore, it will discuss how Bernstein and Sondheim relate characters’ diverse ethnicities to particular musical ideas and motifs.
In the years before Oklahoma! was created, Broadway was dying. New and refreshing musicals were a rare occasion and when an artist tried to create something that he hoped his audience would like, he was sadly disappointed. Broadway was suffering from a lack of what it was revered for: astounding plays and musicals. Its time of glamour and glitz was almost forgotten, and was in need of being saved. That is why Oklahoma! is considered a rebirth of the American musical theatre at the time. It brought Broadway back to life, filling theatre seats with enthusiastic audiences who embraced the changes of this new theatre musical with open arms and made it a legend. Oklahoma! set new standards for classic American theatre by introducing new techniques of presenting the musical to the audience, introducing a new genre of music into the theatre, and strayed away from the usual classic form and structure of a musical that audiences had grown used to. It was a time of change, a time of excitement,...
I had been waiting a year to finally see this musical on Broadway, and when I did the way the theater hushed and was taken into awe with the way the show opens amazed me and I cannot ever forget that feeling. The room went dark and the air went cooler, all you heard was laughing and out of nowhere there was flying monkeys going around the whole auditorium laughing and picking on people in the chairs. Then when I heard No One Mourns the Wicked, and then her voice. Idina Menzel on stage singing, and then Kristen Chenoweth is on in a few moments. I realized how much this musical was my favorite. The way Idina sang it gave chills throughout my whole body, and I can still remember the feeling of it all, because I get it every time I see it. The girls sang amazing apart but when you put their voices together it’s a sound that you can’t ever forget, and even when I listen to music on my phone I get the same chills because the memory comes back of how it was. About five years ago I saw this musical again, but this time it was in Chicago and almost the exact same thing happened. The only difference was that it was different singers. The show was still absolutely amazing, and there was still flying monkeys flying around the auditorium. Just the atmosphere was amazing and the way everyone just stopped talking at once and the way the air just felt colder as the stage
“Wicked” is my favorite Broadway musical. I have been fortunate to see “Wicked” three times, in three different cities, most recently New York City. Each time I see it, I compare it to the previous time. I have discovered that although the story stays the same, the interpretation by the actors, and the differences in set décor, change my perception of the characters in the story.
Miller, D. A. Place for Us: Essay on the Broadway Musical. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1998. Print.
Theatre has heavily evolved over the past 100 years, particularly Musical Theatre- a subgenre of theatre in which the storyline is conveyed relying on songs and lyrics rather than dialogue. From its origination in Athens, musical theatre has spread across the world and is a popular form of entertainment today. This essay will discuss the evolution and change of musical theatre from 1980-2016, primarily focusing on Broadway (New York) and the West End (London). It will consider in depth, the time periods of: The 1980s: “Brit Hits”- the influence of European mega musicals, the 1990s: “The downfall of musicals”- what failed and what redeemed, and the 2000s/2010s: “The Resurgence of musicals”- including the rise of pop and movie musicals. Concluding
The Lion King musical is a well-known musical that has taken the stages of Broadway, West End and the rest of the world by storm (The Lion King, 1997). Regarding the process of the musical, Artistic Director Julie Taymor’s first thoughts for choosing the Lion King as the next big thing on stage, was classed as ‘impossible’ due to the film’s lack of theatrical material (The Lion King, 1997). Therefore, staging this particular work contained a great deal of uncertainty and the need for taking huge risks. Taymor (1997) suggests how ‘the Lion King was the worst idea possible to create a stage show.’ It has become evident that a number of significant barriers had to be overcome to secure the practicality of the production. In view of this controversy, this dissertation will critically analyse the success of the Lion King by exploring two significant aspects that have helped to make the musical a success. Firstly, the essential components that make up this theatrical production will be explored and secondly, the roles of each producer within the Lion King and their combined and individual influences they have had from the production will be evaluated. By analysing these two central themes, this paper will show how and why this musical has developed and achieved its phenomenal success.
Technology has a critical role in the modern world of theatre. It is what makes productions a possibility. Someone who deals with a lot of this new technology is someone who has a theatre technology major. Practically everything involved with the stage is handled by Theatre Technicians. Whether it be something as simple as a curtain or drop that flies in during a production to something as vast as a mechanically rotating set, someone has to set it up or build it, maintain it, and operate it. It could even be lighting or sound work. Whatever it may be, there is a ton of technology that is used in modern productions that wasnt even close to being invented when old, historical shows were first being introduced. And unfortunately, sets don’t build themselves. And broken or damaged set pieces or components don’t fix themselves. There has to be someone responsible for all of this, all while taking the actors’ safety into the greatest concern. Without Theatre Technicians, theatre would not be as safe, realistic, or technologically advanced as it is today. Theatre Technology plays an extraordinarily large role in theatre which allows older, “ancient” shows the ability to be presented in new ways with modern technologies. Through the use of modern set construction, automation, lighting, and other modern theatre job positions the historic opera, The Barber of Seville is taken to a whole new level.
My experience watching a live theatre performance on stage was a fascinating one, most especially since it was my first time. I attended a staged performance of “The History Boys” in a small theatre called “The Little Theatre of Alexandria” at 8:00 pm on Wednesday June 8, 2016 in Alexandria, Virginia. The overall production of the play was a resounding experience for me particularly the performance of the actors and the design of the scene made the play seem real.
Musical theatre has been an extremely integral part of my life for as long as I can remember. Musical productions—specifically in film—were the major catalyst for my drive to become an actor. Musical productions were the first window into storytelling that I experienced at an extremely young age. Instead of playing in a crib or with little toys, my parents would sit me down in front of the television and pop in a VHS tape of Mary Poppins or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; Dick Van Dyke was my idol. Between the ages of three and five, I was Dick Van Dyke. Throughout my childhood, instead of going to the arcade or roller-skating on a Friday night, I was sitting in the basement with a bowl of popcorn and wide eyes ready to watch Mary Poppins for the umpteenth time. I would sit still, entranced, carefully listening to every word. Eventually, I knew ‘step-in-time’ better than my ABCs. I became Bert. After watching the film over fifty times, not only did I know every line of “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, I also understood the importance of family, respect, and honor. Musicals have always been a key component of my life because they opened a window into a