Broadway musical, flashy lights and choreography. It is an memorable night at New York City during christmas to someone, and it is a life time dream to make true to some people. According to American Theatre Wing, 80% of shows open on Broadway end up losing money. However, Broadway investors and producers do anything they can to make “the show”, the show will have years of run on Broadway, the show will tour around the nation, and the show will make millions of dollars. They adapt new trends and style to become a “hit”. Broadway is constantly changing and adapting new things, which is healthy for its existence. Since the British invasion of musical theatre, Broadway investors and producers have spent more money to produce shows. Cameron Mackintosh, a star producer of English musical theatre and Andrew Lloyd Webber, a legendary English composer of many hit musicals opened the door to “mega musicals”. Cameron loved to use magnificent scenery designs and lighting. In 1985, musical Les Misérables, using a huge barricade set and spinning stage, opened on West End, London. Thanks to the success of Les Misérables, Mackintosh and Webber were able to produce additional mega musicals such as The Phantom of the Opera, Evita, and Miss Saigon. Andrew Lloyd Webber said, “Thru-sung score is my favorite, but it’s just expensive” (Healy). Thru-song score is a type of musical score in which all the lines are sung and none are spoken. The American mega musical trend was led by Disney on Broadway™. The stage adaptation of Lion King had a bad review from theatre critics, but its fascinating costumes and animal portrayal was an immediate hit for the young audience, and the show still remains one of the most popular musicals on Broadway. The musical W... ... middle of paper ... ...haracters starting a new life. Musical revues give the feeling of taking a journey in the 3rd person perspective to the audience. Because of its unique style and low budget needs, revue musicals encouraged colleges and regional theatres to develop their own music and story. Off-Broadway’s experimental and creative shows have affected Broadway community too. The Book of Mormon, a new musical made by creators of Avenue Q and inspired by many experimental Off-Broadway show is considered one the most cynical, creative, and successful broadway musical of the decade. Though it is crucial to follow the trend adapt new things, Broadway producers should remember that there is a beauty in classical values. Revival of Les Misérables is an great example of mixture of modern and classical. The new technology makes its classical music and storyline so much more powerful.
If there is truly tradition to be found among the great theatres both on and off Broadway, then certainly the Sullivan Street Playhouse and its long running production of The Fantasticks rates as one of the most celebrated of New York theatrical traditions. Maintaining its place as the longest running production Off Broadway, The Fantasticks remains an enchanting and insightful tale of both young love and bitter disillusionment. It also reminds one, in this age of spectacle and the mega-musical, how powerful and truly inspiring theatre itself can be. Clearly, one of the great strengths of this production and a large part of its appeal for audiences over the last four decades lies in the fact that both the story and the style of presentation compliment each other so completely. Here we find the non-essentials are stripped away, and we are left to rely simply on the imagination of both the audience and the performers to create a magical evening.
People have dreams of what they want to do or accomplish in life, but usually musical theatre is just pushed into the non-realistic void. It isn’t a dream for me. In the past four years, musical theatre has been clarified as my reality. Musical theatre has been the only thing I have seen myself wanting to do. My first love was The Phantom of the Opera, seeing how I watched it almost every day and it was one of the first shows I saw. Of course, I started doing all of those cute shows in middle school and making a huge deal about it to my family and friends, but I have never felt so passionate about something. The minute I get up on that stage I throw away Riley for two and a half hours and it’s the most amazing feeling! Being able to tell a story
Musical theatre has been around for quite a while. But where exactly did it come from? The book Anything Goes, written by Ethan Mordden looks to explore just that. From operas to musical comedies, Mordden covers the basic history of musical theatre and why it’s important for the world to know.
These strong people have help not only with the growth of the Broadway musical, but also with the beginning of the modernization of musical theater during this period. Particularly the growth and change in the types of characters being used in Broadway musicals. Such as the Cinderella type characters are in the rag to riches stories, where they are struggling in the beginning of the act, yet at the final curtain they have a happy ending. Women and men during this period are beginning to show more personality in their acting and their struggles on stage. This was also the period where talking pictures, started to become a growing industry, it was no longer about just the Jazz period of the 1920’s. However, all good things must come to an end; it was the crash of the stock market during this period that brought an end to the feverish pitch of Broadway.
Stempel, Larry. Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theater. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2010.
On a Wednesday night I saw Texas State Theatre and Dance Department's performance of A Chorus Line. The main plot of the musical entails the audition of 17 dancers for several Broadway roles on the chorus line. However, during their auditions the director Zach asks for personal stories of each dancer's life. Though the plot of this musical is seemingly simple in its twist on the traditional audition, it explores themes that reveal the human experience, the search for individuality, and the sense of self.
Ostlere, Hilary. “Taming The Musical.” Dance Magazine 73.12 (1999): 84. Expanded Academic ASAP. Westfield State College Library, MA. 15 April 2005.
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.
Kenrick, John. Musical Theatre A History. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2008. Print.
When I first watched Chicago at the movie theater, I was not fully satisfied. I wanted more, so I went back to get some and watched it six more times with different friends and family members! Last summer during a visit to my native Mexico City, I had the opportunity to watch drag queens perform several numbers from the movie-musical. They did an amazing job, without surpassing the outstanding performances of the actors in the film. Last year, I visited NYC for the first time and indulged in the rows of the Ambassador theatre experiencing Chicago, the Broadway musical, and because I had seen the movie many times before, I knew all the songs and dances by heart. I loved it, but it was actually the movie that influenced me to become a “Chicago fan.” The movie is based on the 1996 Chicago revival of the original musical version of 1975. It was thrilling knowing that the making of the musical into a mainstream production would increase its accessibility and widen its distribution into all the corners of the world; now there is no excuse for people not to experience Chicago, and though not everyone can go to Broadway to see it, just about anyone can indulge themselves in this dazzling movie in the comfort of their homes. In addition to a fantasy world of singing, dancing and Vaudeville, the film also provides a narrative that is explicitly presented through Roxie’s point of view, creating a counter human side to Roxie’s fantasy world so that the audience can easily identify and engage. Chicago is a must see film for anyone who likes to spoil themselves with an outstanding award-winning musical composed of a catchy plot, truly superb acting, commendable direction, and a clever soundtrack.
Miller, D. A. Place for Us: Essay on the Broadway Musical. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1998. Print.
thesis of how the musical brought our inner child out to realize our true struggles in life.
The 2000s/ 2010s brought in a wave of movie musicals- adapted from the stage shows. These brought new audiences into the theatre world, and for the first time in 20 years, brought a love to some of the timeless musicals. With slightly altered songs to appeal to a newer audience, these films brought in much needed money into the industry, with films including: Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera, Rent, Hairspray, Mamma Mia, Fame- and many more. Together with this, musicals began to push the concept of the songs in them, with a wave of new styles being written. Rap musicals such as ‘Hamilton’ and ‘In The Heights’, Pop musicals including ‘Waitress’ and ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ and Rock musicals of ‘American Idiot’ and ‘Spring Awakening’. Together they pushed boundaries of a ‘traditional’ musical theatre sound, and brought in something never before seen. Due to the influence of ‘Rent’, controversial issues and themes began to be explored more, such as Teen suicide, Murder, Ethnic barriers and everything else, which brought with them, a world of opportunities. It was clear that musical theatre was once again showing for a promising
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.
Theatre as we know it now was born more than two thousand years ago and has gone through many streams until it reached the current modernity. Among these streams is the avant-garde theatre. This theatre achieved a break in the traditional theatre and became the forefront of a new experimental theatre. Therefore it is necessary to ask how this theatre started, what impact it had on society and if this type of theatre is still common in our modern era.