A Power Point Presentation on the origins of Musical Theatre.

1. Origins and Styles

2. • What is your favorite musical? Why?
• Who is your favorite musical theatre composer or lyricist?
Why?
• What is your favorite musical theatre song? Why?

3. • What do you think the origins of Musical Theatre are?
• Why do you think it’s important to study musical theatre
history?
• Do you think we have evolved or devolved in our storytelling
through musical form?
• What do you think the future of musical theatre is? (Will it be
around in 100 years? How?)

4. • Ancient Greece
• Music and dance used in Comedies and Tragedies
• Sometimes actual music, sometimes the SOUNDS of words
• Festival of Dionysus
• Singing/Dancing into state of euphoria
• Men- civic duty
• Greek Chorus
• Greek Chorus in Musical (start at 1:15)
• Greek Chorus in Musical (start at 1:30)

5. • When you think Opera, what qualities come to mind?
• What are elements of opera?
• What is the objective of opera?
• An opera consists of a dramatic text (“libretto”) that has been
entirely set to music and staged with scenery, costumes, and
movement.
• 16th Century- what country?
• Italy! Florence, to be exact
• Intermezzi (interludes)- musical acts between acts of spoken
plays. Why?
• Civic Humanism- academy Camerata (basically a club of
musicians, poets, intellectuals) leads to recitative
• Florentine belief that the human voice through music was the
link between earth and the cosmos.

6. • Supporters- believe the lyrics are intensified and supported by
music and creates a greater emotional impact than music or
drama would on its own
• Critics- view as artificial and irrational art form that goes
against dramatic verisimilitude
• “Short men in armour and large ladies in chiffon singing about
ancient Egypt don’t make much sense at one level, but they
can…reveal to us the confusions of emotion and loyalty, the
nature of power and pity, that could not be so movingly
expressed in any other way.”
 Maria Callas 1965 O mio babbino caro Puccini
 Aida

7. • When you think Operetta, what qualities come to mind?
• What are elements of operetta?
• What is the objective of operetta?
• When did it begin?
• mid-19th century.
• Commedia Dell’ arte of Italy
• Vaudeville of France
• Ballad Opera of England
• Strouse – Italy – Die Fledermaus
• Offenbach- France – Orpheus in the Underworld- First full length
operetta
• Recognize this?
• Gilbert and Sullivan- England- Pirates of Penzance Ruddigore
• Recognize this?

8. • Who was drawn to operetta in New York City?
• Most popular brand of musical theatre for first two decades
of 20th century
• Most were imported from Europe
• “Opera Lite”
• Promised a happy ending
• Romantic story with much comedic relief
• Large male chorus
• Exotic European country or mythic setting (or combination)

9. • West 28th Street between Fifth and Broadway
• Where’d the name come from? Monroe Rosenfeld of the New
York Herald referred to the sound of upright pianos playing
different tunes at the same time. They sounded like tin pans
banging together in the alleyway.
• After Civil War, over 25,000 pianos were sold each year.
• NYC became music publishing hub
• Incoming port for talent for overseas talent
• Springboard for domestic talent before heading overseas
• Established distribution network for the U.S.
• Ballads, comic songs, vaudeville, dance music

10. • No copyright control, thus sheet music companies would print
whatever tunes were popular and composer would see little to
no money. Stephen Foster died in poverty.
• Song pluggers
• Vaudeville performers – newcomers would pay for rights to
perform songs, successful performers were paid to sing new
songs.
• ASCAP founded by Irving Berlin and Victor Herbert in 1914

11. • What started it?
• NYC became a true Melting Pot. It was theatre for the middle and lower
class, both performers and audience.
• Who performed in it?
• Irish, Jewish, comics, animals, you name it!
• Frances Gumm and the Gumm Sisters
• Daisy and Violet Hilton
• Many of those Tin Pan Alley writers
• Irving Berlin
• Harold Arlen

12. • First white performer to don
blackface.
• “Daddy Rice” first introduced
his character, Jim Crow, in
1828.
• Based on a folk character
popular among slaves,
Thomas Rice appropriated
the character after travels to
the South and developed an
act based on his idea of what
African Americans were like.
It was extremely
stereotypical and inaccurate,
of course.

13. • Isolated blackface numbers in variety shows developed into full minstrel
shows.
• Variety acts, comic skits, dancing, and music numbers that mocked people
of African descent in a very stereotypical way.
• First distinctly American theatrical form.
• White performers blackened their faces with burnt cork and over-
accentuated the lips with makeup.
• Eventually black performers joined troupes or formed their own and were
not accepted by audiences unless they also blackened their faces.
• Cakewalk Dance
• Gained popularity by 1848 and didn’t die out until 1960’s.
• Lost popularity to vaudeville form by 1910
• PBS Documentary

15. BERT WILLIAMS

16. • One of the first Black performers in Vaudeville
• Started in a Minstrel troupe and formed double act with George
Walker.
• When Walker became ill, Florenz Ziegfeld reached out to him to
be in the Follies. He eventually made top billing over white
performers.
• Did wear blackface, but didn’t play into Minstrel stereotypes.
• Many performers complained of being on the same bill, either
because he was black, or because he was black and his material
was better than his.
• Later was able to have a brief film career, went on tour with
Under the Bamboo Tree, and collapsed on stage. He died a month
later.
• His famous poker sketch

17.  The modern musical is largely an American creation—the only theatrical
form developed primarily in the United States.
 There were many forerunners of the modern musical in the nineteenth
century and early twentieth century, including operetta, vaudeville,
burlesque, and the minstrel show.
 During the 1920s and 1930s, musical comedy emerged: comic, sometimes
silly stories that had glorious music with intelligent, witty lyrics, written by
people like Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, and
Lorenz Hart.
 The period from the early 1940s to the late 1960s was the golden age of the
American musical, with a profusion of successful shows, many of them
modern classics. These musicals integrated dancing and singing to form an
overall structure that had great variety as well as unity.
 In the past three decades, musical theatre has become fragmented: fewer
book musicals are being produced; choreographer-directors rather than
writers or directors have been responsible for the total vision of the show;
experiments are being made with other forms, such as the concept musical;
and more musicals are being imported from Great Britain.
 Current trends in musical theatre include (a) revivals, (b) off -beat or
experimental musicals, (c) musicals made from films, and (d) musicals made
from the songs of a popular composer or group.

18.  Golden Age (1940’s-60’s) – Carousel
 West Side Story Prologue
 Post Golden Age (1960’s-70’s) – Hair
 Sondheim – Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd
 Contemporary Musical Theatre- In the Heights, The Last Five
Years
 Jukebox Musical - Moulin Rouge, All Shook Up
 Commercial Spectacle - King Kong
 Entertainment vs. Message - Anything Goes, Parade

19.  Dreamgirls
 Chicago
 Wicked
 Thoroughly Modern Millie
 A Chorus Line
 Gypsy
 You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown
 Hamilton
 Rocky Horror Picture Show
 Jesus Christ Superstar Live