American Musical Theatre

1. American Musical Theatre A staged production utilizing dialogue, songs and dance to tell a story.

2. 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

3. 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).

4. 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.

5. 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. • Great stories and memorable songs and dances have been created every year since, on Broadway and in smaller theatres all around America.

6. Elements of a MusicalMusicals are not just written- they are collaborative creations that must be put together piece by piece. • 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: • 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 • The Lyrics are the words to the songs. • The Book is the dialogue that the actors speak, also known as the script.

7. Key Players • The Director organizes all of the elements and key players into 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.

8. South Pacific1949 Music by Richard Rodgers 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.

9. A South Pacific Montage

10. Fiddler on the Roof1964 Music by Jerry Bock 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.

11. “If I Were a Rich Man”

12. A Chorus Line1975 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.

13. “One”

14. 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.

15. The FutureChange 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!

16. 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