Musical Theatre: A History

John Kenrick

Introduction: “Let’s Start at the Very Beginning”

 History – hard to define, what is actually true? Especially for theatre, when we like to
reshape and fix scripts as often as possible.
 A musical (noun) is a stage, screen, or television production using popular style songs to
either tell a story (book musical) or showcase the talents of songwriters and performers
(revues) – dialogue options.
 Musicals…
o Vividly reflect the popular culture of their time
o Help you know how the art form got to where it is now
o Aid in enriching your theatergoing
o Make you realize that your heroes/heroines are flawed as human beings
 Musicals thrive in communities where…
o A population large and prosperous enough to support live theatre
o Thriving artistic community that nurtures successive generations of artists
o A shared sense of optimism about that community and its future
o No extensive government censorship and oppression
 Key elements of a musical:
o Music and lyrics
o Book/libretto (expressed in script and dialogue)
o Choreography
o Staging
o Physical production
o Technical aspects
 A GREAT musical must have
o Brains
o Heart
o Courage

I: Ancient Times to 1800: “Playgoers, I Bid You Welcome!”

 About 2,500 years old (Greeks)
 Dithyrambs – musical retellings of mythological tales
 Three types of drama evolved
o Tragedy (Greek mythology tales)
o Comedy (Old/Attic, Middle, Late)
o Satyr (half beast, half human – sexual arousal)
 Performances in daylight
 Masks were a way for the audience to tell one character from the other as well as
allowing performers to play more than one character
 The Birds (Aristophanes, 414 BCE)
 o Chorus as birds
o Offer three songs with alternating speeches (parabasis)
 Romans and the first tap shoes (?)
 Plautus (Roman playwright) and his characters – A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to
the Forum
 Church musicals became popular in the 12th and 13th centuries
 Medieval music-dramas:
o Mystery play (Bible drama)
o Miracle play (lives of saints)
o Morality play (seven deadly sins)
o Folk play (popular myths)
 Opera as a descendant of musical theatre…
 Three different genres of musical theatre in the 1700s
o Comic operas
o Pantomimes
o Ballad operas
 Walpole and corruption under George I
 John Gay and The Beggar’s Opera (1728)
o Designed to attack the corrupt system
o 69 songs (all of them stolen in some degree)
o lyrics original and specific
o 62 performances (first long running “big hit”)

7: The Merry Widow: Refusing to Say “I Love You”

 Franz Lehar
o Vienna
o Composer full time after stint at the Theatre an der Wein with The Tinker (1902)
o Story about a couple who is in love but too stubborn to admit it (directed by
Victor Leon and Leo Stein
o Received honors from Nazis
o Was Hitler his friend? The man protected his wife as an “honorary Aryan”…
 The Merry Widow – two lovers refusing; men looking to marry into her money; selling
dances
o Lehar as well
o First English production in 1907 in London
o In London, they cast musical comedy performers instead of opera singers
o Sales boomed (money didn’t quite reach the creators and composers…)
 Original Broadway production…
o Directed by Henry Savage at the New Amsterdam in 1907 (416 performances)
o Ethel Jackson and Donald Brian
 The Merry Widow Burlesque – comedian Joe Weber (hit in itself)
 The Merry Widow performed around 500,000 times during its first 60 years
 Silent film, ballet, touring show…
 Only musical from the first decade in the 1900s to be regularly performed today
 Best gift to musical theatre? – dance as a respectable expression of sexual passion
  Introduced subplots
 EMPOWERED WOMEN

8: A New Century: Herbert, Cohan, and Berlin (1900 – 1913)

 Girls on Broadway were hits for men (charm, looks, wit, etc.)
 Florodora
o Sextet of girls
o Mainly for simply dressed hot women
o Each woman stood at 5’4’’ and weighed 130 pounds
 The invention of the subway made going to the theatre much easier and made much more
money
 Times Square was once Union Square
 The first Wizard of Oz (L. Frank Baum) had Dorothy accompanied by a cow, Imogene,
and there was no Wicked Witch of the West
o Staged by Julian Mitchell
 Victor Herbert
o Began composing operettas
o Good melodies, bad lyrics
o Babes in Toyland w/ Julian Mitchell
o Scores combined elements of operettas and musical comedy
o Created the American Society of American Composers, Authors and Publishers –
protect the rights
 Opera and operettas bridged in Herbert’s naught Marietta
o Commissioned by Oscar Hammerstein I
 Steps to succeed as an operetta…
o Historic/exotic setting
o Music matters the most
o Romance (not sex) is the main ingredient
o Heroine must be indecisive – hero is stalwart and macho
o Class difference between two leads is preferred
o Lavish sets and costumes
o Humor is required, but the stress is on the romance
 George M. Cohan
o Broadway in the early 1900s
o Came from a talented family – had much stage experience by the time he was 10
o Was at one time blacklisted from all vaudeville theatres
o Four Cohans act
o Was a tap dancing leading man (unheard of in American Broadway theatre)
o Little Johnny Jones – third Broadway show and he starred
 Sam, Lee, and Jacob Shubert – owners of Broadway
 Cohan – Yankee Doodle Dandy
 Began touring shows and then coming back to Broadway for a more successful run
 Strong patriotic sense and conversational ease in Cohan’s lyrics
 Cohanization
o Was asked to help revise shows that weren’t doing well
  “We never work with that son of a bitch again. Until we need him.”
 Cohan did not agree with unionization of the business
 Never signed an Equity contract – was the only person on Broadway who that has
pertained to
 Played FDR in I’d Rather Be Right in his last real hoorah
 “Thank you” speech.
 Irving Berlin – Israel Baline
o couldn’t read or notate music
o specialized in ethnic comedies
o hailed as the “King of Ragtime” after 1911
o rhythm was his main thing

9: Florenz Ziegfeld: The Follies and Beyond

 show business was his passion from Buffalo Bill

 what a life he lived (pg. 117/118)
 produced 75 productions on Broadway
 THE FOLLIES
 Discovered that even negative controversy would sell tickets
 Unionized (as husband and wife) with Anna Held from Europe
 Held and having to bathe in milk controversy – Ziegfeld playing the system and claiming
rancid milk
 The Parisian Model and “It’s Delightful to be Married” was Held’s most successful
production
 The follies is basically a high class variation of vaudeville
 Clean humor
 At first, couldn’t afford to hire vaudeville stars, so Ziegfeld made the chorus girls the
main focus (not dressed fully)
 The Ziegfeld Girl’s
o Ziegfeld walk to balance headdresses
o Beauty was talent enough
 Bert Williams
o Black actor in Ziegfeld’s Follies
o Wore blackface
o “Funniest man I ever knew, but also the saddest.”
o Dealt with a heavily racist cast and environment
o Ziegfeld backed him up and defended him with the other cast members
 Fanny Brice appeared in more Follies productions than anyone else
o First Jewish American actor to wear her ethnicity proudly and as a trademark
 Scandily clad girls became a popular tradition
 Ziegfeld bought an elephant – Herman
 Extravagant and spontaneous spender
10: Jerome Kern and American Ascendance (1914 – 1919)

 German things lost its lust on Broadway during WWI

 Was a behind the scenes character for a decade before stepping out into the limelight
 Big composer of interpolations
 “They Didn’t Believe Me” – new transition of Broadway songs (easy and natural)
 Kern was supposed to be on the Lusitania – would have changed the progression of
musical theatre in history
 Very Good Eddie
 Oh Boy was the most successful stints at the Princess Theatre – trio of Kern, Wodehouse,
and Bolton
o Broadway production charged $3.50 for tickets – scalpers charged up to $50
 Leave It to Jane
 Kern wrote 5 staged scores alone in 1917
 Princess trio ended their stint in 1918, but the trio remained friends – but their roar of
their musicals was done by the 1920s (too predictable? Old news?)
 Why did the Princess musicals succeed as well as they did?
o Intimacy of the theatre (natural)
o First series of musicals set in NYC
o Every element was organic
o Kern – he had a special thing about him which made his musicals his
o Can still entertain today (well written)
o Inspired the next greats of Broadway
o Full entertainment for hours
 Irving Berlin is drafted – eventually relieved of regular duties and writes the show Yip,
Yip, Yaphank! (1917)
 Deaths from the war and Spanish Flu decimated towns, populations, and people –
Broadway suffered and many theatre were on the brink of financial ruin
 A group of 112 actors create the Actor’s Equity Association in 1913
o However, the Producer’s Managing Association retaliated and refused to
recognize the AEA
o On August 7, 1919, the casts of 12 Broadway shows walked out
o Theatre comes to a standstill after other unions join
o Ends on September 6 with a begrudgingly willing PMA

12: The 1920s, Part I: Hot Times and Great Talent (1920 – 1929)

 Jazz was the craze, prohibition, scandals, people mostly living in cities…
 An average of 50 new musicals premiered each season
 Irene was a postwar musical hit – Cinderella story
 Cohan’s run of Cinderella was Mary
o Schubert brothers made a small hit with Sally, Irene, and Mary
 Irving Berlin helped build The Music Box theatre
o Music Box Revues
 Cole Porter
 o Gay man
o Yale – born into wealth
o Still married a wealthy woman from Paris – Linda Lee Thomas (easy marriage)
o His trick? Writing Jewish tunes – very Mediterranean sounding melodies
o Sexual, funny songs in nature?
o Friends with Irving Berlin
 Rodgers and Hart met in college (kind of?) – complete opposites
 Hart was a closeted homosexual
 First hit together was The Garrick Gaieties in 1925 for the Theatre Guild’s new theatre
 A Connecticut Yankee is their biggest hit to date
 Team mostly remembered for their songs
 First long-lasting team (worked together for 25 years)
 Noel Coward
o British star
o Helped write songs for London Calling
 Charles Cochran was the British Ziegfeld – worked with ^ a lot
 Ira and George Gershwin
o Actually named Israel and Jacob
o George was a go getter – played piano at a young age
o Played on Tin Pan Alley as a song plugger (played for Fred and Adele Astaire)
o Staccato rhythms, jazz, and playful rhymes (from Ira)
o Lady Be Good w/ the Astaire’s
 Comedy becoming more and more popular – sex as well (in songs)
 Shuffle Along was the first all black musical on Broadway (1921)
 Blackbirds was popular for a couple of year – blacks performing materials created by
whites
 Romberg – composer that the Schubert brothers hired
 ^^^ a lot of the times took something that already existed and switched it up
 The Student Prince
 Friml
 Rose Marie teamed up with Friml, Arthur Hammerstein, and Harbach – unrevivable
today due to political incorrectness
 Operettas never truly made a full comeback
 Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht – Threepenny Opera (adaption of John Gay’s The
Beggar’s Opera)

13: The 1920s, Part II: Show Boat – Premature Revolution

 First use of the N word on stage (nowadays that is not true)

 Show boats were not self propelled – towboats
 Would offer multiple shows a night if staying in town for awhile
 Usually shows that have good triumph over evil
 Show Boats started out as a book written by Edna Ferber in 1926
 Broadway had not encountered something “epic” – i.e. going against the unity of time,
place, and action
  Kern and Hammerstein II did not obtain the rights from the author or financial stability
from a producer (two vital things) – they threw caution to the wind and went for it
o Eventually they did get Ferber and Ziegfeld on board
 A myriad of musical styles – negro folk songs, spirituals, operetta, musical comedy,
vaudeville, tin pan alley originals
 Helen Morgan and Paul Robeson most celebrated cast members
 Racist “Aunt Jemima” role…
 Great response
 Stock market crashed and Broadway was hit bad
 Ziegfeld put on his most costly Follies in 1930 - $250,000 and was a failure

The Black Crook is important!

14: Depression Era Miracles (1930 – 1939): “I Guess I’ll Have to Change My
Plan”

 Shubert’s had to close their theatres after bankruptcy during the depression
o HOWEVER Lee Shubert created “Select Theatre Incorporated” and bought the
company solely – leaving his brother Jacob behind
 Broadway barely kept alive
 While the shows were smaller, they were funnier, involved more spectacle, and were
sharper
 Shubert succeed with continuing on with the Follies
o Fanny Brice and Bob Hope
 The Little Show
o Material over spectacle
o “I Guess I’ll Have to Change my Plan”
 Stars and composer of Broadway barely making it by
 Hellzapoppin (chaos on stage) was the longest running show in the 1930s
 Operettas are getting lost – jazz is still taking over
 Kern helps keep operetta interesting
 The Great Waltz 1934 was the most extravagant production of its time – over 200 in the
cast
 British operettas and stars are still present, but not quite thriving
o Noel Coward and
 Gershwin and Girl Crazy – “I Got Rhythm” “But Not For Me” ETHEL MERMAN
o Political comedies
o Jazz integrated on Broadway
o Pulitzer Prize for Of Thee I Sing in 1998…100 years after it was originally handed
out
 Jazz infused Broadway opera – PORGY AND BESS – GERSHWIN AND HEYWARD
1935
o Mixed reviews (white writer – black stars)
o Summertime
o First Broadway musical done at the Met
  Gershwin dies at 37
 Cole Porter
o Pretty wealthy
o Didn’t care for critics
o Had a horse riding accident in 1937, basically crippling both of his legs – used
work as a distraction
o King of musical comedy of his time
 Gay Divorce w/ Fred Astaire
 Anything Goes will be the most popular musical performed in the 30s
 The Federal Theatre Project passes
o Attempts to put affordable theatre in people’s backyards (federally funded)
o Many conservatives not happy with the content that is being performed
o The Cradle Will Rock received funding and then was pulled opening night – still
found a way to perform
 Rodgers and Hart were unsuccessful in Hollywood, came back with Jumbo – not a good
show, but the music proved they were still hot
 Wrote the book for Babes in Arms
o A NEW PLOT!?!
o My Funny Valentine, Lady is a Tramp
 Collaborations with Rogers, Hart, and Abbot
 Very Warm For May was the beginning and end for many composers and stars
o Hammerstein’s “All the Things You Are” caught the attention of Rodgers…

15: Rodgers and Hammerstein, A New Beginning (1940 – 1960): “They

Couldn’t Pick a Better Time”

 1940s…fluff and fun was the genre people wanted to see (war was waging in Europe and
the US was about to enter)
 fantasy shows? – Vernon Duke
 Gene Kelly – big break in Pal Joey
o I Could Write a Book
o Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered
 By Jupiter was Rodgers and Hart’s longest running production – after Pearl Harbor
 Hart drank himself to death, Rodgers moved on with Hammerstein II
o Both were familiar with Tin Pan Alley – wrote the music first and then the lyrics
o BUT with Away We Go they decided to write the lyrics first
o Theatre Guild was in debt and they looked to unknown talent
o Rodgers and Hammerstein had a lot of creative control
 WHAT IT BECAME
o Added a big chorus number – received a standing ovation and encore
o Received a new name – Oklahoma (1943)
o Was the first organic musical play with every element of dance, song, and
dialogue serving as a crucial part of moving the story along
o Unbroken narrative line – need in that day of age!
 o Became the longest running musical of that time
o First true cast recording as heard in the theatre
 With Hammerstein – you heard the character, not he lyrics
 Carousel was next in 1945 – translation was actually done ten years earlier by Hart
 Hammerstein begins playing with what he can get away with – musical tragedy, certain
songs, etc. etc.
 South Pacific – 1949; best musical in the 1950s Tony’s
o Ticket prices are getting higher – politicians even have to pay the same price and
people are outraged
o Shubert’s lose their monopoly over the theatres as the government forces them to
sell many theatres and give up control of the box offices
 1950S – PROSPERITY – ENTERING A GOLDEN AGE FOR MUSICAL THEATRE
 The King and I (1951)
o new content
o pushing the boundaries
 movies are being made of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s production
 The Sound of Music
 Hammerstein dies of stomach cancer ten months into the run

16: After Oklahoma! (post-1943): Broadway’s Golden Age

 “business as usual” musicals were no longer making to cut

 needed something different
 many new musicals had all of the integrated elements, but were lacking something…
o it required consistent dramatization that made human experience timeless and
compelling
o it was more than just a simple form to follow
o CHARACTER DRIVEN DRAMATIZATION BACKED BY THE MUSIC
 Revues are losing their popularity – most of the talent was moving to film and radio
(eventually television)
 American musicals really started to hit London – London gives us nothing until much
later
 Annie Get Your Gun (1946)
o Musical comedy could thrive when organically integrated
o Kern was supposed to do the score, but he died so it went to Berlin
o Ethel Merman
o However dance was not a huge component here
 Kiss Me Kate (1948)
o Porter’s longest running show
o He could get in with the new form of musical theatre (integrated)
o First use of eleven o’clock number???
 Found out that operetta and this new musical comedy could be merged in Brigadoon
(1957) by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe (My Fair Lady…)
19: Abbot, Robbins, and Fosse (1950 – 1963)

 Julian Mitchell was the first director to integrate things…he was much ahead of his time
 Broadway was getting worldwide coverage
 George Abbot
o Directed 22 Broadway hits
o Jumbo to A Funny Thing Happened…
o Wasn’t the best at directing serious things…he would use the same techniques as
comedy
o Loved to integrate dance
o Wonderful Town
o Once Upon a Mattress
o Fiorello was his last big hit
o Died at 107
 On the Town (1944)
o DANCE IS THE MAIN THING
o Jerome Robbins, Abbot, Berstein, and Green
o Strong military presence…we are in WWII as well
 COMDEN AND GREEN
 Is the darker material kind of taking a back seat to romance and comedy???
 Jerome Robbins
o Dancer/choreographer
o Asshole – threw people under the bus in the gov’t to save his career
o Fantastic show doctor
o Towards the end of his life, people were publically rude to him
o No public memorial service after his death
o Gypsy
 A lot of the original choreography is still used today
o WEST SIDE STORY – huge ambitious dance show
 Bernstein, Sondheim
 Gangs are actually starting to be a real issue…
 Mary Martin and Peter Pan (Robbins)
o Live broadcasts became more popular in the mid 50s and 60s…with Peter Pan
 Adler, Ross, Abbot, and Fosse (choreographer) teamed up for Damn Yankees (1955)
o Still a very upbeat
o Musical comedy formula
 Michael Kidd – choreographer (Guys and Dolls) – foot stomping style
 LOOK UP REDHEAD
 Farces are becoming popular…Funny Thing Happened and “Comedy Tonight”
 Political shows…yikes. No Communists!

20: More Golden Age Musicals (1950s – 1960s)

 The rise of television!!

 Musicals being Broadcast (not the same) but they are the most popular things of the time
  Guys and Dolls (1950)
o Kaufman, Burrows, Loesser
o Remains the model organic musical comedy
 Berlin was in the film world, but eventually returned to Broadway
 Berlin retired after rewriting a song for Annie Get Your Gun – ended on a high note
 Porter basically only has three musicals performed still (Kiss Me Kate, Anything Goes,
Can-Can) many songs are in the Great American Songbook
 Meredith Wilson and Music Man (1957)
 Operettas have not disappeared…just in a different spot. Some on musicals
 British musicals have not succeeded in America (but the opposite is true)
o The Boy Friend did – Julie Andrews
o Oliver by Lionel Bart (the father of the modern British musical)
 Rock and roll is hitting the world…how will musicals survive???

21: The 1960s: “The Paradise Passes By”

 NYC losing its glamour

 Race riots
 Broadway musicals took a longer time to admit that something in the world was
different…
 Off-broadway musicals becoming important
o The Fantasticks (1960)
o over 17,000 performances
 Bye Bye Birdie – brought early rock and roll to Broadway
 Hello Dolly (1964)
o Carol Channing
o Champion’s crazy staging (good audience reactions!)
o Originally written for Ethel Merman
 Intimate shows like I Do I Do! – didn’t really succeed; rock and roll taking over?
 Golden Boy challenges interracial marriage
 Funny Girl 1964) – ruling the world
o Jerome Robbins in uncredited
 Fiddler on the Roof – ethnic, but universal nature
 MAN OD LA MANCHA
 Cabaret
 ^^^^ sextet of good musicals…pg. 255 (speak to the heart of the human experience)
 late 60s and Broadway was losing its touch. No more hits topping the charts…that
belongs to rock and roll
 first rock musical – Your own Thing
 Hair’s popularity with hit songs unfortunately didn’t last
 1776 - violin song
22: The 1970s, Part I: Sondheim and Prince

 Sondheim
o Friends with sons of Oscar Hammerstein II (HUGE influence)
 Hal Prince (adopted son of stock broker)
o Served in the army for two years
o Served as George Abbott’s assistant (where he learned how to direct)
o Produced WSS, She Loves Me, Cabaret, Fiddler, Zobra
 Both wanted to try a concept musical: a book musical built around a central concept – an
event, place, problem, etc. – allowing the audience to focus simultaneously on multiple
characters and related plots. The central focus can be almost anything.
o Each character has a story to tell
 Are the Prince-Sondheim musicals self-reflexive and not a concept show?
 Company
o All the songs serve as a commentary or as a self-contained soliloquy or musical
scene
 Prince and Sondheim’s Follies didn’t make money
 A Little Night Music
o Send in the Clowns
o Feels like an operetta
 Dark themes coming back to Broadway – Sweeney Todd
 Merrily We Roll Along in the 70s ended the collaboration

23: The 1970s, Part II: “You Gotta Hang on till Tomorrow” (1970-1979)

 Times Square becoming more grungy and adult

 Violent crime outside of the Broadway theatres
 Times Square was kind of a ghost town
 Cut ticket prices out of a trailer in Times Square (still there today, but updated a little bit)
 Rock musicals coming to domination?
o Bringing the voice of today rather than yesterday (Hair)
o However many fiascos ensured and many shows closed quickly
 The Me Nobody Knows (1970) – letters from ghetto kids
 Godspell
 Jesus Christ Superstar - Tom O’Horgan (1971) – rock opera
o Did extremely well in London
 Pippin – included a minstrel cake walk
o Marked Bob Fosse’s return to Broadway
 Grease was the most successful rock musical in the 70s
 Black musicals in the 70s – Purlie, Raisin, and The Wiz (this one was extremely
successful)
 Rockabye Hamlet – extreme disaster and the rock musical collapsed
 Teens turned Rocky Horror into a cult classic
  Bob Fosse pulls off a director’s trifecta with awards (1972)
 Delved into Chicago next
 Dancin’ was Fosse’s last hit (no author – just dancing to hits)
 A Chorus Line became a huge hit
 Nostalgia swept the early 70s culture – revivals (denial of cultural change)
o Scrambled to find old movie stars and old hits to revamp
o Longest and most profitable was The King and I in 1977
 Many new musicals couldn’t find their footing
 Annie (1976) – good reviews and reaction
 Broadway is operating in a cultural vacuum
 Production costs are SOARING
 Evita becoming a hit – Patti LuPone!
o Ran three times longer than Sweeney Todd
 MEGA MUSICAL IS BORN
o Sung through with little dialogue
o Songs and emotions are big, loud, and bombastic
o Substance took a backseat to spectacle, lush melody, and soap opera style
sentiment
o Characterization is explained rather than dramatized: characters tell you who they
are rather than showing who they are by their actions
o Music is rock-pop but can incorporate various styles; may reflect the sound of a
particular era
o Plots are melodramatic with little humor
o All major professional productions are carbon copies
o PRODUCTION IS THE STAR

24: 1980s: “And the Wind Begins to Moan”

 AIDs hits
 42nd Street and all of the drama surrounding it – Merrick and Champion (died opening
night)
 many successful shows, but the albums did not sell well (precursor?)
 the price to keep a show on Broadway became staggering and doomed for failure – many
shows simply closed on opening night because it cost so much money and the show was
not strong
 Cats
o Based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats
o Webber
o 21 year run in London
o MARKETING AND SOUVENIERS – this show bumped up their game
o Could take children to this show
 We have the old dogs retiring because they can’t make a hit, and the new composers are
coming in ill-advised and awaiting disaster???
 Millions of dollars were being lost
  Forbidden Broadway, Nunsense, and Forever Plaid were three small scale shows that
found some success on Broadway
 Joseph never speaks of deity
 Starlight Express by Webber was a mega musical spectacular event will roller skates and
SPEED
 Les Mis is the first pop-opera??
 Michael Bennett dies in 1987 (44y.o.) from AIDs
 CARRIE IS THE MEGA MUSICAL DISASTER
 The British were back on top – Webber’s shows are pushing American shows out of their
theatre (Phantom)
 Marketing item – the Phantom’s mask
 Into the Woods released the same year
 WOW PAGE 289 – Kendrick saying that mega musicals are for dummies

Chapter 25: The 1990s: “The American Dream”

 Commercializing the 42nd Street district? Little shops being closed, national chains
coming in, theatres being reestablished
 Once on This Island (1990)
o Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens
 Theatre dying out? – less than 5% of Americans attending the theatre on a regular basis –
not a lot of new shows
 Theatre aimed at aging suburbanites, tourists, and gay men (and students!)
 Miss Saigon (1991) – from the Brits
o Great marketing
o Jonathan Pryce (white man) as the engineer…won the Tony for best actor in a
musical…
 Many failed attempts at British mega-musicals occurred
 Americans wanted something less gloomy!!!
 The Corporate Musical…
o Beauty and the Beast (1994) was the first Walt Disney production!
o A genre of shows conceived, produced, and managed by a multifunctional
entertainment corporation; shows are born in boardrooms; pop ballads!; no
need for stars
o The Lion King (1997)
o Disney ready to show Broadway a new way of doing things, even if critics
brushed the show off
 Rent (1996)
o A new beginning of musical theatre?
o Not a huge running cost…made a profit!
o Appealed to Generation X
o CD did well
 AIDs crisis was becoming better…still a death sentence, but treatments were better and
more accessible
 Hedwig!
  Chicago was revived again in 1996 – LONG RUNNING WOW!
 Cabaret in 1998 – much darker
 Frank Wildhorn gaining some notoriety
o Jekyll and Hyde
o The Scarlet’s Pimpernel
o The Civil War
o The Wild Party
 The best musical of the late 90s? (to Kenrick)…Titanic (1997)
o Won quite a few Tonys and had great reviews
 Ragtime (1998)… a corporate musical?
 Fosse (1999) was the seasons longest hit (not much competition…)
 PEOPLE WERE HUNGRY FOR HUMOR! WHAT A CONCEPT – TO LAUGH IN
THE THEATRE!

Chapter 26: The 2000s, Where Did We Go Right?

 Aida premieres in 2000, huge success from Disney

 Contact
 Full Monty
 The Producers
 Ticket prices going up
 Re-emergence of American musical comedy
 Mamma Mia begins the wave of jukebox musicals
 mega musicals going out of style (Pirate Queen), but revivals going strong of them?
 Broadway was a huge tourist attraction – that is what buys the tickets

27: The 2010s: Tourists Reign Supreme

 Tourists came back after 9/11
 Lots of violent productions (Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson, Scotsboro Boys
 Book of Mormon becomes a hit in 2011
 Spiderman is a flop, takes expenses to new heights
 The Lyric theatre – selling/renting to the highest bidder…
 Once ineligible for the score Tony because most songs were from the movie (did not
mean it didn’t win any Tonys – it actually won eight)
 jukebox musicals were still appealing to tourists, but it no longer meant instant success
 Fun Home finds success
 Hamilton proved that musical theatre can still be exciting and new