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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Theatre, drama > Musical theatre
The American Song Book, Volume I: The Tin Pan Alley Era is the
first in a projected five-volume series of books that will reprint
original sheet music, including covers, of songs that constitute
the enduring standards of Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, the
Gershwins, and other lyricists and composers of what has been
called the "Golden Age" of American popular music. These songs have
done what popular songs are not supposed to do-stayed popular. They
have been reinterpreted year after year, generation after
generation, by jazz artists such as Charlie Parker and Art Tatum,
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. In the 1950s, Frank Sinatra
began recording albums of these standards and was soon followed by
such singers as Tony Bennet, Doris Day, Willie Nelson, and Linda
Ronstadt. In more recent years, these songs have been reinterpreted
by Rod Stewart, Harry Connick, Jr., Carly Simon, Lady GaGa, K.D.
Laing, Paul McCartney, and, most recently, Bob Dylan. As such,
these songs constitute the closest thing America has to a repertory
of enduring classical music. In addition to reprinting the sheet
music for these classic songs, authors Philip Furia and Laurie
Patterson place these songs in historical context with essays about
the sheet-music publishing industry known as Tin Pan Alley, the
emergence of American musical comedy on Broadway, and the "talkie"
revolution that made possible the Hollywood musical. The authors
also provide biographical sketches of songwriters, performers, and
impresarios such as Florenz Ziegfeld. In addition, they analyze the
lyrical and musical artistry of each song and relate anecdotes,
sometimes amusing, sometimes poignant, about how the songs were
created. The American Songbook is a book that can be read for
enjoyment on its own or be propped on the piano to be played and
sung.
The Oxford Handbook of The American Musical offers new and
cutting-edge essays on the most important and compelling issues and
topics in the growing, interdisciplinary field of musical-theater
and film-musical studies. Taking the form of a "keywords" book, it
introduces readers to the concepts and terms that define the
history of the musical as a genre and that offer ways to reflect on
the specific creative choices that shape musicals and their
performance on stage and screen. The handbook offers a
cross-section of essays written by leading experts in the field,
organized within broad conceptual groups, which together capture
the breadth, direction, and tone of musicals studies today.
Each essay traces the genealogy of the term or issue it addresses,
including related issues and controversies, positions and
problematizes those issues within larger bodies of scholarship, and
provides specific examples drawn from shows and films. Essays both
re-examine traditional topics and introduce underexplored areas.
Reflecting the concerns of scholars and students alike, the authors
emphasize critical and accessible perspectives, and supplement
theory with concrete examples that may be accessed through links to
the handbook's website.
Taking into account issues of composition, performance, and
reception, the book's contributors bring a wide range of practical
and theoretical perspectives to bear on their considerations of one
of America's most lively, enduring artistic traditions. The Oxford
Handbook of The AmericanMusical will engage all readers interested
in the form, from students to scholars to fans and aficionados, as
it analyses the complex relationships among the creators,
performers, and audiences who sustain the genre.
Hailed as "absolutely the best reference book on its subject" by
Newsweek, American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle covers more than
250 years of musical theatre in the United States, from a 1735
South Carolina production of Flora, or Hob in the Well to The
Addams Family in 2010. Authors Gerald Bordman and Richard Norton
write an engaging narrative blending history, critical analysis,
and lively description to illustrate the transformation of American
musical theatre through such incarnations as the ballad opera,
revue, Golden Age musical, rock musical, Disney musical, and, with
2010's American Idiot, even the punk musical.
The Chronicle is arranged chronologically and is fully indexed
according to names of shows, songs, and people involved, for easy
searching and browsing. Chapters range from the "Prologue," which
traces the origins of American musical theater to 1866, through
several "intermissions" (for instance, "Broadway's Response to the
Swing Era, 1937-1942") and up to "Act Seven," the theatre of the
twenty-first century. This last chapter covers the dramatic changes
in musical theatre since the last edition published-whereas Fosse,
a choreography-heavy revue, won the 1999 Tony for Best Musical, the
2008 award went to In the Heights, which combines hip-hop, rap,
meringue and salsa unlike any musical before it. Other
groundbreaking and/or box-office-breaking shows covered for the
first time include Avenue Q, The Producers, Billy Elliot, Jersey
Boys, Monty Python's Spamalot, Wicked, Hairspray, Urinetown the
Musical, and Spring Awakening.
Discussion of these shows incorporates plot synopses, names of
principal players, descriptions of scenery and costumes, and
critical reactions. In addition, short biographies interspersed
throughout the text colorfully depict the creative minds that
shaped the most influential musicals. Collectively, these elements
create the most comprehensive, authoritative history of musical
theatre in this country and make this an essential resource for
students, scholars, performers, dramaturges, and musical
enthusiasts.
Theater music directors must draw on a remarkably broad range of
musical skills. Not only do they conduct during rehearsals and
performances, but they must also be adept arrangers, choral
directors, vocal coaches, and accompanists. Like a record producer,
the successful music director must have the flexibility to adjust
as needed to a multifaceted job description, one which changes with
each production and often with each performer. In Music Direction
for the Stage, veteran music director and instructor Joseph Church
demystifies the job in a book that offers aspiring and practicing
music directors the practical tips and instruction they need in
order to mount a successful musical production. Church, one of
Broadway's foremost music directors, emerges from the orchestra pit
to tell how the music is put into a musical show. He gives
particular attention to the music itself, explaining how a music
director can best plan the task of learning, analyzing, and
teaching each new piece. Based on his years of professional
experience, he offers a practical discussion of a music director's
methods of analyzing, learning, and practicing a score, thoroughly
illustrated by examples from the repertoire. The book also
describes how a music director can effectively approach dramatic
and choreographic rehearsals, including key tips on cueing music to
dialogue and staging, determining incidental music and
underscoring, making musical adjustments and revisions in
rehearsal, and adjusting style and tempo to performers' needs. A
key theme of the book is effective collaboration with other
professionals, from the production team to the creative team to the
performers themselves, all grounded in Church's real-world
experience with professional, amateur, and even student
performances. He concludes with a look at music direction as a
career, offering invaluable advice on how the enterprising music
director can find work and gain standing in the field.
"Over the Rainbow" exploded into worldwide fame upon its
performance by Judy Garland in the MGM film musical The Wizard of
Oz (1939). Voted the greatest song of the twentieth century in a
2000 survey, it is a masterful, delicate balance of sophistication
and child-like simplicity in which composer Harold Arlen and
lyricist E. Y. "Yip" Harburg poignantly captured the hope and
anxiety harbored by Dorothy's character. In Arlen and Harburg's
Over the Rainbow, author Walter Frisch traces the history of this
song from its inception during the development of The Wizard of
Oz's screenplay, to its various reinterpretations over the course
of the twentieth century. Through analysis of the song's music and
lyrics, this Oxford Keynotes volume provides a close reading of the
piece while examining the evolution of its meaning as it traversed
widely varying cultural contexts. From its adoption as a jazz
standard by generations of pianists, to its contribution to Judy
Garland's role as a gay icon, to its reemergence as a chart-topping
recording by Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, "Over the
Rainbow" continues to engage audiences and performers alike in
surprising ways. Featuring a companion website with audio and video
supplements, this book leaves no path unexplored as it succeeds in
capturing the extent of this song's impact on the world.
First published in 2007, "Oklahoma!": The Making of an American
Musical tells the full story of the beloved Rodgers and Hammerstein
musical. Author Tim Carter examines archival materials,
manuscripts, and journalism, and the lofty aspirations and
mythmaking that surrounded the musical from its very inception. The
book made for a watershed moment in the study of the American
musical: the first well-researched, serious musical analysis of
this landmark show by a musicologist, it was also one of the first
biographies of a musical, transforming a field that had previously
tended to orient itself around creators rather than creations. In
this new and fully revised edition, Carter draws further on
recently released sources, including the Rouben Mamoulian Papers at
the Library of Congress, with additional correspondence, contracts,
and even new versions of the working script used - and annotated -
throughout the show's rehearsal process. Carter also focuses on the
key players and concepts behind the musical, including the original
play on which it was based (Lynn Riggs's Green Grow the Lilacs) and
the Theatre Guild's Theresa Helburn and Lawrence Langner, who
fatefully brought Rodgers and Hammerstein together for their first
collaboration. The crucial new perspectives these revisions and
additions provide make this edition of Carter's seminal work a
compulsory purchase for all teachers, students, and lovers of
musical theater.
In Strategies for Success in Musical Theatre, veteran musical
director and teacher Herbert Marshall provides an essential how-to
guide for teachers or community members who find themselves in
charge of music directing a show. Stepping off the podium, Marshall
offers practical and often humorous real-world advice on managing
auditions; organizing rehearsals; working with a choir,
choreographer, and leads; how to run a sitzprobe, a technical
rehearsal, and a dress rehearsal; how to manage the cast and crew
energy for a successful opening night; and ways to end the
experience on a high note for all involved. Throughout the book,
Marshall emphasizes the importance of learning through performance
and the beauty of a group united in a common goal. In doing so, he
turns what can appear as a never-ending list of tasks and demand
for specialized knowledge into a manageable, educational, and
ultimately engaging and fun experience for all. Because the
techniques in Marshall's book have been thoroughly workshopped and
classroom tested, they are based in proven pedagogy and will be of
particular use for the music director in acting as a teaching
director: someone imparting theatrical knowledge to his or her cast
and production staff. Marshall provides both extended and
abbreviated timelines, flexible to fit any director's needs.
Marshall's book is a greatly beneficial resource for music
education students and teachers alike, giving an insightful glimpse
into the range of possibilities within a music educator's career.
Musicians and actors with varying levels of skill and experience
will be able to grow simultaneously through Marshall's innovative
teaching plans. Through collaborative techniques, steps in the book
serve to educate both director and student. Thoroughly illustrated
with charts, diagrams, and scores, Strategies for Success in
Musical Theatre is an ideal companion for all who work with school
and community based musical theater productions.
Gestures of Music Theater: The Performativity of Song and Dance
offers new cutting edge essays focusing on Song and Dance as
performative gestures that not only entertain but also act on
audiences and performers. The chapters range across musical
theatre, opera, theatre and other artistic practices, from Glee to
Gardzienice, Beckett to Disney, Broadway to Turner Prize winning
sound installation. The chapters draw together these diverse
examples of vocality and physicality by exploring their affect
rather than through considering them as texts. This book considers
performativity in relation to Dramaturgy, Transition, Identity,
Context, Practice, Community and finally, Writing. The book reveals
how the texture of music theatre, containing as it does the
gestures of song and dance, is performative in dense, interwoven,
dialogical and paradoxical ways, partly caused by the intertextual
and interdisciplinary energies of its make-up, partly by its active
dynamism in performance. The book's contributors derive
methodologies from many disciplines, seeking in many ways to resist
and explode discrete discipline-based enquiry. They share
methodologies and performance repertoires with discipline-based
scholarship from theatre studies, musicology and cultural studies,
but there are many other approaches and case studies which we also
embrace. Together, they view these as neighboring voices whose
dialogue enriches the study of contemporary music theatre.
'Stand. Breathe. Look. Try to empty my mind. Somehow, for some
reason, I have been brought to this place to tell this story, now.
So tell it. That's all.' When Lin-Manuel Miranda's groundbreaking
musical Hamilton opened in London's West End in December 2017, it
was as huge a hit as it had been in its original production off-
and on Broadway. Lauded by critics and audiences alike, the show
would go on to win a record-equalling seven Olivier Awards -
including Best Actor in a Musical for Giles Terera, for his
portrayal of Aaron Burr. For Terera, though, his journey as Burr
had begun more than a year earlier, with his first audition in New
York, and continuing through extensive research and preparation,
intense rehearsals, previews and finally opening night itself.
Throughout this time he kept a journal, recording his experiences
of the production and his process of creating his award-winning
performance. This book, Hamilton and Me, is that journal. It offers
an honest, intimate and thrilling look at everything involved in
opening a once-in-a-generation production - the triumphs,
breakthroughs and doubts, the camaraderie of the rehearsal room and
the moments of quiet backstage contemplation - as well as a
fascinating, in-depth exploration of now-iconic songs and moments
from the musical, as seen from the inside. It is also deeply
personal, as Terera reflects on experiences from his own life that
he drew on to help shape his acclaimed portrayal. Illustrated with
dozens of colour photographs, many of which are shared here for the
first time, and featuring an exclusive Foreword by Lin-Manuel
Miranda, this book is an essential read for all fans of Hamilton -
offering fresh, first-hand insights into the music and characters
they love and know so well - as well as for aspiring and current
performers, students, and anyone who wants to discover what it
really felt like to be in the room where it happened. Hamilton and
Me was featured as Book of Week on BBC Radio 4 in August 2021.
For centuries, Arthurian legend has captured imaginations
throughout Europe and the Americas with its tales of Camelot,
romance, and chivalry. The ever-shifting, age-old tale of King
Arthur and his world is one which depends on retellings for its
endurance in the cultural imagination. Using adaptation theory as a
framework, From Camelot to Spamalot foregrounds the role of music
in selected Arthurian adaptations, examining six stage and film
musicals. The book considers how musical versions in twentieth and
twenty-first century popular culture interpret the legend of King
Arthur, contending that music guides the audience to understand
this well-known tale and its characters in new and unexpected ways.
All of the productions considered include an overtly modern
perspective on the legend, intruding and even commenting on the
tale of King Arthur. Shifting from an idealistic utopia to a silly
place, the myriad notions of Camelot offer a look at the importance
of myth in American popular culture. Author Megan Woller's
approach, rooted in the literary theory of scholars like Linda
Hutcheon, highlights the intertextual connections between chosen
works and Arthurian legend. In so doing, From Camelot to Spamalot
intersects with and provides a timely contribution to several
different fields of study, from adaptation studies and musical
theater studies to film studies and Arthurian studies.
Adamo is the greatest composer of musicals ever but despite
intensive investigations, his/her identity remains unknown.
Royalties of more than a billion pounds have amassed over the
years. Adamo composes a final musical about the world's youth in
revolt and promises to reveal his/her identity. The world's youth
identify with the musical "One for a heartbeat, One for Eternity",
and from countries far and wide they petition the United Nations
for a symbolic holding of hands despite ideological differences.
The Adamo enigma is the catalyst for people from diverse
backgrounds, from the very cradle of humankind in faraway Swaziland
to the sophisticated Western cultures, to be drawn into the
fascinating intrigue. Inextricably Merri Fencham from South Africa,
Pierre Villeyand - the scion of a French dynasty and famous
conductor, sangoma Vusi Dlamini - a Swazi royal prince, and others
are drawn into the web of intrigue. And overall, the ancient
influences of the ancestors, the "Toothless Ones", confound Western
stereotypes.... The drive of destiny cannot be denied as the
ancient wisdom of Africa and modern technology meld into an
awe-inspiring finale at the Royal Albert Theatre.
Musical theatre is often perceived as either a Broadway based art
form, or as having separate histories in London and New York.
Musical Theatre Histories: Expanding the Narrative, however,
depicts the musical as neither American nor British, but both and
more, having grown out of frequent and substantial interactions
between both centres (and beyond). Through multiple thematic
'histories', Millie Taylor and Adam Rush take readers on a series
of journeys that include the art form's European and American
origins, African American influences, negotiations arounddiversity,
national identity, and the globalisation of the form, as well as
revival culture, censorship and the place of social media in the
21st century. Each chapter includes case studies and key concept
boxes to identify, explain and contextualise important discussions,
offering an accessible study of a dynamic and ever evolving medium.
Written and developed for undergraduate students, this introductory
textbook provides a newly focused and alternative way of
understanding musical theatre history.
Like many national cinemas, the French cinema has a rich tradition
of film musicals beginning with the advent of sound to the present.
This is the first book to chart the development of the French film
musical. The French film musical is remarkable for its breadth and
variety since the 1930s; although it flirts with the Hollywood
musical in the 1930s and again in the 1950s, it has very
distinctive forms rooted in the traditions of French chanson.
Defining it broadly as films attracting audiences principally
because of musical performances, often by well-known singers, Phil
Powrie and Marie Cadalanu show how the genre absorbs two very
different traditions with the advent of sound: European operetta
and French chanson inflected by American jazz (1930-1950). As the
genre matures, operetta develops into big-budget spectaculars with
popular tenors, and revue films also showcase major singers in this
period (1940-1960). Both sub-genres collapse with the advent of
rock n roll, leading to a period of experimentation during the New
Wave (1960-1990). The contemporary period since 1995 renews the
genre, returning nostalgically both to the genre's origins in the
1930s, and to the musicals of Jacques Demy, but also hybridising
with other genres, such as the biopic and the documentary.
Dramaturgy is at the heart of any musical theatre score, proving
that song and music combined can collectively act as drama. The
Musical Theatre Composer as Dramatist: A Handbook for Collaboration
offers techniques for approaching a musical with the drama at the
centre of the music. Written by a working composer of British
musical theatre, this original and highly practical book is
intended for composers, students of musical theatre and performing
arts and their collaborators. Through detailed case studies,
conceptual frameworks and frank analysis, this book encourages the
collaboration between the languages of music and drama. It offers a
shared language for talking about music in the creation of musical
theatre, as well as practical exercises for both composers and
their collaborators and ways of analysing existing musical theatre
scores for those who are versed in musical terminology, and those
who are not. Speaking directly to the contemporary artist, working
examples are drawn from a wide range of musicals throughout Part
One, before a full case study analysis of Matilda the Musical
brings all the ideas together in Part Two. Part Three offers a
range of practical exercises for anyone creating new musicals,
particularly composers and their collaborators.
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