For Broadway audiences of the 1980s, the decade was perhaps most notable for the so-called "British invasion." While concept musicals such as Nine and Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George continued to be produced, several London hits came to New York. In addition to shows like Chess, Me and My Girl, and Les Miserables, the decade's most successful composer Andrew Lloyd Webber was also well represented by Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Song & Dance, and Starlight Express. There were also many revivals (such as Show Boat and Gypsy), surprise hits (The Pirates of Penzance), huge hits (42nd Street), and notorious flops (Into the Light, Carrie, and Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge). In The Complete Book of 1980s Broadway Musicals, Dan Dietz examines in detail every musical that opened on Broadway during the 1980s. In addition to including every hit and flop that debuted during the decade, this book highlights revivals and personal-appearance revues with such performers as Sid Caesar, Barry Manilow, Jackie Mason, and Shirley MacLaine. Each entry includes the following information *Opening and closing dates *Plot summaries *Cast members *Number of performances *Names of all important personnel including writers, composers, directors, choreographers, producers, and musical directors *Musical numbers and the names of performers who introduced the songs *Production data, including information about tryouts *Source material *Critical commentary *Tony awards and nominations *Details about London and other foreign productions Besides separate entries for each production, the book offers numerous appendixes, including a discography, filmography, and published scripts, as well as lists of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, black-themed shows, and Jewish-themed productions. A treasure trove of information, The Complete Book of 1980s Broadway Musicals provides readers with a comprehensive view of each show. This significant resource will be of use to scholars, historians, and casual fans of one of the greatest decades in musical theatre history.

Over the last hundred years, musical theatre artists - from Berlin to Rodgers and Hammerstein to Sondheim - have developed a form that corresponds directly to the Americanization of the increasingly Jewish New York audience; and that audience's aspirations and concerns have played out in the shows themselves. Musicals thus became a paradigm which instructed newcomers in how to assimilate while correspondingly envisioning "American Dream" America as democratic and inclusive. Broadway musicals still continue to function today as "cultural Ellis Islands" for fringe populations seeking acceptance into the nation's mainstream - including women, blacks, Latinos, and gays - all essentially modeled upon the Jewish example. Stuart J. Hecht offers a fascinatingexamination of the relationship between Jews, assimilation, and the changing face of the American musical.

Hollywood's conversion to sound in the 1920s created an early peak in the film musical following the immense success of The Jazz Singer. The opportunity to synchronize moving pictures with a soundtrack suited the musical in particular, since the heightened experience of song and dance drew attention to the novelty of the technological development. Until the near-collapse of the genre in the 1960s, the film musical enjoyed around thirty years of development, as landmarks such as The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, Singin' in the Rain, and Gigi showed the exciting possibilities of putting musicals on the silver screen. The first of three volumes, The Politics of the Musical Theatre Screen Adaptation: An Oxford Handbook traces how the genre of the stage-to-screen musical has evolved, starting with early screen adaptations such as the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie Roberta and working through to Into the Woods (2014). Many chapters examine specific screen adaptations in depth, while others deal with broad issues such as realism or the politics of the adaptation in works such as Li'l Abner and Finian's Rainbow. Together, the chapters incite lively debates about the process of adapting Broadway for the big screen and provide models for future studies. Volume I: The Politics of the Musical Theatre Screen Adaptation Volume II: Race, Sexuality, and Gender and the Musical Screen Adaptation Volume III: Stars, Studios, and the Musical Theatre Screen Adaptation

A composer of enormous musical innovation and influence, Marc Blitzstein remains one of the most versatile and fascinating figures in the history of American music, his creative works running the gamut from Broadway musicals and film scores to concert and chamber pieces. As an open homosexual and a prominent leftist, Blitzstein constantly pushed the boundaries of acceptability in mid-century America in both his music and his life. Award-winning music historian Howard Pollack's new biography is the first to put Blitzstein's music on equal footing with his politics, theatrical innovation, and other aspects of the composer's life. Pollack covers Blitzstein's life in full, from his childhood in Philadelphia to his violent death in Martinique at age 58. The author describes how this student of contemporary luminaries Arnold Schoenberg and Nadia Boulanger became swept up in the stormy political atmosphere of the 1920s and 1930s and throughout his career walked the fine line between his formal training and his populist principles in his composition. Indeed, Blitzstein developed a unique sound that drew on everything contemporary, from the high modernism of Schoenberg to swing and jazz. Pollack captures the astonishing breadth of Blitzstein's musical language-?from politically scandalous Broadway musicals like The Cradle Will Rock and No for an Answer, to the patriotic Airborne Symphony, to lesser known early pieces, film scores, and chamber works. A fearless artist, Blitzstein translated Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera during the heyday of McCarthyism and the red scare, and, with Leonard Bernstein and Lotte Lenya, turned it into an off-Broadway sensation. Beautifully written, drawing on new interviews with friends and family of the composer, and making extensive use of new archival and secondary sources, Marc Blitzstein presents the most complete biography of this quintessentially American composer.

A captivating full account of a vital, exciting, and turbulent cultural moment: the making of ground-breaking classic West Side Story (1961).A major hit on Broadway, on film West Side Story became immortal. Unforgettable songs, an urgent love story, audacious choreography in real New York locations: West Side Story was a movie different from anything that had come before, but this cinematic victory came at a price.The film's enormous budget and complicated logistics made it a difficult production, and massive overruns in both cost and schedule led to tension between co-directors Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. The result was Robbins being fired midway through the filming, a termination devastating to the film's star, Natalie Wood, who was also shattered upon discovering that she would not be permitted to do her own singing.Over nearly six decades, West Side Story has endured, past its off-screen dramas, as a classic. What other film makes such intrinsically powerful and brilliant use of dance? How many have been so emotionally meaningful, as set to Leonard Bernstein's music and Stephen Sondheim's lyrics? Plus, given its Shakespearean roots (Romeo and Juliet), how often is any film -- let alone a musical -- so simultaneously timeless and current? Small wonder that the film continues to be a favorite.The production and impact of this classic have been recounted, so far, only in vestiges. As written by film historian Richard Barrios, this book is a captivating account of a crucial and exciting cultural moment. West Side Story was a triumph that appeared to be very much of its time; over the years, and especially in this text, it has shown itself to be eternal.

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.

Armed with an eighth-grade education, an inexhaustible imagination, and an innate talent for dancing, Hermes Pan (1909-1990) was a boy from Tennessee who became the most prolific, popular, and memorable choreographer of the glory days of the Hollywood musical. While he may be most well-known for the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals which he choreographed at RKO film studios, he also created dances at Twentieth Century-Fox, M-G-M, Paramount, and later for television, winning both the Oscar and the Emmy for best choreography.
In Hermes Pan: The Man Who Danced with Fred Astaire, Pan emerges as a man in full, an artist inseparable from his works. He was a choreographer deeply interested in his dancers' personalities, and his dances became his way of embracing and understanding the outside world. Though his time in a Trappist monastery proved to him that he was more suited to choreography than to life as a monk, Pan remained a deeply devout Roman Catholic throughout his creative life, a person firmly convinced of the powers of prayer. While he was rarely to be seen without several beautiful women at his side, it was no secret that Pan was homosexual and even had a life partner. As Pan worked at the nexus of the cinema industry's creative circles during the golden age of the film musical, this book traces not only Pan's personal life but also the history of the Hollywood musical itself. It is a study of Pan, who emerges here as a benevolent perfectionist, and equally of the stars, composers, and directors with whom he worked, from Astaire and Rogers to Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Elizabeth Taylor, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Bob Fosse, George Gershwin, Samuel Goldwyn, and countless other luminaries of American popular entertainment.
Author John Franceschina bases his telling of Pan's life on extensive first-hand research into Pan's unpublished correspondence and his own interviews. Pan enjoyed one of the most illustrious careers of any Hollywood dance director, and because his work also spanned across Broadway and television, this book will appeal to readers interested in musical theater history, dance history, and film.

This Critical Companion to the American Stage Musical provides the perfect introductory text for students of theatre, music and cultural studies. It traces the history and development of the industry and art form in America with a particular focus on its artistic and commercial development in New York City from the early 20th century to the present. Emphasis is placed on commercial, artistic and cultural events that influenced the Broadway musical for an ever-renewing, increasingly broad and diverse audience: the Gilded Age, the Great Depression, the World War II era, the British invasion in the 1980s and the media age at the turn of the twenty-first century. Supplementary essays by leading scholars provide detailed focus on the American musical's production and preservation, as well as its influence on daily life on the local, national, and international levels. For students, these essays provide models of varying approaches and interpretation, equipping them with the skills and understanding to develop their own analysis of key productions.

From The Lion King to Moose Murders and from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, celebrate the Drama Desk Award-winning artwork of Frank "Fraver" Verlizzo with more than 250 of his theatre poster designs from Broadway, Off-Broadway, and around the globe. For the first time in his five-decade career, this monograph collection will take you behind-the-scenes into the world of theatrical advertising through a rare look at 40 unpublished poster sketches for some of Broadway's favorite shows, hilarious career anecdotes, and commentary from theatre icons, including Bernadette Peters, Dean Pitchford, and Jack Viertel. More than 20 of Fraver's poster designs for the works of Stephen Sondheim are spotlighted, as well as those created for Rodgers & Hammerstein, The Kennedy Center, and New York City Center's Encores! series. This is the perfect collection for students and fans of the theatre, graphic design and advertising, and the arts in general.

One legacy of the 1960s sexual revolution was the "adult" musical of the 1970s. Adult musicals distinguished themselves from other types of musicals in their reliance on strong sexual content, frequent nudity, and simulated sexual activity. Cheap to produce, adult musicals proliferated in New York's theatres at a time when the city was teetering toward bankruptcy and tourism was sharply declining. Influenced by the overwhelming success in 1968 of "Hair"-the first Broadway musical to feature nudity-as well as by a series of legal rulings about the nature of obscenity, adult musicals became faddish in part because they allowed theatre producers to attract audiences at a time of economic crisis while simultaneously slashing budgets typically allotted for scenery, props and, of course, costumes. Typically structured like old-fashioned revues, with thematically interconnected songs and skits, adult musicals like "Stag Movie," "Let My People Come," "The Faggot," and the long-running "Oh! Calcutta!" were reviled by theatre critics, who tended to dismiss them as either going too far in the direction of hard-core pornography or, conversely, of not being erotic enough. But critics, who could typically close a show with a single scathing review, were no match for the public appetite for sex and even the shows that got the worst reviews usually made money. Adult musicals disappeared almost entirely by the early 1980s, as the city's economy improved and the country grew more socio-politically conservative, and they have since been dismissed by writers and critics as a silly fad befitting a silly decade. Author Elizabeth Wollman finds a much richer story in adult musicals, illustrating how they both drew from and reflected aspects of American culture at a particularly tumultuous time: the country's rapidly changing sexual mores, the women's and gay liberation movements, New York City's socioeconomic status, and contemporary debates on the relationship between art and obscenity. She argues that because of their middlebrow appeal and their concentration in a city that experienced the 1970s in especially turbulent ways, adult musicals represent aspects of 1970s American culture at their messiest and most confused, and thus, perhaps, at their most honest.

Musical comedy

Based on the story by James Thurber

Characters: 5 male, 6 female, and as many extras as desired.

Scenery: Various simple sets (or one basic set).

On his fortieth birthday Walter Mitty reflects on his drab, ordinary life. Defeated in his quest for wealth and glory by family responsibilities, a mortgage, and a routine job, he creates elaborate fantasies in which he is the hero. His secret world is so enticing that he often loses sight of the boundary between dream and reality and comically slips into his imagination. An attractive would be chanteuse aptly named Willa de Wisp encourages Walter to leave his wife, shed the burdens of suburban living and really live the secret life. Unfortunately it is as unattainable as it is appealing. At the end of the play Walter discovers that he is happily committed to the real world.

"A thoroughly pleasant musical evening."-- Time.

During the Twenties, the Great White Way roared with nearly 300 book musicals. Luminaries who wrote for Broadway during this decade included Irving Berlin, George M. Cohan, Rudolf Friml, George Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein II, Lorenz Hart, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Sigmund Romberg, and Vincent Youmans, and the era's stars included Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Ruby Keeler, and Marilyn Miller. Light-hearted Cinderella musicals dominated these years with such hits as Kern's long-running Sally, along with romantic operettas that dealt with princes and princesses in disguise. Plots about bootleggers and Prohibition abounded, but there were also serious musicals, including Kern and Hammerstein's masterpiece Show Boat. In The Complete Book of 1920s Broadway Musicals, Dan Dietz examines in detail every book musical that opened on Broadway during the years 1920-1929. The book discusses the era's major successes as well as its forgotten failures. The hits include A Connecticut Yankee; Hit the Deck!; No, No, Nanette; Rose-Marie; Show Boat; The Student Prince; The Vagabond King; and Whoopee, as well as ambitious failures, including Deep River; Rainbow; and Rodgers' daring Chee-Chee. Each entry contains the following information: *Plot summary *Cast members *Names of creative personnel, including book writers, lyricists, composers, directors, choreographers, producers, and musical directors *Opening and closing dates *Number of performances *Plot summary *Critical commentary *Musical numbers and names of the performers who introduced the songs *Production data, including information about tryouts *Source material *Details about London productions Besides separate entries for each production, the book offers numerous appendixes, including ones which cover other shows produced during the decade (revues, plays with music, miscellaneous musical presentations, and a selected list of pre-Broadway closings). Other appendixes include a discography, filmography, a list of published scripts, and a list of black-themed musicals. This book contains a wealth of information and provides a comprehensive view of each show. The Complete Book of 1920s Broadway Musicals will be of use to scholars, historians, and casual fans of one of the greatest decades in the history of musical theatre.

Paris and the Musical explores how the famous city has been portrayed on stage and screen, investigates why the city has been of such importance to the genre and tracks how it has developed as a trope over the 20th and 21st centuries. From global hits An American in Paris, Gigi, Les Miserables, Moulin Rouge! and The Phantom of the Opera to the less widely-known Bless the Bride, Can-Can, Irma la Douce and Marguerite, the French capital is a central character in an astounding number of Broadway, Hollywood and West End musicals. This collection of 18 essays combines cultural studies, sociology, musicology, art and adaptation theory, and gender studies to examine the envisioning and dramatisation of Paris, and its depiction as a place of romance, hedonism and libertinism or as 'the capital of the arts'. The interdisciplinary nature of this collection renders it as a fascinating resource for a wide range of courses; it will be especially valuable for students and scholars of Musical Theatre and those interested in Theatre and Film History more generally.

When Lady in the Dark opened on January 23, 1941, its many firsts immediately distinguished it as a new and unusual work. The curious directive to playwright Moss Hart to complete a play about psychoanalysis came from his own Freudian psychiatrist. For the first time since his brother George's death, Ira Gershwin returned to writing lyrics for the theater. And for emigre composer Kurt Weill, it was a crack at an opulent first-class production. Together Hart, Gershwin, and Weill (with a little help from the psychiatrist) produced one of the most innovative works in Broadway history.
Though Lady in the Dark was a smash-hit, it has never enjoyed a Broadway revival, and a certain mystique has grown up around its legendary original production. In this ground-breaking biography, bruce mcclung pieces together the musical's life story from sketches and drafts, production scripts, correspondence, photographs, costume and set designs, and thousands of clippings from the star's personal scrapbooks. He has interviewed eleven members of the original company to provide a one-of-a-kind glimpse into the backstage story.

Angela Lansbury faced a serious challenge when she was auditioning for the title role in Mame. "I don't know how to sing except in the role. I never knew how to do exercises and I don't to this day. I just stand up and sing," she recalls looking back over half a lifetime. "But there were several people who helped me build my voice and when it came to Mame, and the songs I got to sing, they were natural for me." The part was a perfect fit-and it made her a Broadway superstar. In Nothing Like a Dame, theater journalist Eddie Shapiro opens a jewelry box full of glittering surprises, through in-depth conversations with twenty leading women of Broadway. He carefully selected Tony Award-winning stars who have spent the majority of their careers in theater, leaving aside those who have moved on or occasionally drop back in. The women he interviewed spent endless hours with him, discussing their careers, offering insights into the iconic shows, changes on Broadway over the last century, and the art (and thrill) of taking the stage night after night. Chita Rivera describes the experience of starring in musicals in each of the last seven decades; Audra McDonald gives her thoughts on the work that went into the five Tony Awards she won before turning forty-one; and Carol Channing reflects on how she has revisited the same starring role generation after generation, and its effects on her career. Here too is Sutton Foster, who contemplates her breakout success in an age when stars working exclusively in theater are increasingly rare. Each of these conversations is guided by Shapiro's expert knowledge of these women's careers, Broadway lore, and the details of famous (and infamous) musicals. He also includes dozens of photographs of these players in their best-known roles. This fascinating collection reveals the artistic genius and human experience of the women who have made Broadway musicals more popular than ever-a must for anyone who loves the theater.

While most discussions of race in American theater emphasize the representation of race mainly in terms of character, plot, and action, Race in American Musical Theater highlights elements of theatrical production and reception that are particular to musical theater. Examining how race functions through the recurrence of particular racial stereotypes and storylines, this introductory volume also looks at casting practices, the history of the chorus line, and the popularity of recent shows such as Hamilton. Moving from key examples such as Show Boat! and South Pacific through to all-Black musicals such as Dreamgirls, Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk, and Jelly’s Last Jam, this concise study serves as a critical survey of how race is presented in the American musical theater canon. Providing readers with historical background, a range of case studies and models of critical analysis, this foundational book prompts questions from how stereotypes persist to “who tells your story?”

In The Ultimate Musical Theatre College Audition Guide, author, acting teacher, and musical theatre program director Amy Rogers offers an honest, no-nonsense guide to the musical theatre audition. Written for high school students and their parents, teachers, and mentors, the book demystifies what can be an overwhelming process with step-by-step explanations of audition checkpoints to answer every student's question, "where do I begin?" Chapters explore degree types, summer programs and intensives, audition coaches, what to sing, what to wear, headshots, how to prepare your monologue, the dance call, the university and program applications, prescreens, on-campus auditions, Unifides, resumes, acceptances/waitlists/rejections, and more. The book also includes advice from over 10 top-tier program directors and faculty, as well as examples from students, parents, and experts currently working on Broadway. Written with compassion, experience, and a love of the industry, Rogers' essential all-in-one guide is guaranteed to prevent surprise throughout the audition process.

(Applause Libretto Library). This 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical was inspired by the painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. A complex work revolving around a fictionalized Seurat immersed in single-minded concentration while painting the masterpiece, the production has evolved into a meditation on art, emotional connection, and community. This publication contains the entire script of the musical. " Sunday is itself a modernist creation, perhaps the first truly modernist work of musical theatre that Broadway has produced ... a watershed event that demands nothing less than a retrospective, even revisionist, look at the development of the serious Broadway musical." Frank Rich, The New York Times Magazine

Wicked is not just a musical, it is a phenomenon. Every week, 15,000 people pack New York's Gershwin Theatre to see the show. The most successful musical on Broadway in 2004, Wicked is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire. It tells the story of Elphaba, the headstrong Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda, the good witch, growing up in the Land of Oz. The show has cast a spell on fans, many of whom return for second and third viewings. In 2005, the show begins an extensive tour across the United States and Canada, hitting major cities such as Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and many more. This beautifully packaged, whimsical keepsake is designed to resemble the Grimmerie, an ancient book of spells that Elphaba uses in the show. Wicked: The Grimmerie offers fans a behind-the-curtains peek at the musical, profiles of the cast and creative team, and inside stories, with full-color photographs throughout. Some of the irresistible special features include an "Ozian" glossary, spells, an illustrated family tree, and a step-by-step look at how Elphaba gets green before each show--everything fans need to relive the Broadway experience day after day.

This is a unique study of the film musical, a global cinema tradition. The musical is one of cinema's few genuinely international genres but it has never been studied as a global sensation. This book fills this critical gap in film studies as it brings together musicals from 15 nations in order to highlight running themes. Musicals are often studied as part of distinct national traditions that are interpreted as native. However this anthology will dispute previous approaches to reveal the influence of the Hollywood model in musicals from around the world. It includes lists of key resources for additional information. It ends with a coda by Rick Altman, one of the genre's most prominent scholars. It provides case studies that include Great Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Greece, Russia, Spain, Italy, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, China, India, Egypt, Turkey. Coverage includes Mambo Girl (1957), Sing As We Go (1934), It's the End of the Song (1930), Downward Slope (1934), The Broadway Melody (1929), The Hole (1997), Joyful Beginning (1955), and, The Heart is Crazy (1997).

From his early work as lyricist for West Side Story to acclaimed creations such as A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George, and Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim is widely regarded as the most important figure in musical theater since the second half of the 20th century. Who better to discuss this prolific artist's work than the master himself? Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions is a collection of interviews conducted by Mark Eden Horowitz, senior music specialist in the music division of the Library of Congress. In these guided conversations, Sondheim expounds in great depth and detail on his craft. As a natural teacher, thoughtful and opinionated, Sondheim discusses the art of musical composition, lyric writing, the collaborative process of musical theater, and how he thinks about his own work. The entire scope of Sondheim's career is covered here, in which Sondheim's greatest works are discussed-from Passion, Assassins, Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd, and Pacific Overtures to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Merrily We Roll Along, Company, Follies, Anyone Can Whistle, and A Little Night Music. Sondheim even provides thoughts about the film adaptations of his works, such as Sweeney Todd. The book also features an entire chapter on Bounce, the previous incarnation of his latest musical, Road Show. Preserving the essential elements of the previous volumes, this edition includes all of the interviews-verbatim-and features a revised introduction and a postlude with an additional conversation. Finally in paperback, Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions, The Less Is More Edition is a must-have for fans of these creative genius.

detailed timetables set out flexible templates for the directing process 'how-to' exercises cover all of the key skills that a director will need abundant examples from classic and contemporary productions covers both the fundamentals of directing and the specific requirements of the musical offers cues and prompts to creative thinking from conception to realization invaluable advice on collaborating with cast, colleagues and crew