The innovative new musical that won the 2008 Tony Award for Best Book and is soon to be a Spike Lee film.TH Smashes Broadway clich (c)s with an electric guitar and the funniest libretto I can remember. a ENew YorkETHPassing Strange was nominated for 7 Tony Awards and won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and Drama Desk Award for Best Musical.

The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume, and Music studies the complex impact of movements, costumes, words, scenes, music, and special effects in English illusionistic theatre of the Renaissance. Drawing on a massive amount of documentary evidence relating to English productions as well as spectacle in France, Italy, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire, the book elucidates professional ballet, theatre management, and dramatic performance at the early Stuart court. Individual studies take a fresh look at works by Ben Jonson, Samuel Daniel, Thomas Carew, John Milton, William Davenant, and others, showing how court poets collaborated with tailors, designers, technicians, choreographers, and aristocratic as well as professional performers to create a dazzling event. Based on extensive archival research on the households of Queen Anne and Queen Henrietta Maria, special chapters highlight the artistic and financial control of Stuart queens over their masques and pastorals. Many plates and figures from German, Austrian, French, and English archives illustrate accessibly-written introductions to costume conventions, early dance styles, male and female performers, the dramatic symbolism of colors, and stage design in performance. With splendid costumes and choreographies, masques once appealed to the five senses. A tribute to their colorful brilliance, this book seeks to recover a lost dimension of performance culture in early modern England.

Alternatives to grand opera and the popular musical can be traced back through the modernist experiments of the 60s, the Broadway and off-Broadway theater operas of the 30s and 40s, to early Stravinsky and Kurt Weill, and at least as far as the 1912 premiere of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. Yet this ongoing history has never been properly sorted out, its complex ideas and philosophy as well as musical and theatrical achievements never brought fully to light. The New Music Theater is the first comprehensive attempt in English to cover this still-emerging art form in its widest range. Written for the reader who comes from the contemporary worlds of music, theater, film, literature and visual arts, this book provides a wealth of examples and descriptions not only of the works themselves, but of the concepts, ideas and trends that have gone into the evolution of what may be the most central performance art form of the post-modern world. Authors Salzman and Desi consider the subject of music theatre from a social as well as artistic point of view, exploring how theater works in culture, and how music works in the theater. In the first part of the book, they treat the origins of theater itself, putting forth insightful discussions about the relationship between language and music, song and speech, story-telling and expression, theatrical movement and dance. Their exploration then moves into the crucial relationships between high art forms and popular culture, and between entertainment and instruction. The authors proceed in the book's second part to the forms that music theater has taken from ancient times to the present day, investigating its gradual transformations from popular theater to more structured high art forms, to the eclectic mixture of forms which flourish today. This brings the reader into the third part, in which Salzman and Deszy trace the contemporary music theater renaissance from the cubist, dadaist, and futurist experiments of the 20s and 30s to the inter-arts movements of the 50s and 60s. Here they survey the increasingly pervasive impact of media and technology and the influence of jazz, pop, and world beat on new theatre forms and styles of today. This section also features a special section on vocal style and language, and extended vocal techniques. The final and fourth part of the book assesses the present state of music theater. Illuminating their discussion with illustrations from current artists and their works, the authors sum up what we have learned, and respond to such questions as: How does music work in theater? What does it mean when people get up on stage and sing instead of speak? And how much of this is universal? Through this process, The New Music Theater both describes where we have been and points the way to the future of this all-encompassing art form.

It was as if American television audiences discovered the musical in the early 21st century. In 2009 Glee took the Fox Network and American television by storm with the unexpected unification of primetime programming, awkward teens, and powerful voices spontaneously bursting into song. After raking in the highest rating for a new show in the 2009-2010 season, Glee would continue to cultivate rabid fans, tie-in soundtracks and merchandising, and a spinoff reality competition show until its conclusion in 2015. Alongside Glee, NBC and Fox would crank up musical visibility with the nighttime drama Smash and a string of live musical productions. Then came ABC's comedic fantasy musical series Galavant and the CW's surprise Golden Globe darling Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Television and the musical appeared to be a perfect match. But, as author Kelly Kessler illustrates, television had at that point been carrying on a sixty-year, symbiotic love affair with the musical. From Rodgers and Hammerstein's appearance on the first Toast of the Town telecast and Mary Martin's iconic Peter Pan airings to Barbra Streisand's 1960s CBS specials, The Carol Burnett Show, Cop Rock, Great Performances, and a string of one-off musical episodes of sitcoms, nighttime soaps, fantasy shows, and soap operas, television has always embraced the musical. Kessler shows how the form is written across the history of American television and how its various incarnations tell the stories of shifting American culture and changing television, film, and theatrical landscapes. She recounts and explores this rich, decades-long history by traversing musicals, stars, and sounds from film, Broadway, and Las Vegas to the small screen.

How many hit musicals are based on films that were shot in two days at a budget of $30,000? The answer is one: Little Shop of Horrors. Roger Corman's monster movie opened in 1960, played the midnight circuit, and then disappeared from view. Two decades later, Little Shop of Horrors opened Off-Broadway and became a surprise success. Attack of the Monster Musical: A Cultural History of Little Shop of Horrors chronicles this unlikely phenomenon. The Faustian tale of Seymour and his man-eating plant transcended its humble origins to become a global phenomenon, launching a popular film adaptation and productions all around the world. This timely and authoritative book looks at the creation of the musical and its place in the contemporary musical theatre canon. Examining its afterlives and wider cultural context, the book asks the question why this unlikely combination of blood, annihilation, and catchy tunes has resonated with audiences from the 1980s to the present. At the core of this in-depth study is the collaboration between the show's creators, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. Told through archival research and eyewitness accounts, this is the first book to make extensive use of Ashman's personal papers, offering a unique and inspiring study of one of musical theatre's greatest talents.

May Irwin reigned as America's queen of comedy and song from the 1880s through the 1920s. A genuine pop culture phenomenon, Irwin conquered the legitimate stage, composed song lyrics, and parlayed her celebrity into success as a cookbook author, suffragette, and real estate mogul. Sharon Ammen's in-depth study traces Irwin's hurly-burly life. Irwin gained fame when, layering aspects of minstrelsy over ragtime, she popularized a racist "Negro song" genre. Ammen examines this forgotten music, the society it both reflected and entertained, and the ways white and black audiences received Irwin's performances. She also delves into Irwin's hands-on management of her image and career, revealing how Irwin carefully built a public persona as a nurturing housewife whose maternal skills and performing acumen reinforced one another. Irwin's act, soaked in racist song and humor, built a fortune she never relinquished. Yet her career's legacy led to a posthumous obscurity as the nation that once adored her evolved and changed.

Two systems of timekeeping were in concurrent use in Venice between 1582 and 1797. Government documents conformed to the Venetian year (beginning 1 March), church documents to the papal year (from 1 January). "Song and Season" defines the many ways in which time was discussed, resolving a long-standing fuzziness imposed on studies of personnel, institutions, and cultural dynamics by dating conflicts. It is in this context that the standardization of timekeeping coincided with the collapse of the "dramma per musica" and the rise of scripted comedy and the "opera buffa," Selfridge-Field discloses fascinating relationships between the musical stage and the cultures it served, such as the residues of medieval liturgical feasts embedded in the theatrical year. Such associations were transmuted into lingering seasonal associations with specific dramatic genres. Interactions between culture and chronology thus operated on both general and specific levels. Both are fundamental to understanding theatrical dynamics of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

(Applause Libretto Library). Book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart Introduction by Larry Gelbart "This brazenly retro Broadway musical, inspired by Plautus, is as timeless as comedy itself." Vincent Canby, The New York Times "The most urbane and literate musical comedy text ever conceived." John Simon, New York magazine

The romantic musical comedy-drama film La La Land is the winner of six Oscars, seven Golden Globes and five BAFTAs. This artist-approved selection of 10 songs from the Oscar-winning music by Justin Hurwitz, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul has been transcribed for piano and voice with guitar chords, following the original music and keys as closely as possible. Features the Oscar-winning song 'City of Stars'.

Music Theory through Musical Theatre takes a new and powerful approach to music theory. Written specifically for students in music theatre programs, it offers music theory by way of musical theatre. Not a traditional music theory text, Music Theory through Musical Theatre tackles the theoretical foundations of musical theatre and musical theatre literature with an emphasis on what students will need to master in preparation for a professional career as a performer. Veteran music theatre musician John Franceschina brings his years of experience to bear in a book that offers musical theatre educators an important tool in equipping students with what is perhaps the most important element of being a performer: the ability to understand the language of music in the larger dramatic context to which it contributes. The book uses examples exclusively from music theater repertoire, drawing from well-known and more obscure shows and songs. Musical sight reading is consistently at the forefront of the lessons, teaching students to internalize notated music quickly and accurately, a particularly necessary skill in a world where songs can be added between performances. Franceschina consistently links the concepts of music theory and vocal coaching, showing students how identifying the musical structure of and gestures within a piece leads to better use of their time with vocal coaches and ultimately enables better dramatic choices. Combining formal theory with practical exercises, Music Theory through Musical Theatre will be a lifelong resource for students in musical theatre courses, dog-eared and shelved beside other professional resource volumes.

From the first stage production of The Wizard of Oz in 1902, to the classic MGM film (1939), to the musicals The Wiz (1975) and Wicked (2003), L. Frank Baum's children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) has served as the basis for some of the most popular musicals on stage and screen. In this book, musical theater scholar Ryan Bunch draws on his personal experience as an Oz fan to explore how a story that has been hailed as "the American fairy tale" serves as a guide for thinking about the art form of the American musical and how both reveal American identity to be a utopian performance. Show by show, Bunch highlights the forms and conventions of each musical work as practiced in its time and context-such as the turn-of-the-century extravaganza, the classical Hollywood film musical, the Black Broadway musical of the 1970s, and the twenty-first-century mega-musical. He then shows how the journey of each show teaches participants and audiences something about how to act American within contested frameworks of race, gender, sexuality, age, and embodiment. Bunch also explores home theatricals, make-believe play, school musicals, Oz-themed environments, and community events as sites where the performance of the American fairy tale brings home and utopia into contact through the conventions of the musical. Using close readings of the various Oz shows, personal reflections, and interviews with fans, audiences, and performers, Bunch demonstrates how adapted Oz musicals imply both inclusions and exclusions in the performance of an American utopia.

In the 1950s, Meredith Willson's The Music Man became the third longest running musical after My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music: a considerable achievement in a decade that saw the premieres of other popular works by Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe, not to mention Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls and Bernstein and Sondheim's West Side Story. The Music Man remains a popular choice for productions and has been parodied or quoted on television shows ranging from Family Guy to Grace and Frankie. Though Willson is best remembered for The Music Man, there is a great deal more to his career as a composer and lyricist. In The Big Parade, author Dominic McHugh uses newly uncovered letters, manuscripts, and production files to reveal Willson's unusual combination of experiences in his pre-Broadway career that led him to compose The Music Man at the age of 55. McHugh also gives an in depth look at the reception of The Music Man and examines the strengths and weaknesses of Willson's other three musicals, with his sustained commitment to innovation and novelty. The Big Parade is packed with new revelations about the processes involved in writing these works, as well as the trials and tribulations of working in the commercial theatre.

In 1971, college student Ted Chapin found himself front row center as a production assistant at the creation of one of the greatest Broadway musicals, Follies. Needing college credit to graduate on time, he kept a journal of everything he saw and heard and thus was able to document in unprecedented detail how a musical is actually created. Now, more than thirty years later, he has fashioned an extraordinary chronicle. Follies was created by Stephen Sondheim, Hal Prince, Michael Bennett, and James Goldman - giants in the evolution of the Broadway musical and geniuses at the top of their game. Everything Was Possible takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride, from the uncertainties of casting to drama-filled rehearsals, from the care and feeding of one-time movie and television stars to the pressures of a Boston tryout to the exhilaration of opening night on Broadway. Foreword by long-time NY critic Frank Rich.

Bordman not only traces each season's productions; he offers authoritative summaries of the general artistic trends and developments each season. Embracing musical comedy, operetta, revues, and the one-man and one-woman shows of recent year, the third edition of this essential reference source includes a detailed show, song, and people index.

As a legacy of the Habsburg Empire, performances of Jacques Offenbach's musical stage works played an important role in Budapest musico-theatrical life in the twentieth century. However, between the collapse of the Empire and the 1956 anti-Soviet revolution, political ideologies strongly influenced the character of these productions, when they took place. Public performances of Offenbach's works were prohibited between 1938 and 1945 and they became the bases for propagandadistic adaptations in the 1950s. This element explores how the local operetta tradition and the vogue of operettas featuring composers as characters during the interwar period were also important factors in how Offenbach's stage works were performed in mid-twentieth century Budapest in versions that sometimes bore little resemblance to the originals.

High Treason and Low Comedy is the first in-depth treatment in English of E. E. Kischs work as a playwright, a phase of his life to which he devoted considerable effort during the years 19201925.The translations of his two most successful works for the cabaret stages of Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia form the basis of discussions that fit them into several intersecting streams: biographical, historical, and cultural. The plays are Die Hetzjagd, which describes the last day on earth of the infamous traitor, Colonel Alfred Redl, and Die Himmelfahrt der Tonka ibenice (Galgentoni), which presents the comical, coarse, and, at times, pathetic efforts of a Prague prostitute to argue her way into heaven. The plays are a portal into the world of Kischs youth as an enterprising journalist and into his thinking and writing just before he became the raging reporter and the star of international reportage. While they reflect the Prague milieu of his youth during the twilight years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, they also illustrate Kischs lifelong critical attitude toward the conservative authorities of society, their derelictions of duty, and their indifference to the welfare of the common man and woman. The book also examines the long afterlife of both of these stories as they were re-created by artists in stage, film, novelistic, and television adaptations, illustrating the theme of what happens when historical materials are transformed into art.

Ever dreamt of putting on a musical from scratch? Or perhaps you already have, but some extra guidance would be welcome. Look no further: this book will give you all the information you need to successfully stage a musical. Placing a firm emphasis on good organisation and careful planning, Matthew White guides the reader through the various stages and processes involved in putting on a musical theatre production: from choosing the right show and creating budgets and schedules, through holding auditions and taking rehearsals, culminating in the final run of performances and the after-show party. The book also explains how to deal successfully with everything from set, costume, and lighting design to ticket sales and publicity. Drawing on his own extensive experience working as a director, actor, and writer in professional musical theatre, the author also talks to other key industry figures to explore how they contribute to the overall process of putting on a show. Staging Musicals is the ultimate step-by-step guide for anyone planning a production, whether working with amateurs, students, or young professionals.

In the American musical theater, the most typical form of structuring musicals has been the book musical, in which songs interrupt spoken dialogue and add means to depict characters and dramatic situations. After 1980, a form of structuring musicals that expands upon the aesthetic conventions of the book musical came to prominence. Sung-through musicals challenged the balance between talking and singing in musical theater in scripts that are entirely or nearly entirely sung. Although often associated with British musicals, this Element focuses on American sung-through musicals composed and premiered between 1980 and 2019. Their creative teams have employed specific procedures and compositional techniques through which music establishes characterization and expression when either very little or nothing is spoken and thus define how the musical reinvented itself toward and in the twenty-first century.

In dieser Studie stellt der Autor Fausts Werdegang vom Gelehrten zum OEkonomen, Landesplaner und Unternehmer dar und zeigt durch die innovative "geographische Deutung" des funften Akts, inwiefern durch Fausts Neulandgewinnung eine bluhende Kulturlandschaft hat entstehen koennen. Bislang bestand in der Faust-Forschung weitgehend Konsens daruber, dass Faust am Ende des Dramas ein Egomane und ein Illusionist ist und dass dessen Neulandprojekt scheitern wird. Der Autor zeigt hier, dass ganz im Gegenteil Fausts wirtschaftliches Wirken und damit sein ganzes Leben (trotz so mancher Schattenseiten) von Erfolg gekroent ist. Durch diese neue Sichtweise weist das Buch den Weg zu einem positiven Faust-Bild.

Bringing together life advice and gorgeous illustrations inspired by some of the best drag queens from all over the world, this book will have you sashaying your way to success. Whenever you need life advice, just think: WWADQD - What Would A Drag Queen Do? Containing 75 essential lessons, Be Drag Fabulous will show you how to become the most spectacular version of yourself. Containing gorgeous illustrations by Katie Mockridge, this little book of drag wit and wisdom has you covered on all aspects of life, from fashion and self-care, beauty, friendships and work and brings together the best drag queens from around the world. Make your world you very own catwalk and learn how to channel your charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent. Condragulations, this is the first step in becoming drag fabulous. The perfect gift for fans of RuPaul's Drag Race.

Hamilton Easy Piano Selections presents music from the critically acclaimed musical about Alexander Hamilton. The show debuted on Broadway in August 2015 to unprecedented advanced box office sales and has already become one of the most successful Broadway musicals ever. This collection features 9 songs arranged for easy piano from the music penned by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Already a winner of 11 Tony Awards, a Grammy and a Pulitzer Prize, Sir Cameron Macintosh's production opened in London's West End in December 2017.

Between 1895 and 1922 the Anglo-American actor and manager, Maurice E. Bandmann (1872-1922) created a theatrical circuit that extended from Gibraltar to Tokyo and included regular tours to the West Indies and South America. With headquarters in Calcutta and Cairo and companies listed on the Indian stock exchange, his operations represent a significant shift towards the globalization of theatre. This study focuses on seven key areas: family networks; the business of theatrical touring; the politics of locality; repertoire and publics; an ethnography of itinerant acting; legal disputes and the provision of theatrical infrastructure. It draws on global and transnational history, network theory and analysis as well as in-depth archival research to provide a new approach to studying theatre in the age of empire.