Later on, the music became more tied to the story until the song had a story and character of its own and then to the point that the music could be both light hearted and soulful. Can you describe the progression which led to this modern version of the musical in terms of the music that was used over the years?
What do you think inspired its creators at that particular moment in time to shift away from the old style of theater without making a complete break from the past? Think about the evolution of the simplistic forms of theater when our country was young which pre-dated the musical up to the technologically advanced and sophisticated shows that are produced today as our democracy has matured some years. Describe the parallels growth patterns that you see in musical theater, society, technology and the human sciences like medicine and psychology.
Can you make any connections or draw parallels between musical theater and these trends? Every musical starts out this way. Why do you think this is a good way to start off a story? Why might it matter to you what the main character wants? Does it make you think of going for what you want in life? How do you think this happens? Could it have something to do with the way our brains and bodies process sound and motion compared to dialogue? Consider how many more professionals need to collaborate to create a musical than a simple dramatic play, and the special skills required by the performers.
How do you think adding the element of music and dance to a play affects the creative process? People have always gone to the theater expecting to be entertained. What do you find interesting about theater which talks about social and political issues as entertainment?
Why do you think we have such a long history of doing this? How does this relate to our first amendment right of freedom of speech? Avenue Q broke many barriers in terms of subject matter for musical theater. Can you think of a subject matter that has not yet been addressed by musical theater that now could be? Do you think there is a subject that might still present challenges as a tale for a musical venue or that would still be considered taboo for musical theater?
How do you think we benefit by examining these difficult subjects through the lens of story, song and dance? There will always be issues of huge social importance to face; wars, poverty, injustice to name a few.
At the community level there are also always topics of contention between people or groups like budget issues, environmental concerns, bullying and the like. What do you think might happen if your school, or community or family got together to put on a musical to deal with pressing issues you are facing?
Could this be a way to learn about and talk about a difficult topic in a creative and maybe even a humorous or light hearted way? As the rock musical gave way to the spectacle musical, shows like Cats , Phantom of the Opera and Starlight Express came to rely less on story and more on technology. Heather Nathans talks about the changes in musical theater in the last forty years and where musical theater appears to be headed. Looking back at the history of musical theater in America, there was a period of relative stability followed by some pivotal points of change in the way musicals were presented.
Describe when how the musical changed over the course of the last hundred years. During this time the creative energy behind the musical was spent on creating extravagant special effects. Why do you think this change happened? Do you think this change was driven by audience demand or by creative inspiration or by the technology itself? Did we lose our interest in story? Did technology give us a sense of wonder, power, control? What else was happening in the world of art, politics, and culture at this time?
How might that have had anything to do with this change? As you can see, the history of musical theater is an art form that has gone through many changes and continues to thrive and be important to our cultural experience. Can you draw a comparison between musical theater and a living organism or as something that has a natural life cycle of its own?
Across the ocean in colonial America, theatre was kept alive by British acting troupes. The Beggar's Opera , which premiered in Europe in the s, was New York's first documented musical performance in In the Theatre on John Street opened and became a main performance space in New York for the remainder of the 18th century. The comic opera The Archers , performed there in , is considered the first American-born musical Kenrick, During the Revolutionary period in America - , some members of the Continental Congress voiced their opposition to theatres and play-going because those pastimes were considered scandalous and distasteful Kenrick, This opposition led to several of the 13 colonies banning public performances, but try as people might, keeping others from dancing is difficult, and even legislation could not stop it.
Between and , white men in black face traveled around the country, performing songs and dances in circuses and as entertainment during play intermissions Kenrick, These intermission performances eventually developed into full-length minstrel performances in the mids. Minstrel shows were black song and dance parodies born when traveling blackface performers named themselves the Virginia Minstrels and presented a full-length show in But those minstrel shows were not allowed on Broadway, which was considered New York's cultural center and was meant for the elite citizens who enjoyed operas and plays.
The minstrel shows were performed at the Bowery, which was where the lower class gathered. During the minstrel era, which lasted into the early s, dance steps were officially given names that were written down. Meanwhile, a Parisian ballet company had been booked to perform at the Academy of Music. A fire at the Academy of Music led to a merger of the ballet performance with the production of The Black Crook.
The songs and dances had no relationship to the plot, making the production a circus-like spectacle that showcased individual dancers wearing only tight-fitting bodices and tights. The Black Crook was the first production in the United States to run longer than a year, and it marked the birth of musical theatre in the United States.
The final scene from The Black Crook. The Black Crook paved the way for the burlesque and vaudeville shows of the late s. The burlesque shows of this decade featured women who wore costumes that showed the shapes of their bodies. Their performances entertained the middle and lower classes and used music and dance to mock operas, plays, and the upper-class socialites.
Vaudeville shows were a series of unrelated acts as part of an evening's entertainment that ignited interest in all kinds of dance, including Irish dance, clogging, tap, comic dancing, acrobatics, fancy dancing, skirt dancing, and toe dancing.
Vaudeville was the training ground for people who would go on to perform in and create the Broadway musicals of the 20th century. The toe dancing done in vaudeville shows was very different from classical ballet dancing en pointe. It involved the dancers doing tricks, like jumping rope, while dancing on their toes.
Some dancers even attached metal to the tips of their shoes to tap out rhythms while dancing. In the early s, ragtime music, which combined European folk songs with West African drum rhythms, found its way onto the theatrical stage. The dance portions of performances began to expand. Dance directors gained recognition and focused on how the stage could be used and how the dances looked from an audience perspective.
Additionally, dance instructors spent a lot of time training dancers to perform in specific ways. When Vernon Castle - and Irene Castle - refined and polished the dances that the black population had been doing to ragtime music, ballroom dancing was born. The Castles were responsible for making ballroom dance popular and altering those social dances to make them interesting for an audience to watch. Does it seem like theatre was an invention of bored modern-day man? Or can you imagine its origins to be deeply buried in the past?
Musicals have long since been a favourite amongst live audiences. Whilst musical theatre of recent times has been intended as art and entertainment — was this always the case? To discover the answer, we must trace musical theatre history back to its beginnings in Ancient Greece. Dionysus — God of the Vine , also known as Bacchus, he was worshipped in Ancient Greece as the god of all things grape and wine, of fertility, ritual madness, and religious ecstasy.
So, where does he belong in musical theatre history? Dionysus was also the god of theatre.
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