Shows Flashcards
Cabaret
1966 - Kander & Ebb
Emcee inspired by nightclub host
Boris Aronson set design
Hair
1968 - MacDermot First significant pop/rock musical Elements of band were amplified First to have full frontal nudity Youth protest against the establishment and war
Promises, Promises
1968 - Simon, Bacharach & David
First show to fully employ an entire sound system as the writers wanted to create the full rock experience in the theatre and use electronic instruments
All vocalists wore a microphone
1970s show split into three different categories:
Contemporary pop/rock musical
Concept musical
Traditional musical
Concept musical
A concept musical is a musical where he show’s metaphor or statement is more important than the actual narrative
Songs punctuate rather than flow out from the story, serving as a means of self-reflection for the character and acting as commentary upon the theme
For example Company
Company
1970 - Sondheim & Furth
Godspell
1971 - Schwartz & Tebelak
Jesus Christ Superstar
1971 - Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice
Rock/opera
Controversy helped with promotion
Start Lloyd Webber formula to release the music to make it popular
Follies
1971 - Sondheim
The libretto centred on two former showgirls and their spouses assessing embittered marriages while attending a reunion of performers from a Ziegfeld era Broadway revue
Frank depiction of painful realities of growing older and abandoning one’s dreams
Grease
1972 - Jacobs & Casey
Named after 1950s US youth subculture known as greasers
Eclipsed Fiddler On the Roof as the longest running show in Broadway history
Simple story - catchy tunes
Early 50s Rock N roll
Pippin
1972 - Schwartz
A Little Night Music
1973 - Sondheim & Wheeler
Rocky Horror Picture Show
1973 - O’Brien
Tribute to science fiction and horror B films
A Chorus Line
1975 - Marvin Hamlisch Michael Bennett - created this project that was work-shopped and lead by the actual stories of auditionees Eclipsed Grease Concept musical - the audition Schubert Theatre
Chicago
1975 - Kander & Ebb
Bob Fosse style musical - gotten darker after heart attack that nearly killed him
Satire of fame, celebrity, show business and how society makes celebrities of villains/criminals
Overflowing with raw sexuality, creating a world that is shocking, frightening, dangerous
The Wiz
1976 - Brown
All-black wizard of oz
Annie
1977 - Strouse & Charnin
Sweeney Todd
1979 - Sondheim
- Often referred to as a modern opera, Sweeney Todd, features music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
- With an ensemble functioning as a Greek chorus and one of the densest, wordiest librettos ever written
- The historical Sweeney Todd, hanged for murder in 1801, may have been the most successful serial killer of all time, some accounts attributing 160 unfortunate customer to his victim list
Evita
1979 - Lloyd Webber - Don't cry for me Argentina - Hal Prince directed - Eva as a whore with flair and ruthless ambition, but gave no clue as to what made her complex character tick - ran three times longer than Sweeney Todd - Patti Lupone as Eva ICONIC IMAGE - powerful marketing
Michael Bennet
Reinvigorated dance on Broadway
Co-directed follies
Director, producer, writer, choreographer and a dancer
HIV positive - died of AIDS related illness in late 30s
Inspired by street dance - self-taught dancer who was surrounded by the arts and fed off the energy of the city but seemed to be a natural at all genres of dance and had an unavoidable gift
Bob Fosse musicals
- Damn Yankees
- The Pajama Game
- Sweet Charity
- Pippin
- Liza
- Chicago
- Dancin’
- 1972 movie production of Cabaret won the Academy Award for Best Director
- 1973 he also won a Tony for his work on Pippin
- Emmy for his direction of the Liza Minnelli special Liza with a Z
Making him the only director to win all three of these entertainment industry prizes in the same year.
Bob Fosse dance style
- turned-in knees as he had bad turn out
- sideways shuffling
- jazz hands
- HATS as he started to lose hair
- curved shoulders as he had natural slump
Stylish, sexy and easily recognised
Gwen Verdon his wife and muse
1970s - two sides
Lloyd Webber (UK) vs Sondheim (USA)
- Most Americans were not paying attention to the musical theatre anymore
- Rock and disco were the predominant sounds in popular music and neither genre had more than a token presence in most Broadway scares
- Inflation was out of control in the 70s
1980s - Broadway in decline
- Marketplace was narrowing rapidly and squeezing out all but the safest productions
- AIDS epidemic, which created panic and paranoia, and saw the deaths of many musical theatre artists
- Decline of Times Square - theatres sold off to become Nightclubs, sex clubs
- The defection of musical theatre artists to television
- Loss of audience to the growing number of television/cable channels
- Availability of video-cassettes
42nd Street
1980 - Bramble & Stewart
Nased off Busby Berkeley film
Updated/reworked version
Champion passed away opening night
Cats
1981 - Lloyd Webber
Cameron Mackintosh produced
Applied to all ages
Ran for 18 years
Dreamgirls
1981- Krieger & Even
Jennifer Holladay as Effie
One night only
Little Shop of Horrors
1982 - Menken & Ashman
Should have been success but remained off-broadway
Nine
1982 - Yeston
La Cage Aux Follies
1983 - Herman
Glitzy drag show
Loving married couple - homosexuals
Threw shade at Sondheim
Sunday In the Park with George
1984 - Sondheim
Won Pulitzer prize
Lapine and Sondheim
Inspired by french painter Georges Seurat’s painting
Big River
1985 - Hauptman
Huckleberry Finn
Ron Richardson as Jim - Tony winning
Les Miserables
1985 (West End) 1987 (Broadway) - Boubil & Schonberg
Based on novel by Victor Hugo
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
1985 - Holmes
Unfinished Charles Dickens novel
Audience votes on the ending
Phantom of the Opera
1986 - Lloyd Webber
Iconic mask image
Into The Woods
1987 - Sondheim
Based on fairy tales all woven together
Carrie
1988 - Cohen & Pitchford
$8 million budget
closed after 5 performances
Chess
1988 - Rice, Andersson & Ulvaeus
Not all mega-musicals successful
Miss Saigon
1989 (West End) 1991 (Broadway) - Schonberg & Boubil
Vietnam setting
controversial with Jonothan Price (white) playing the Engineer
Mega-musical
- West End thrived
- First mega-musical was CATS
- These musicals were designed to be exportable
- Productions in different locations were simply clones of the original
- No matter where you saw the show it was the same
- Simple stories with emotional pull
- Are thematically sentimental and romantic + simple
- Plots that merge aspects of social consciousness and thus evoke strong emotional reactions
- Large sets, elaborate costumes, special effects, significant lighting
- Marketing was extremely important and substantial - cat’s eyes + phantom mask
- Logos became icons
- Songs were released in advance
- Investment was high, so were the returns
1990s - Corportations
- 1990s the mega-musical had really run its course
- The Disney corporation wanted to clean Broadway
- Wanted to buy the New Amsterdam theatre on 42nd Street
- Renovate the surrounding areas if the Mayor cleans up all the sex shops
- Repurchased all theatres
Corporate musicals
- Multi-functional entertainment
- Project development is corporate sponsored and controlled
- While the staging of these shows may reflect the stamp of creative individuals, corporate musical exude efficiency
○ They look impressive
○ Flow with ease and are easy to understand
○ Provide many pop ballads and memorable tunes
They can also be reproduced for foreign or touring productions
Beauty and the Beast
1994 - Menken, Ashman, Rice & Woolverton
First Disney success
The Lion King
1997 - Elton John, Tim Rice, Allers & Mecchi
