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147-681: The Doug Anthony All Stars (or Doug Anthony Allstars , DAAS , D.A.A.S. or stylised as D⋆A†A☭S ) were an Australian musical comedy group who initially performed together between 1984 and 1994. The group were an acoustic trio, originally comprising Paul McDermott and Tim Ferguson on main vocals and Richard Fidler on guitar and backing vocals. The group reformed in 2014, with Paul Livingston (aka "Flacco") replacing Fidler on guitar. DAAS were known for their aggressive, provocative style, their habit of involving audience members and their tendency to attack topical and sometimes controversial issues in their comedy. DAAS began performing as buskers on

294-465: A 2-disc collection of their performances from the first two seasons of The Big Gig , was released on 6 November 2008. Ferguson, Fidler and McDermott recorded a commentary track for the DVD and made several media appearances together to promote its release, but the three ruled out the prospect of a reunion tour. "We certainly catch up for barbecues, but not as a comedy group," McDermott said. DAAS reunited for

441-443: A Doug Anthony Allstar with whatever this was". Still coming to terms with his diagnosis, Ferguson chose to keep it private, telling few people outside of his close friends and family. "I didn't want other people to know," he says. "I didn't want it to be coming up in conversation with strangers." In July 2003, DAAS reunited for the first time since their break-up to perform at a special gala comedy event called "For Holly". Dedicated to

588-565: A Little Christmas", "I Am What I Am", "Mame", "The Best of Times", "Before the Parade Passes By", "Put On Your Sunday Clothes", "It Only Takes a Moment", "Bosom Buddies" and "I Won't Send Roses", recorded by such artists as Louis Armstrong , Eydie Gormé , Barbra Streisand , Petula Clark and Bernadette Peters. Herman's songbook has been the subject of two popular musical revues, Jerry's Girls (Broadway, 1985) and Showtune (off-Broadway, 2003). The musical started to diverge from

735-579: A book musical are its music , lyrics and book . The book or script of a musical refers to the story, character development and dramatic structure, including the spoken dialogue and stage directions, but it can also refer to the dialogue and lyrics together, which are sometimes referred to as the libretto (Italian for "small book"). The music and lyrics together form the score of a musical and include songs, incidental music and musical scenes, which are "theatrical sequence[s] set to music, often combining song with spoken dialogue." The interpretation of

882-453: A comedy duo in with Cathy Armstrong, in which his flamboyant alter ego Bob Downe was born. "Bob Downe" is a cheesy, safari suit wearing lounge singer with dazzling teeth, and host of the fictional regional daytime TV show Good Morning Murwillumbah . The distinction between the two personae is often blurred: Trevorrow and the "Prince of Polyester" both appear at events and host television programs. In January 1987, Trevorrow went solo with

1029-518: A completely new genre – the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now ... everything else was subservient to that play. Now ... came complete integration of song, humor and production numbers into a single and inextricable artistic entity." As the Great Depression set in during the post-Broadway national tour of Show Boat , the public turned back to mostly light, escapist song-and-dance entertainment. Audiences on both sides of

1176-529: A falling out among the trio, although all three denied this, stating that it was simply time to move on. Richard Fidler described it as a matter of practicality: Ferguson wanted to return to Australia to be closer to his young family, while McDermott and Fidler wished to continue working in Britain as they felt they had done everything they had wanted to do in Australia. In June 2010, Tim Ferguson revealed that

1323-520: A few exceptions, compared with London runs, until the 1920s. Gilbert and Sullivan were widely pirated and also were imitated in New York by productions such as Reginald De Koven 's Robin Hood (1891) and John Philip Sousa 's El Capitan (1896). A Trip to Coontown (1898) was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans on Broadway (largely inspired by the routines of

1470-402: A few players . Rock musicals usually employ a small group of mostly rock instruments, and some musicals may call for only a piano or two instruments. The music in musicals uses a range of "styles and influences including operetta , classical techniques, folk music , jazz [and] local or historical styles [that] are appropriate to the setting." Musicals may begin with an overture played by

1617-641: A five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore, there is less time to develop drama in a musical than in a straight play of equivalent length, since a musical usually devotes more time to music than to dialogue. Within the compressed nature of a musical, the writers must develop the characters and the plot. The material presented in a musical may be original, or it may be adapted from novels ( Wicked and Man of La Mancha ), plays ( Hello, Dolly! and Carousel ), classic legends ( Camelot ), historical events ( Evita and Hamilton ) or films ( The Producers and Billy Elliot ). On

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1764-665: A history of Australian rock and roll . Fidler also wrote a regular monthly column for internet.au magazine on the digital media world, and contributed an essay to the Australian Constitutional Convention website [1] . Although he had not initially intended to return to television, he has hosted various TV shows since 1996, including Race Around the World , Aftershock , Mouthing Off and Vulture ; and spent three years in management as an editor of ABC-TV comedy before deciding he "wasn't cut out to be

1911-517: A love relationship sanctioned and restricted by Protestant ideals of marriage; that a married couple should make a moral home with children away from the city in a suburb or small town; that the woman's function was as homemaker and mother; and that Americans incorporate an independent and pioneering spirit or that their success is self-made. The 1950s were crucial to the development of the American musical. Damon Runyon 's eclectic characters were at

2058-415: A manager". In 2005, Fidler ventured into radio, fronting the 7–10pm shift on ABC Local Radio station 612 ABC Brisbane . Since 2006, he has hosted the 11 am–3pm shift on 612 ABC Brisbane, with the show's first hour—known as The Conversation Hour —also broadcast on 702 ABC Sydney . He currently co-hosts Conversations (of which he was the founding host) on ABC radio (including Radio National ) which

2205-486: A markedly different tone from their comedic stage performances. They also made two live concert videos and one film, The Edinburgh Years . The group split up in 1994, following a final farewell tour of Australia. Although they reunited in 2003 to perform together at a benefit concert, were interviewed together in 2008 in support of their DVD, and reunited for a one-off show to launch the DAAS Kapital DVD in 2013,

2352-539: A member of the reformed group. On 2 and 9 October 2018, the ABC screened Tick Fucking Tock , a two-part documentary about the Doug Anthony All Stars covering their formation, history, breakup and reformation. Initially, McDermott was not interested in further pursuing comedy, which he came to regard as an "aberration". However in 1996, he returned to television after being recruited by Ted Robinson to host

2499-515: A music-based comedy trio called GUD . McDermott described GUD as being in a similar vein to DAAS in that it revolved around music, comedy and the inter-relationships between the band members onstage. As of 2018, McDermott is host of ABC quiz show Think Tank . In 1996, Ferguson hosted the Nine Network 's comedy game show Don't Forget Your Toothbrush , and after the show's cancellation Nine kept him on to develop new television pilots. However,

2646-510: A musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde 's 1895 hit The Importance of Being Earnest . West Side Story (1957) transported Romeo and Juliet to modern day New York City and converted the feuding Montague and Capulet families into opposing ethnic gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The book was adapted by Arthur Laurents , with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by newcomer Stephen Sondheim . It

2793-416: A musical generally became more expensive. Shuffle Along (1921), an all-African American show, was a hit on Broadway. A new generation of composers of operettas also emerged in the 1920s, such as Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg , to create a series of popular Broadway hits. In London, writer-stars such as Ivor Novello and Noël Coward became popular, but the primacy of British musical theatre from

2940-497: A musical is the responsibility of its creative team, which includes a director, a musical director, usually a choreographer and sometimes an orchestrator . A musical's production is also creatively characterized by technical aspects, such as set design , costumes , stage properties (props) , lighting and sound . The creative team, designs and interpretations generally change from the original production to succeeding productions. Some production elements, however, may be retained from

3087-467: A musical style more aptly suited to twentieth-century society and its vernacular idiom. It was from America that the more direct style emerged, and in America that it was able to flourish in a developing society less hidebound by nineteenth-century tradition." In France, comédie musicale was written between in the early decades of the century for such stars as Yvonne Printemps . Progressing far beyond

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3234-512: A narcissistic character who was "gorgeous but stupid". Fidler initially played the straight man , but as the group became more aggressive he developed into a character who was naturally happy and caring but frequently victimised by his fellow band members. The group drew inspiration from short-lived punk bands like the Fat Sluts, The Lone Reagans and Forbidden Mule, whom Ferguson describes as "like all punk bands... very fast and furious." Much of

3381-547: A new Broadway record. In Britain, Me and My Girl ran for 1,646 performances. Still, a few creative teams began to build on Show Boat ' s innovations. Of Thee I Sing (1931), a political satire by the Gershwins, was the first musical awarded the Pulitzer Prize . As Thousands Cheer (1933), a revue by Irving Berlin and Moss Hart in which each song or sketch was based on a newspaper headline, marked

3528-464: A number of blockbusters, like Fiddler on the Roof (1964; 3,242 performances), Hello, Dolly! (1964; 2,844 performances), Funny Girl (1964; 1,348 performances) and Man of La Mancha (1965; 2,328 performances), and some more risqué pieces like Cabaret , before ending with the emergence of the rock musical . In Britain, Oliver! (1960) ran for 2,618 performances, but the long-run champion of

3675-624: A one-off show to launch the DVD of the television series DAAS Kapital on 13 April 2013 as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival . After an hiatus, McDermott, Ferguson and Paul Livingston (performing the role of Fidler) performed "as DAAS" for their 30th anniversary at the Canberra Comedy Festival, held in March 2014. They eventually embarked on several tours of Australia and

3822-494: A poor critical reaction. From 1992, they became UK-based, returning to Australia for a short time in 1993 to promote Dead & Alive , a live recording of one of their London shows which was released on CD and VHS. They played at the opening of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and appeared regularly on Britain's Channel 4 variety show Viva Cabaret . The reformed group returned to tour the United Kingdom in 2016, and won

3969-595: A popular feature on the series and appeared in every episode until 1991. In 1989, the group also released a book titled Book , which was a collection of dark short stories. Many of the stories had been written several years prior, even before the three had started performing together, and adopted a markedly different tone to their comedic, largely ad libbed live shows. Ferguson said that they had wanted to write something that people could read and enjoy without having seen DAAS perform. Book sold 30,000 copies in England within

4116-534: A reporter that they had been cast in Batman and had become great friends with Jack Nicholson , both lies. The story was reported as fact in newspapers around Australia and appeared as a cover story in the TV guide of Melbourne's Herald Sun before the media realised the hoax. Tim Ferguson met Richard Fidler busking on the streets of Canberra in 1984, while they were both attending university. Ferguson recalls: "Richard

4263-521: A river ... with lots of obstacles and mishaps along the way". As transportation improved, poverty in London and New York diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night, the number of patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays ran longer, leading to better profits and improved production values, and men began to bring their families to the theatre. The first musical theatre piece to exceed 500 consecutive performances

4410-497: A run of 931 performances. Gilbert and Sullivan's influence on later musical theatre was profound, creating examples of how to "integrate" musicals so that the lyrics and dialogue advanced a coherent story. Their works were admired and copied by early authors and composers of musicals in Britain and America. A Trip to Chinatown (1891) was Broadway's long-run champion (until Irene in 1919), running for 657 performances, but New York runs continued to be relatively short, with

4557-544: A series of 2.5D musicals based on popular anime and manga comics has developed in recent decades. Shorter or simplified "junior" versions of many musicals are available for schools and youth groups, and very short works created or adapted for performance by children are sometimes called minimusicals . The antecedents of musical theatre in Europe can be traced back to the theatre of ancient Greece , where music and dance were included in stage comedies and tragedies during

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4704-547: A series of successful Broadway shows, including On Your Toes (1936, with Ray Bolger , the first Broadway musical to make dramatic use of classical dance), Babes in Arms (1937) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938). Porter added Du Barry Was a Lady (1939). The longest-running piece of musical theatre of the 1930s in the US was Hellzapoppin (1938), a revue with audience participation, which played for 1,404 performances, setting

4851-509: A sing-along of an Australian song at the end of the episode. He has collaborated several times with the Doug Anthony All Stars (which included McDermott), appearing in their TV series, DAAS Kapital , and their film The Edinburgh Years . He has also featured in episodes of the sitcom Kath & Kim , as well as hosting the series The Way We Were, and has appeared in the animated Australian/Canadian sitcom, Quads! as

4998-789: A story-telling device in On Your Toes in 1936, which was followed by Agnes de Mille 's ballet and choreography in Oklahoma! . After Abbott collaborated with Jerome Robbins in On the Town and other shows, Robbins combined the roles of director and choreographer, emphasizing the story-telling power of dance in West Side Story , A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) and Fiddler on

5145-562: A strong career as a corporate event performer and was a sessional lecturer at RMIT University , where he taught narrative comedy for the Professional Screenwriting Advanced Diploma. In 2010, he released a guide to comedy writing, The Cheeky Monkey: Writing Narrative Comedy . In 2010, Ferguson hosted and co-produced WTF – With Tim Ferguson , a comedy chat show on community television station C31 Melbourne . In 2015, Ferguson co-wrote and co-directed

5292-451: Is frequently longer than the second. The first act generally introduces nearly all of the characters and most of the music and often ends with the introduction of a dramatic conflict or plot complication while the second act may introduce a few new songs but usually contains reprises of important musical themes and resolves the conflict or complication. A book musical is usually built around four to six main theme tunes that are reprised later in

5439-477: Is often difficult to distinguish among the various kinds of musical theatre, including "musical play", "musical comedy", "operetta" and "light opera". Like opera, the singing in musical theatre is generally accompanied by an instrumental ensemble called a pit orchestra , located in a lowered area in front of the stage. While opera typically uses a conventional symphony orchestra , musicals are generally orchestrated for ensembles ranging from 27 players down to only

5586-624: Is one of the network's highest rating broadcasts and podcasts. In 2011, Fidler co-wrote a satirical book on Australian politics titled, Jack the Insider: The Insider's Guide to Power in Australia , released by Random House Books, New Zealand. Original and founding member Robert Piper entered into a very successful career with the United Nations, serving in Cambodia, New York, Serbia, and other countries, and later worked for

5733-464: Is primarily a singer and only secondarily an actor (and rarely needs to dance), a musical theatre performer is often an actor first but must also be a singer and dancer. Someone who is equally accomplished at all three is referred to as a "triple threat". Composers of music for musicals often consider the vocal demands of roles with musical theatre performers in mind. Today, large theatres that stage musicals generally use microphones and amplification of

5880-590: The Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1987, Trevorrow split his time touring between England and Australia. He has appeared extensively on television, released four albums, and written a book. He was raised in the Melbourne suburb of Murrumbeena , the third son of Alan, a builder-turned-teacher, and his wife Dorothy. He has a younger sister and two older brothers. In his teens, he came out to his family as gay. He attended Murrumbeena High School and

6027-640: The Roaring Twenties , borrowing from vaudeville, music hall and other light entertainments, tended to emphasize big dance routines and popular songs at the expense of plot. Typical of the decade were lighthearted productions like Sally ; Lady, Be Good ; No, No, Nanette ; Oh, Kay! ; and Funny Face . Despite forgettable stories, these musicals featured stars such as Marilyn Miller and Fred Astaire and produced dozens of enduring popular songs by Kern, George and Ira Gershwin , Irving Berlin , Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart . Popular music

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6174-677: The State Theatre . In 2001, Trevorrow made his first appearance as himself rather than his alter ego, opening a new show at the Black Cat cabaret in Melbourne. The show also appeared at the Sydney Opera House Studio in 2003, followed by a studio album It's About Time in 2004 (ABC Music/Universal). Trevorrow has appeared on the Australian series of Good News Week , often joining with host Paul McDermott in

6321-491: The Tudor period that involved music, dancing, singing and acting, often with expensive costumes and a complex stage design . These developed into sung plays that are recognizable as English operas, the first usually being thought of as The Siege of Rhodes (1656). In France, meanwhile, Molière turned several of his farcical comedies into musical entertainments with songs (music provided by Jean-Baptiste Lully ) and dance in

6468-460: The light opera works of Jacques Offenbach in France, Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and the works of Harrigan and Hart in America. These were followed by Edwardian musical comedies , which emerged in Britain, and the musical theatre works of American creators like George M. Cohan at the turn of the 20th century. The Princess Theatre musicals (1915–1918) were artistic steps forward beyond

6615-557: The minstrel shows ), followed by ragtime -tinged shows. Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 20th century, composed of songs written in New York's Tin Pan Alley , including those by George M. Cohan , who worked to create an American style distinct from the Gilbert and Sullivan works. The most successful New York shows were often followed by extensive national tours. Meanwhile, musicals took over

6762-399: The revues and other frothy entertainments of the early 20th century and led to such groundbreaking works as Show Boat (1927), Of Thee I Sing (1931) and Oklahoma! (1943). Some of the most famous musicals through the decades that followed include My Fair Lady (1956), The Fantasticks (1960), Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), Les Misérables (1985), The Phantom of

6909-543: The "Golden Age" of American musical theatre. Americana was displayed on Broadway during the "Golden Age", as the wartime cycle of shows began to arrive. An example of this is On the Town (1944), written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green , composed by Leonard Bernstein and choreographed by Jerome Robbins . The story is set during wartime and concerns three sailors who are on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City, during which each falls in love. The show also gives

7056-622: The 1850s to the 1870s and Johann Strauss II in the 1870s and 1880s. Offenbach's fertile melodies, combined with his librettists' witty satire, formed a model for the musical theatre that followed. Adaptations of the French operettas (played in mostly bad, risqué translations), musical burlesques , music hall, pantomime and burletta dominated the London musical stage into the 1870s. In America, mid-19th century musical theatre entertainments included crude variety revue , which eventually developed into vaudeville , minstrel shows , which soon crossed

7203-504: The 1910s, the team of P. G. Wodehouse , Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern , following in the footsteps of Gilbert and Sullivan , created the " Princess Theatre shows" and paved the way for Kern's later work by showing that a musical could combine light, popular entertainment with continuity between its story and songs. Historian Gerald Bordman wrote: These shows built and polished the mold from which almost all later major musical comedies evolved. ... The characters and situations were, within

7350-555: The 19th century through 1920 was gradually replaced by American innovation, especially after World War I, as Kern and other Tin Pan Alley composers began to bring new musical styles such as ragtime and jazz to the theatres, and the Shubert Brothers took control of the Broadway theatres. Musical theatre writer Andrew Lamb notes, "The operatic and theatrical styles of nineteenth-century social structures were replaced by

7497-412: The 19th century, such as music hall , melodrama and burletta , which were popularized partly because most London theatres were licensed only as music halls and not allowed to present plays without music. Colonial America did not have a significant theatre presence until 1752, when London entrepreneur William Hallam sent a company of actors to the colonies managed by his brother Lewis . In New York in

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7644-810: The 5th century BCE. The music from the ancient forms is lost, however, and they had little influence on later development of musical theatre. In the 12th and 13th centuries, religious dramas taught the liturgy . Groups of actors would use outdoor Pageant wagons (stages on wheels) to tell each part of the story. Poetic forms sometimes alternated with the prose dialogues, and liturgical chants gave way to new melodies. The European Renaissance saw older forms evolve into two antecedents of musical theatre: commedia dell'arte , where raucous clowns improvised familiar stories, and later, opera buffa . In England, Elizabethan and Jacobean plays frequently included music, and short musical plays began to be included in an evenings' dramatic entertainments. Court masques developed during

7791-551: The Angry Inch and other shows in recent decades. Parade is a sensitive exploration of both anti-Semitism and historical American racism, and Ragtime similarly explores the experience of immigrants and minorities in America. After the success of Hair , rock musicals flourished in the 1970s, with Jesus Christ Superstar , Godspell , The Rocky Horror Show , Evita and Two Gentlemen of Verona . Some of those began as " concept albums " which were then adapted to

7938-677: The Atlantic had little money to spend on entertainment, and only a few stage shows anywhere exceeded a run of 500 performances during the decade. The revue The Band Wagon (1931) starred dancing partners Fred Astaire and his sister Adele , while Porter's Anything Goes (1934) confirmed Ethel Merman 's position as the First Lady of musical theatre, a title she maintained for many years. Coward and Novello continued to deliver old fashioned, sentimental musicals, such as The Dancing Years , while Rodgers and Hart returned from Hollywood to create

8085-425: The Atlantic to Britain, and Victorian burlesque, first popularized in the US by British troupes. A hugely successful musical entertainment that premiered in New York in 1866, The Black Crook , combined dance and some original music that helped to tell the story. The spectacular production, famous for its skimpy costumes, ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and

8232-430: The Australian comedy show The Big Gig . They remained a popular feature of the show until 1991 when they left to create their own ABC comedy series, DAAS Kapital . The group released four live recordings and one studio album, DAAS Icon , which achieved some independent success in Australia but was briefly banned in Britain. They also released a collection of dark short stories in 1989, titled Book , which took

8379-715: The Cabaret Artiste of the Year at the Green Room Awards in Melbourne. He released his third album, Huge Hits , in 2001. His comedy/chat series, The Bob Downe Show (Foxtel/TV1), went to air in December 2000. Bob Downe's last three national theatre tours, Million Sellers (1999), Whiter! Brighter! (2000) and Cold August Night (2002) were sellouts everywhere, including the Sydney Opera House and

8526-533: The Clinton Administration. Current members Past members The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music . They commenced in 1987. Musical comedy Although music has been a part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during the 19th century, with many structural elements established by

8673-537: The Edinburgh Fringe in 1987, to sold out crowds. It was weird for us to go from performing ... to an audience of roughly 15 million people in one night, to then go back to Australia and have to busk in Swanston Street mall. Following their Edinburgh Fringe shows, the group enjoyed considerable success in the United Kingdom, making appearances on numerous BBC comedy shows. In 1988, the group

8820-756: The English-speaking stage by competition from the ubiquitous Edwardian musical comedies, operettas returned to London and Broadway in 1907 with The Merry Widow , and adaptations of continental operettas became direct competitors with musicals. Franz Lehár and Oscar Straus composed new operettas that were popular in English until World War I. In America, Victor Herbert produced a string of enduring operettas including The Fortune Teller (1898), Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle. Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906) and Naughty Marietta (1910). In

8967-586: The Golden Age, automotive companies and other large corporations began to hire Broadway talent to write corporate musicals , private shows only seen by their employees or customers. The 1950s ended with Rodgers and Hammerstein 's last hit, The Sound of Music , which also became another hit for Mary Martin. It ran for 1,443 performances and shared the Tony Award for Best Musical. Together with its extremely successful 1965 film version , it has become one of

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9114-583: The London stage in the Gay Nineties , led by producer George Edwardes , who perceived that audiences wanted a new alternative to the Savoy -style comic operas and their intellectual, political, absurdist satire. He experimented with a modern-dress, family-friendly musical theatre style, with breezy, popular songs, snappy, romantic banter, and stylish spectacle at the Gaiety and his other theatres. These drew on

9261-560: The Mountains (1,352 performances) and especially Chu Chin Chow . Its run of 2,238 performances was more than twice as long as any previous musical, setting a record that stood for nearly forty years. Even a revival of The Beggar's Opera held the stage for 1,463 performances. Revues like The Bing Boys Are Here in Britain, and those of Florenz Ziegfeld and his imitators in America, were also extraordinarily popular. The musicals of

9408-612: The Opera (1986), Rent (1996), Wicked (2003) and Hamilton (2015). Musicals are performed around the world. They may be presented in large venues, such as big-budget Broadway or West End productions in New York City or London. Alternatively, musicals may be staged in smaller venues, such as off-Broadway , off-off-Broadway , regional theatre , fringe theatre , or community theatre productions, or on tour . Musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces. In addition to

9555-655: The Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy." In 1874, Evangeline or The Belle of Arcadia , by Edward E. Rice and J. Cheever Goodwin , based loosely on Longfellow’s Evangeline , with an original American story and music, opened successfully in New York and was revived in Boston, New York, and in repeated tours. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 ( The Mulligan Guard Picnic ) and 1885. These musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from

9702-546: The Prince Patrick Hotel in Collingwood , in an effort to save enough money to travel to the Edinburgh Fringe. Initially, DAAS found that Melbourne audiences did not respond to their act and to provoke a reaction they became more aggressive, with McDermott and Ferguson adopting more abusive personas and often picking on Fidler's naturally happy but stupid character. They made their first overseas performance at

9849-582: The Roof (1964). Bob Fosse choreographed for Abbott in The Pajama Game (1956) and Damn Yankees (1957), injecting playful sexuality into those hits. He was later the director-choreographer for Sweet Charity (1968), Pippin (1972) and Chicago (1975). Other notable director-choreographers have included Gower Champion , Tommy Tune , Michael Bennett , Gillian Lynne and Susan Stroman . Prominent directors have included Hal Prince , who also got his start with Abbott, and Trevor Nunn . During

9996-463: The Shrew for Kiss Me, Kate (1948, 1,077 performances). The American musicals overwhelmed the old-fashioned British Coward/Novello-style shows, one of the last big successes of which was Novello's Perchance to Dream (1945, 1,021 performances). The formula for the Golden Age musicals reflected one or more of four widely held perceptions of the "American dream": That stability and worth derives from

10143-792: The Spirit of the Fringe Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Their show at the Pleasance in Edinburgh was chosen by Steve Bennett, editor of Chortle.co.uk, as the second most memorable comedy gig of 2016. It was incredibly difficult [to leave] because I loved it. And also I loved, and still do, the boys. The group held a final farewell tour of Australia in 1994, which was recorded and released on CD by ABC Records as DAAS: The Last Concert . The break-up sparked rumours of

10290-497: The Times Square area until the 1920s and 1930s. New York runs lagged far behind those in London, but Laura Keene 's "musical burletta" Seven Sisters (1860) shattered previous New York musical theatre record, with a run of 253 performances. Around 1850, the French composer Hervé was experimenting with a form of comic musical theatre he called opérette . The best known composers of operetta were Jacques Offenbach from

10437-486: The United Kingdom. Although Fidler had been advocating for the group to reform for years, his work commitments with ABC Radio prevented him from participating and Livingston again filled his place as the group's guitarist. In 2016, Livingston wrote a memoir titled D.A.A.S.: Their Part in My Downfall , which chronicled his association with the group in the 1980s and 1990s as a support act and collaborator, and then as

10584-477: The United States and Britain, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in continental Europe, Asia, Australasia, Canada and Latin America. Since the 20th century, the "book musical" has been defined as a musical play where songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made story with serious dramatic goals and which is able to evoke genuine emotions other than laughter. The three main components of

10731-486: The West End in the 21st century have been presented in one act. Moments of greatest dramatic intensity in a book musical are often performed in song. Proverbially, "when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing; when it becomes too strong for song, you dance." In a book musical, a song is ideally crafted to suit the character (or characters) and their situation within the story; although there have been times in

10878-507: The actors' singing voices in a way that would generally be disapproved of in an operatic context. Some works, including those by George Gershwin , Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim , have been made into both musical theatre and operatic productions. Similarly, some older operettas or light operas (such as The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan ) have been produced in modern adaptations that treat them as musicals. For some works, production styles are almost as important as

11025-468: The band's provocative style emerged from their origins as street performers, where to get people's attention they resorted to outrageous or theatrical tactics—the group would sometimes walk into the street and stop traffic to get noticed. "Sometimes we have to do really ugly or horrendous things to get people's attention, and we're not afraid to do that. We'll hit someone if it gets a bit of discourse going," said McDermott. Neil Pigot , who did some work with

11172-435: The boundaries of humour and good taste to their absolute limits". They frequently delve into topical and taboo subject matter with songs such as "Commies for Christ" and "I Fuck Dogs". "Long before anyone knew the term, one of our greatest driving forces was to be politically incorrect," said Ferguson. Each band member developed distinctive onstage characters, with McDermott adopting a nasty, mean persona, while Ferguson played

11319-424: The break-up was due in large part to personal health issues. Unknown to the public at the time, Ferguson had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1996 after experiencing symptoms for several years including a few severe episodes while touring in 1993. The symptoms affected his mobility, causing him to struggle with choreography and physical routines onstage and eventually, he says, "it was clear I couldn't remain

11466-461: The character at Sydney's Harold Park Hotel. In 1988 he took Bob Downe to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe , where he was a huge and instant success. Bob Downe played throughout the 1990s to ever-larger British audiences, with Trevorrow in perpetual commute between London and Sydney, touring nationally in both countries. With a multitude of UK TV credits under his beige belt, Bob Downe made his twelfth Edinburgh Fringe appearance in 2002. Back in Australia,

11613-474: The characters express their ideas. It defied musical conventions by raising its first act curtain not on a bevy of chorus girls, but rather on a woman churning butter, with an off-stage voice singing the opening lines of Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' unaccompanied. It drew rave reviews, set off a box-office frenzy and received a Pulitzer Prize . Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times that

11760-557: The comparatively frivolous musicals and sentimental operettas of the decade, Broadway's Show Boat (1927) represented an even more complete integration of book and score than the Princess Theatre musicals, with dramatic themes told through the music, dialogue, setting and movement. This was accomplished by combining the lyricism of Kern's music with the skillful libretto of Oscar Hammerstein II . One historian wrote, "Here we come to

11907-453: The continent, singspiel , comédie en vaudeville , opéra comique , zarzuela and other forms of light musical entertainment were emerging. The Beggar's Opera was the first recorded long-running play of any kind, running for 62 successive performances in 1728. It would take almost a century afterwards before any play broke 100 performances, but the record soon reached 150 in the late 1820s. Other musical theatre forms developed in England by

12054-452: The controversy surrounding it, ran for 108 performances. Rodgers and Hart's I'd Rather Be Right (1937) was a political satire with George M. Cohan as President Franklin D. Roosevelt , and Kurt Weill 's Knickerbocker Holiday depicted New York City's early history while good-naturedly satirizing Roosevelt's good intentions. The motion picture mounted a challenge to the stage. Silent films had presented only limited competition, but by

12201-548: The core of Frank Loesser 's and Abe Burrows ' Guys and Dolls , (1950, 1,200 performances); and the Gold Rush was the setting for Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe 's Paint Your Wagon (1951). The relatively brief seven-month run of that show did not discourage Lerner and Loewe from collaborating again, this time on My Fair Lady (1956), an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw 's Pygmalion starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews , which at 2,717 performances held

12348-494: The decade was The Black and White Minstrel Show (1962), which played for 4,344 performances. Two men had considerable impact on musical theatre history beginning in this decade: Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman . The first project for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962, 964 performances), with a book based on the works of Plautus by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart , starring Zero Mostel . Sondheim moved

12495-403: The earlier musical forms of comic opera and operetta. The Geisha (1896) was one of the most successful in the 1890s, running for more than two years and achieving great international success. The Belle of New York (1898) became the first American musical to run for over a year in London. The British musical comedy Florodora (1899) was a popular success on both sides of the Atlantic, as

12642-409: The end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer could be presented with synchronized sound. "Talkie" films at low prices effectively killed off vaudeville by the early 1930s. Despite the economic woes of the 1930s and the competition from film, the musical survived. In fact, it continued to evolve thematically beyond the gags and showgirls musicals of the Gay Nineties and Roaring Twenties and

12789-544: The end of the Golden Age, several shows tackled Jewish subjects and issues, such as Fiddler on the Roof , Milk and Honey , Blitz! and later Rags . The original concept that became West Side Story was set in the Lower East Side during Easter-Passover celebrations; the rival gangs were to be Jewish and Italian Catholic . The creative team later decided that the Polish (white) vs. Puerto Rican conflict

12936-409: The everyday life of New York's lower classes. They starred high quality singers ( Lillian Russell , Vivienne Segal and Fay Templeton ) instead of the ladies of questionable repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. In 1879, The Brook by Nate Salsbury was another national success with contemporary American dance styles and an American story about "members of an acting company taking a trip down

13083-575: The feature film Spin Out , which was released by Sony Pictures in 2016. He has co-written and produced a performance piece for orchestras, Billie and the Dinosaurs , which will debut in early 2018 at the Music for Canberra community school of which he is a patron. After leaving DAAS, Fidler became heavily involved in computers and multimedia . In 1996, he wrote the award-winning CD-ROM Real Wild Child ,

13230-428: The final episode of the successful Friday Night Live . However, despite the acclaim they were receiving overseas, when they returned to Australia at the end of 1988 they remained unknown. Upon arriving in Melbourne, they struggled to gain a following and went back to busking on the streets. This changed in 1989 when ABC comedy producer Ted Robinson invited them to appear on a new comedy show, The Big Gig . They became

13377-571: The first Bob Downe album, Greatest Hits , was released in Australia in 1996, with 1997's Jazzy! nominated for a Best Comedy Album ARIA music award. 1998 saw the Australian publication of his first book, All Bob Downe! (Penguin) and he hosted the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade broadcast for Network Ten. In 1999 and 2000, Bob Downe again hosted the Mardi Gras Parade, a consistent ratings winner for Network Ten, and also won

13524-438: The first Broadway show in which an African-American, Ethel Waters , starred alongside white actors. Waters' numbers included " Supper Time ", a woman's lament for her husband who has been lynched. The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (1935) featured an all African-American cast and blended operatic, folk and jazz idioms. The Cradle Will Rock (1937), directed by Orson Welles , was a highly political pro- union piece that, despite

13671-486: The first two weeks of publication before being banned when DAAS refused to release an edited version of the book or permit a warning sticker on the cover. The issue was taken to court in the same year, where the ban was overturned. DAAS released their first official album, DAAS Icon (1990). Two of the featured songs, "I Want to Spill the Blood of a Hippy" and "Bottle", were also released as singles. Icon went on to become

13818-515: The founding of the state of Israel, and continuing with the blockbuster hits Hello, Dolly! (1964, 2,844 performances), Mame (1966, 1,508 performances), and La Cage aux Folles (1983, 1,761 performances). Even his less successful shows like Dear World (1969) and Mack and Mabel (1974) have had memorable scores ( Mack and Mabel was later reworked into a London hit). Writing both words and music, many of Herman's show tunes have become popular standards, including " Hello, Dolly! ", "We Need

13965-634: The group at the Edinburgh Festival in 1988, "they came onstage with the attitude of feral invaders and left it with no taboo untouched." Murray described the All Stars as "an insanely hot act from Oz who sang, cursed, sweated and insulted each other and their audiences with a level of commitment and polish that seemed exotically charged and almost transgressive in the late 80s." I think there was true genius at work with that pack ... They'd whip up an audience and appeal to people's darker side. It

14112-454: The group, describes their style as "a sort of extension of the Python tradition, but very much in an Australian context." He says that DAAS were "crucially important" in the development of Australian comedy, directly contributing to the styles of successful comedy shows such as The D-Generation , Fast Forward and Wogs Out of Work . At the time DAAS emerged, Pigot says, comedy in Australia

14259-540: The highest selling independent album in Australia, but was banned in the United Kingdom due to a reference to the IRA in the song "KRSNA". This was later overturned by a British court. The group continued to appear weekly on The Big Gig until 1991 when their own series, DAAS Kapital , premiered on the ABC. A futuristic half-hour-long sitcom about the band's adventures in an underwater history museum, DAAS Kapital ran for two seven-episode seasons between 1991 and 1992 despite

14406-472: The history of the musical (e.g. from the 1890s to the 1920s) when this integration between music and story has been tenuous. As The New York Times critic Ben Brantley described the ideal of song in theatre when reviewing the 2008 revival of Gypsy : "There is no separation at all between song and character, which is what happens in those uncommon moments when musicals reach upward to achieve their ideal reasons to be." Typically, many fewer words are sung in

14553-527: The impression of a country with an uncertain future, as the sailors and their women also have. Irving Berlin used sharpshooter Annie Oakley 's career as a basis for his Annie Get Your Gun (1946, 1,147 performances); Burton Lane , E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy combined political satire with Irish whimsy for their fantasy Finian's Rainbow (1947, 725 performances); and Cole Porter found inspiration in William Shakespeare 's The Taming of

14700-447: The interplay of lyrics and music in his shows. Some of Sondheim's notable innovations include a show presented in reverse ( Merrily We Roll Along ) and the above-mentioned Anyone Can Whistle , in which the first act ends with the cast informing the audience that they are mad. Jerry Herman played a significant role in American musical theatre, beginning with his first Broadway production, Milk and Honey (1961, 563 performances), about

14847-548: The late 17th century. These influenced a brief period of English opera by composers such as John Blow and Henry Purcell . From the 18th century, the most popular forms of musical theatre in Britain were ballad operas , like John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera , that included lyrics written to the tunes of popular songs of the day (often spoofing opera), and later pantomime , which developed from commedia dell'arte, and comic opera with mostly romantic plot lines, like Michael Balfe 's The Bohemian Girl (1845). Meanwhile, on

14994-402: The limitations of musical comedy license, believable and the humor came from the situations or the nature of the characters. Kern's exquisitely flowing melodies were employed to further the action or develop characterization. ... [Edwardian] musical comedy was often guilty of inserting songs in a hit-or-miss fashion. The Princess Theatre musicals brought about a change in approach. P. G. Wodehouse,

15141-505: The long-run record for many years. Popular Hollywood films were made of all of these musicals. Two hits by British creators in this decade were The Boy Friend (1954), which ran for 2,078 performances in London and marked Andrews' American debut, and Salad Days (1954), which broke the British long-run record with a run of 2,283 performances. Another record was set by The Threepenny Opera , which ran for 2,707 performances, becoming

15288-535: The longest-running off-Broadway musical until The Fantasticks . The production also broke ground by showing that musicals could be profitable off-Broadway in a small-scale, small orchestra format. This was confirmed in 1959 when a revival of Jerome Kern and P. G. Wodehouse 's Leave It to Jane ran for more than two years. The 1959–1960 off-Broadway season included a dozen musicals and revues including Little Mary Sunshine , The Fantasticks and Ernest in Love ,

15435-550: The memory of Holly Robinson—a casting director for Home and Away and the daughter of The Big Gig ' s Ted Robinson—who had died of cancer the month before, the concert was a fundraising benefit for research into the disease. At Holly's request, the three also performed the Hunters & Collectors ' " Throw Your Arms Around Me ", a song they had frequently covered in the group's later years, at her funeral. A DAAS DVD titled The Unlimited Uncollectible Sterling Deluxe Edition ,

15582-445: The most observant, literate and witty lyricist of his day, and the team of Bolton, Wodehouse and Kern had an influence felt to this day. The theatre-going public needed escapist entertainment during the dark times of World War I , and they flocked to the theatre. The 1919 hit musical Irene ran for 670 performances, a Broadway record that held until 1938. The British theatre public supported far longer runs like that of The Maid of

15729-585: The most popular musicals in history. In 1960, The Fantasticks was first produced off-Broadway. This intimate allegorical show would quietly run for over 40 years at the Sullivan Street Theatre in Greenwich Village , becoming by far the longest-running musical in history. Its authors produced other innovative works in the 1960s, such as Celebration and I Do! I Do! , the first two-character Broadway musical. The 1960s would see

15876-423: The music for a story about Rose Thompson Hovick , the mother of the titular stripper Gypsy Rose Lee . Although directors and choreographers have had a major influence on musical theatre style since at least the 19th century, George Abbott and his collaborators and successors took a central role in integrating movement and dance fully into musical theatre productions in the Golden Age. Abbott introduced ballet as

16023-480: The musical beyond its concentration on the romantic plots typical of earlier eras; his work tended to be darker, exploring the grittier sides of life both present and past. Other early Sondheim works include Anyone Can Whistle (1964, which ran only nine performances, despite having stars Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury ), and the successful Company (1970), Follies (1971) and A Little Night Music (1973). Later, Sondheim found inspiration in unlikely sources:

16170-418: The necessary encouragement for other gifted writers to create musical plays of their own". The two collaborators created an extraordinary collection of some of musical theatre's best loved and most enduring classics, including Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951) and The Sound of Music (1959). Some of these musicals treat more serious subject matter than most earlier shows:

16317-401: The network was not sure how best to use his talents, and Ferguson left to pursue other work. During this time, he wrote his first novel, Left, Right and Centre: A Tale of Greed, Sex and Power , a political satire. His subsequent television credits have included Unreal TV , Big Brother , Funky Squad and Shock Jock , a 2001 cable sitcom which he also wrote and produced. He has also built

16464-766: The opening of Japan to Western trade for Pacific Overtures (1976), a legendary murderous barber seeking revenge in the Industrial Age of London for Sweeney Todd (1979), the paintings of Georges Seurat for Sunday in the Park with George (1984), fairy tales for Into the Woods (1987), and a collection of presidential assassins in Assassins (1990). While some critics have argued that some of Sondheim's musicals lack commercial appeal, others have praised their lyrical sophistication and musical complexity, as well as

16611-502: The orchestra that "weav[es] together excerpts of the score's famous melodies." There are various Eastern traditions of theatre that include music, such as Chinese opera , Taiwanese opera , Japanese Noh and Indian musical theatre , including Sanskrit drama , Indian classical dance , Parsi theatre and Yakshagana . India has, since the 20th century, produced numerous musical films, referred to as " Bollywood " musicals, and in Japan

16758-464: The original production, for example, Bob Fosse 's choreography in Chicago . There is no fixed length for a musical. While it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several acts and several hours in length (or even a multi-evening presentation), most musicals range from one and a half to three hours. Musicals are usually presented in two acts, with one short intermission , and the first act

16905-643: The other hand, many successful musical theatre works have been adapted for musical films , such as West Side Story , My Fair Lady , The Sound of Music , Oliver! and Chicago . Musical theatre is closely related to the theatrical form of opera, but the two are usually distinguished by weighing a number of factors. First, musicals generally have a greater focus on spoken dialogue. Some musicals, however, are entirely accompanied and sung-through, while some operas, such as Die Zauberflöte , and most operettas , have some unaccompanied dialogue. Second, musicals usually include more dancing as an essential part of

17052-764: The relatively narrow confines of the 1950s. Rock music would be used in several Broadway musicals, beginning with Hair , which featured not only rock music but also nudity and controversial opinions about the Vietnam War , race relations and other social issues. After Show Boat and Porgy and Bess , and as the struggle in America and elsewhere for minorities' civil rights progressed, Hammerstein, Harold Arlen , Yip Harburg and others were emboldened to write more musicals and operas that aimed to normalize societal toleration of minorities and urged racial harmony. Early Golden Age works that focused on racial tolerance included Finian's Rainbow and South Pacific . Towards

17199-451: The revolution begun by Show Boat , by tightly integrating all the aspects of musical theatre, with a cohesive plot, songs that furthered the action of the story, and featured dream ballets and other dances that advanced the plot and developed the characters, rather than using dance as an excuse to parade scantily clad women across the stage. Rodgers and Hammerstein hired ballet choreographer Agnes de Mille , who used everyday motions to help

17346-511: The same time, Stephen Sondheim found success with some of his musicals, as mentioned above. Mark Trevorrow Mark Trevorrow (born 4 February 1959 in Melbourne , Victoria ) is an Australian comedian , television host and media personality. In the early 1980s he had two Top 20 hits as part of Globos with Wendy De Waal, and in 1984, he debuted "Bob Downe", who went on to become his best-known character. After being very successful at

17493-416: The satirical news-based quiz show Good News Week . McDermott hosted the show until its cancellation in 2000 and returned to this role when the series was renewed in 2008. He reunited with Robinson again in 2007 when he was named host of a new ABC variety program, The Sideshow , a show described as a successor to The Big Gig . Although it quickly built a strong cult audience, the show did not rate well and

17640-415: The sentimental romance of operetta, adding technical expertise and the fast-paced staging and naturalistic dialogue style led by director George Abbott . The 1940s began with more hits from Porter, Irving Berlin , Rodgers and Hart, Weill and Gershwin, some with runs over 500 performances as the economy rebounded, but artistic change was in the air. Rodgers and Hammerstein 's Oklahoma! (1943) completed

17787-420: The show's opening number changed the history of musical theatre: "After a verse like that, sung to a buoyant melody, the banalities of the old musical stage became intolerable." It was the first "blockbuster" Broadway show, running a total of 2,212 performances, and was made into a hit film. It remains one of the most frequently produced of the team's projects. William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird wrote that this

17934-407: The show, although it sometimes consists of a series of songs not directly musically related. Spoken dialogue is generally interspersed between musical numbers, although "sung dialogue" or recitative may be used, especially in so-called " sung-through " musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar , Falsettos , Les Misérables , Evita and Hamilton . Several shorter musicals on Broadway and in

18081-476: The stage, most notably Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita . Others had no dialogue or were otherwise reminiscent of opera, with dramatic, emotional themes; these sometimes started as concept albums and were referred to as rock operas . Shows like Raisin , Dreamgirls , Purlie and The Wiz brought a significant African-American influence to Broadway. More varied musical genres and styles were incorporated into musicals both on and especially off-Broadway. At

18228-402: The standard for what was considered a successful show. These shows were designed for family audiences, a marked contrast from the risqué burlesques, bawdy music hall shows and French operettas that sometimes drew a crowd seeking less wholesome entertainment. Only a few 19th-century musical pieces exceeded the run of The Mikado , such as Dorothy , which opened in 1886 and set a new record with

18375-515: The storytelling, particularly by the principal performers as well as the chorus. Third, musicals often use various genres of popular music or at least popular singing and musical styles. Finally, musicals usually avoid certain operatic conventions. In particular, a musical is almost always performed in the language of its audience. Musicals produced on Broadway or in the West End, for instance, are invariably sung in English, even if they were originally written in another language. While an opera singer

18522-654: The streets of Canberra in 1984, while they were attending university. After winning the Pick of the Fringe award at the 1986 Adelaide Fringe Festival , the group relocated from Canberra to Melbourne. After performing at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1987 they gained popularity in the United Kingdom, where they made numerous television appearances and performed several times on the UK's Channel 4 late-night alternative comedy show Viva Cabaret . In 1989 they were made regular performers on

18669-623: The summer of 1753, they performed ballad-operas, such as The Beggar's Opera , and ballad-farces. By the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. Other early musical theatre in America consisted of British forms, such as burletta and pantomime, but what a piece was called did not necessarily define what it was. The 1852 Broadway extravaganza The Magic Deer advertised itself as "A Serio Comico Tragico Operatical Historical Extravaganzical Burletical Tale of Enchantment." Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown from around 1850 and did not arrive in

18816-429: The three ruled out the suggestion of a reunion tour at the time. After an hiatus, McDermott, Ferguson and Paul Livingston (performing the role of Fidler) performed "as DAAS" for their 30th anniversary at the Canberra Comedy Festival, held in March 2014. The group have been inactive since the end of 2017. DAAS employ an aggressive, confrontational style, which author and journalist Geoff Bartlett describes as "[pushing]

18963-679: The traditions of comic opera and used elements of burlesque and of the Harrigan and Hart pieces. He replaced the bawdy women of burlesque with his "respectable" corps of Gaiety Girls to complete the musical and visual fun. The success of the first of these, In Town (1892) and A Gaiety Girl (1893) set the style for the next three decades. The plots were generally light, romantic "poor maiden loves aristocrat and wins him against all odds" shows, with music by Ivan Caryll , Sidney Jones and Lionel Monckton . These shows were immediately widely copied in America, and Edwardian musical comedy swept away

19110-449: The villain in Oklahoma! is a suspected murderer and psychopath; Carousel deals with spousal abuse, thievery, suicide and the afterlife; South Pacific explores miscegenation even more thoroughly than Show Boat ; the hero of The King and I dies onstage; and the backdrop of The Sound of Music is the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 . The show's creativity stimulated Rodgers and Hammerstein's contemporaries and ushered in

19257-464: The work's musical or dramatic content in defining into which art form the piece falls. Sondheim said, "I really think that when something plays Broadway it's a musical, and when it plays in an opera house it's opera. That's it. It's the terrain, the countryside, the expectations of the audience that make it one thing or another." There remains an overlap in form between lighter operatic forms and more musically complex or ambitious musicals. In practice, it

19404-482: The worst," he said. "They'd whip up an audience and appeal to people's darker side. It was very Dada , what they were doing. And what happens with that is you're just as often likely to have people who want to kill you as applaud you." In addition, ABC comedy producer Ted Robinson says that the group played an important role in raising the profile of Australian comedy overseas, particularly in Britain where DAAS were very popular. British comedian Al Murray said of seeing

19551-420: Was A Chinese Honeymoon (1901), which ran for a record-setting 1,074 performances in London and 376 in New York. After the turn of the 20th century, Seymour Hicks joined forces with Edwardes and American producer Charles Frohman to create another decade of popular shows. Other enduring Edwardian musical comedy hits included The Arcadians (1909) and The Quaker Girl (1910). Virtually eliminated from

19698-620: Was "a bit of an explosive hippie " while Fidler and Piper were more reserved. Robert Piper left the group in 1985 due to other commitments. Piper has gone on to a successful career with the United Nations and in March 2013 was named Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and the humanitarian coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory. With Piper's departure, Paul McDermott, who performed at one of DAAS's regular clubs,

19845-420: Was a "show, that, like Show Boat , became a milestone, so that later historians writing about important moments in twentieth-century theatre would begin to identify eras according to their relationship to Oklahoma! ". "After Oklahoma! , Rodgers and Hammerstein were the most important contributors to the musical-play form... The examples they set in creating vital plays, often rich with social thought, provided

19992-463: Was a much-loved Prime Minister of Australia who had been assassinated on 11 November 1975, by right-wing extremists. (In fact, Anthony is a former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia who had led the right-of-center National Party of Australia from 1971 to 1984.) The lie was printed in The Times , The Guardian and The Independent . This game continued undetected until in 1990 the group told

20139-499: Was cancelled after its initial run of 26 episodes. In addition to his television work, McDermott has continued to be involved in live comedy. He has frequently participated in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival , having often captained one of the two competing teams in the festival's Great Debate since his first debate appearance in 1994. At the 2002 festival he not only presented a solo comedy show titled "Comedyoscopy", but also performed with Cameron Bruce and Mick Moriarty in

20286-603: Was co-editor of the school magazine. That interest in journalism led him to become a copy boy at The Sun News-Pictorial starting at age 17, for five years. He moved on to theatre and cabaret, encouraged by the party atmosphere at the Melbourne production of The Rocky Horror Show every weekend. Trevorrow first came to prominence in the cabaret duo Globos with Wendy De Waal, and they scored two Australian Top 20 hits with quirky covers of " Tintarella di luna " (1982) and Sonny & Cher 's " The Beat Goes On " (1983), both of which were produced by Red Symons . In 1984 he formed

20433-427: Was dominated by joke-tellers and impersonators. By contrast, DAAS were belligerent and confrontational, frequently attacking topical issues, invading people's personal space and involving the audience in their act. Mark Trevorrow , who frequently collaborated with the group, described their work as "true genius." "Their great shows were among the greatest evenings I've witnessed in my life and their worst shows were among

20580-468: Was dominated by musical theatre standards, such as " Fascinating Rhythm ", " Tea for Two " and " Someone to Watch Over Me ". Many shows were revues , series of sketches and songs with little or no connection between them. The best-known of these were the annual Ziegfeld Follies , spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway featuring extravagant sets, elaborate costumes and beautiful chorus girls. These spectacles also raised production values, and mounting

20727-586: Was fresher. Tolerance as an important theme in musicals has continued in recent decades. The final expression of West Side Story left a message of racial tolerance. By the end of the 1960s, musicals became racially integrated, with black and white cast members even covering each other's roles, as they did in Hair . Homosexuality has also been explored in musicals, starting with Hair , and even more overtly in La Cage aux Folles , Falsettos , Rent , Hedwig and

20874-400: Was invited to join. He accepted, although he did not like their material, which he considered too sweet. Fidler says McDermott changed the group's dynamic; he wrote the majority of their songs and prompted a darker tone. After winning the Pick of the Fringe award at the 1986 Adelaide Fringe Festival, the group relocated from Canberra to Melbourne, where they based themselves with a regular gig at

21021-751: Was nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award for their performances at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Fidler says that the British people were more receptive to their act at the time than Australians had been. "The whole thing exploded for us when we got there, it was quite incredible. Within a very short time we were doing national television appearances in front of millions of people and playing these enormous shows," he says. They played extensively in Canada, Germany, America and Britain, and finished their time in Britain by appearing on

21168-544: Was playing the guitar—something from Cat Stevens —one day and I walked up to him and we did ' Wild Thing '. I sang a few lyrics and jumped about like a mad thing. Lo and behold we made a stack of money in ten minutes." The two began performing together and joined with another friend, Robert Piper , to form the Doug Anthony All Stars. They derived their name from Doug Anthony , a former Country Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister of Australia. According to Fidler, during their earlier gigs in clubs and as street performers, Ferguson

21315-510: Was praised by critics for its innovations in music and choreography but was less commercially successful than the same year's The Music Man , written and composed by Meredith Willson , which won the Tony Award for Best Musical that year. West Side Story would get a film adaptation in 1961, which proved successful both critically and commercially. Laurents and Sondheim teamed up again for Gypsy (1959), with Jule Styne providing

21462-425: Was the French operetta The Chimes of Normandy in 1878 (705 performances). English comic opera adopted many of the successful ideas of European operetta, none more successfully than the series of more than a dozen long-running Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, including H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and The Mikado (1885). These were sensations on both sides of the Atlantic and in Australia and helped to raise

21609-492: Was very Dada , what they were doing. DAAS were known for continuing to act, or to remain in character, during interviews. Much of this was just banter, but they also had serious messages. DAAS were often criticising the media and part of this was to tell outrageous lies to journalists during interviews and attempt to see them published as fact. In one of the best-known instances of this, the group told British reporters that their namesake, former Australian politician Doug Anthony ,

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