Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue , acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos , love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals .
158-458: Ethel Merman (born Ethel Agnes Zimmermann ; January 16, 1908 – February 15, 1984) was an American actress and singer. Known for her distinctive, powerful voice, and her leading roles in musical theater , she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." She performed on Broadway in Anything Goes , Annie Get Your Gun , Gypsy , and Hello, Dolly! She
316-506: A shell-shocked soldier who thinks he is Ethel Merman. In the cameo appearance, Merman leaps out of bed singing " Everything's Coming Up Roses " as orderlies sedate her. She appeared in several episodes of The Love Boat (playing Gopher's mother), guest-starred on a CBS tribute to George Gershwin, did a summer concert tour with Carroll O'Connor , played a two-week engagement at the London Palladium , performed with Mary Martin in
474-809: A 14 liter F.I.A.T. S74 took 1st place at the 1912 American Grand Prize race, the seventh and final race of the 1912 Grand Prix season. It was held at the Wauwatosa Road Race Course near Milwaukee, Wisconsin and was sanctioned by the Automobile Club of America. Caleb Bragg won by over 15 minutes over Erwin Bergdoll and his 9.5 liter 37/90 hp Benz. Bragg's average speed was 68.397 mph (110.074 km/h). During World War I Bragg became interested in flying airplanes and in 1916 he flew his first solo flight; he later set airplane records for speed and altitude . Bragg developed
632-565: 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
790-411: A beat, Merman retorted: "You weren’t mentioned once." In a radio interview, Merman said of her numerous marriages: "We all make mistakes. That's why they put rubbers on pencils, and that's what I did. I made a few lulus!" In her 1978 autobiography Merman , the chapter entitled "My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine" was a blank page. Ethel Levitt, her daughter, died on August 23, 1967, of a drug overdose that
948-532: A better deal allowing her to perform in clubs while remaining on the Warner Bros.'s payroll. Merman was hired as a torch singer at Les Ambassadeurs, where the headliner was Jimmy Durante; the two became lifelong friends. She caught the attention of columnists such as Walter Winchell and Mark Hellinger , who began to give her publicity. Soon after, Merman underwent a tonsillectomy , which she feared would damage her voice, but after recovering, she discovered it
1106-579: 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
1264-560: A braking system with Victor William Kliesrath called the Bragg-Kliesrath brake . They formed a company in 1920 and Ethel Merman was his personal secretary before she became famous. They sold the company to Bendix Corporation in the late 1920s. In speedboat racing, Bragg won three consecutive APBA Challenge Cup races in Detroit from 1923 to 1925, in 1923 with Packard Chriscraft and the 1924-1925 races with Baby Bootlegger ,
1422-777: A commercial course that offered secretarial training. She was active in numerous extracurricular activities, including the school magazine, the speakers' club, and student council, and she frequented the local music store to peruse the weekly arrivals of new sheet music. On Friday nights, the Zimmermann family took the subway into Manhattan to see the vaudeville show at the Palace Theatre , where Merman saw Blossom Seeley , Fanny Brice , Sophie Tucker , and Nora Bayes . At home, she tried to emulate their singing styles, but found her own distinctive voice difficult to disguise. After graduating from Bryant High School in 1924, Merman
1580-518: 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
1738-602: A concert benefiting the theater and museum collection of the Museum of the City of New York , and frequently appeared as a soloist with symphony orchestras. She also volunteered at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center (now Mount Sinai West ) working in the gift shop or visiting patients. Merman was known for her powerful mezzo-soprano voice, belting , precise enunciation , and pitch. Because stage singers performed without microphones when Merman began singing professionally, she had
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#17327931621601896-491: A cross-complaint shortly thereafter charging Borgnine with extreme cruelty. She was granted a divorce on November 18, 1964. An oft recounted story from their short marriage demonstrated the volatility of their relationship. When Borgnine asked Merman how her audition had gone, she replied: "Well, they were mad about my 35-year-old body, my 35-year-old voice, and my 35-year-old face." "Is that so?" Borgnine responded. "And what did they think of your 65-year-old cunt?" Without missing
2054-468: A dirty joke across the room at José Ferrer during a formal reception. While rehearsing a guest appearance on The Loretta Young Show , Merman exclaimed "Where the hell does this go?" Young , who was a devout Catholic, advanced towards Merman waving an empty coffee can , saying, "Miss Merman, you said the 'H' word! That'll be twenty-five cents."—to which Merman replied, "Tell me, Loretta, how much will it cost me to tell you to go fuck yourself?" Merman,
2212-520: 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
2370-402: 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
2528-641: 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
2686-485: A great advantage, despite never taking vocal lessons. Broadway lore holds that George Gershwin advised her never to take such lessons after she opened in Girl Crazy . Caryl Flinn's 2007 biography includes many quotes from reviews of Merman's work, most of which were compliments to her. Brooks Atkinson summed up her talent: She makes a song seem like a spontaneous expression of her personality, which may be regarded as
2844-611: A lifelong Republican , was a frequent guest of Dwight D. Eisenhower 's at the White House . She was noted as saying, "Eisenhower was my war hero and the President I admire and respect most." On January 20, 1981, she performed "Everything's Coming up Roses" at the inauguration of Ronald Reagan . She had previously sung the same song at an inaugural gala for John F. Kennedy , but it was never broadcast. Merman co-wrote two memoirs. The first, Who Could Ask for Anything More? (1955),
3002-517: 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
3160-510: 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
3318-416: 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
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#17327931621603476-497: 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
3634-467: 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
3792-547: 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
3950-464: 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
4108-569: A part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during the 19th century, with many structural elements established by 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
4266-574: A performance of "There's No Business Like Show Business" as a tribute to Merman. Hit records She received two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. One for her contribution to the motion picture industry at 7044 Hollywood Boulevard and one for recording at 1751 Vine Street. Merman was in the inaugural class of inductees to the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1972. Musical theatre Although music has been
4424-582: A plot that vaguely paralleled the composer's life, and Straight, Place and Show , a critical and commercial flop starring the Ritz Brothers . She returned to the stage in Stars in Your Eyes , which closed short of four months as the public flocked to the 1939 New York World's Fair . Merman followed this with two more Porter musicals. Du Barry Was a Lady , with Bert Lahr and Betty Grable , ran for
4582-531: A promotion director for the New York Journal-American . The couple eventually had two children and divorced in 1952 due to Levitt's excessive drinking and erratic behavior. In 1943, Merman was a featured performer in the film Stage Door Canteen and opened in another Porter musical, Something for the Boys , produced by Michael Todd . In 1944, she was set to star as the title character in
4740-521: 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
4898-497: 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
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5056-544: 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
5214-547: 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
5372-474: A show until the end of its run, she left Anything Goes after eight months to appear with Eddie Cantor in the film Strike Me Pink (1936). She was replaced by Benay Venuta , with whom she enjoyed a long but frequently tempestuous friendship. Merman initially was overlooked for the film version of Anything Goes (1936). Bing Crosby insisted his wife Dixie Lee be cast as Reno Sweeney opposite his role as Billy Crocker, but when she unexpectedly dropped out of
5530-789: 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
5688-683: A tough girl. Anything Goes was the first of five Cole Porter musicals in which Merman starred. In addition to the title song, the score included " I Get a Kick Out of You ", " You're the Top ", and "Blow Gabriel Blow". It opened on November 21, 1934, at the Alvin Theatre, and the New York Post called Merman "vivacious and ingratiating in her comedy moments, and the embodiment of poise and technical adroitness" when singing "as only she knows how to do." Although Merman always had remained with
5846-457: A two-week engagement at a club in midtown Manhattan called Little Russia, Merman met agent Lou Irwin, who arranged for her to audition for Archie Mayo , a film director under contract at Warner Bros. He offered her an exclusive six-month contract, starting at $ 125 per week, and Merman quit her day job, only to find herself idle for weeks while waiting to be cast in a film. She urged Irwin to cancel her agreement with Mayo; instead, he negotiated her
6004-644: A year, and Panama Hattie , with Betty Hutton (whose musical numbers were cut from the show on opening night at Merman's insistence), June Allyson , and Arthur Treacher , fared even better, lasting slightly more than 14 months. Shortly after the opening of the latter, Merman—still despondent about the end of her affair with Stork Club owner Sherman Billingsley —married her first husband, William Smith, Treacher's agent. She later said she knew on their wedding night that she had made "a dreadful mistake", and two months later, she filed for divorce on grounds of desertion. Shortly after, she met and married Robert D. Levitt,
6162-685: Is also known for her film roles in Anything Goes (1936), Call Me Madam (1953), There's No Business Like Show Business (1954), and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). Among many accolades, she received the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in Call Me Madam , a Grammy Award for Gypsy , and a Drama Desk Award for Hello, Dolly! Merman introduced many Broadway standards , including " I Got Rhythm " from Girl Crazy , " Everything's Coming Up Roses ", "Some People" and " Rose's Turn " from Gypsy , and
6320-556: Is every bit as authoritative, as high-handed, really, as her voice." The seventh actress to portray the scheming matchmaker in the original Broadway production, she remained with the musical for 210 performances until it closed on December 27, 1970. Merman received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance for what proved to be her last appearance on Broadway. For the remainder of her career, Merman worked as frequently as offers were made. She appeared on Match Game in
6478-451: 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
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6636-477: 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
6794-464: 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
6952-420: The 55th Academy Awards telecast, when she collapsed in her apartment. Merman was taken to Roosevelt Hospital (Mount Sinai West), where doctors initially thought she had suffered a stroke. After undergoing exploratory surgery on April 11, she was diagnosed with stage four glioblastoma . The New York Times reported that she underwent brain surgery to have the tumor removed, but it was inoperable and her condition
7110-595: The Cole Porter songs " It's De-Lovely " (from Red, Hot and Blue ), "Friendship" (from Du Barry Was a Lady ), and " I Get a Kick Out of You ", " You're the Top ", and " Anything Goes " (from Anything Goes ). The Irving Berlin song " There's No Business Like Show Business ", written for Annie Get Your Gun , became Merman's signature song. Ethel Merman was born on January 16, 1908, in her maternal grandmother's house in Astoria, Queens , but she later insisted that
7268-640: 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
7426-491: 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
7584-557: 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
7742-562: The third-highest grossing film of 1963 . It received six Academy Award nominations and one win. Merman also starred in the flop The Art of Love (1965). She made dozens of television appearances on variety shows hosted by Perry Como , Red Skelton , Judy Garland, Dean Martin , Ed Sullivan , and Carol Burnett , talk shows with Mike Douglas , Dick Cavett , and Merv Griffin , and in episodes of That Girl , The Lucy Show , Match Game , Batman , Tarzan , and others. Producer David Merrick encouraged Jerry Herman to compose
7900-543: 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
8058-622: 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
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#17327931621608216-504: 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
8374-555: 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
8532-412: 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
8690-810: 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
8848-551: 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
9006-677: 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
9164-425: 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
9322-561: The Broadway run, she agreed to join the show on the road, but shortly after the Chicago opening, she claimed the chlorine in the city's water supply was irritating her throat, and returned to Manhattan. Merman returned to Hollywood to appear in We're Not Dressing (1934), a screwball comedy based on the J. M. Barrie play The Admirable Crichton . Despite working with a cast including Bing Crosby , Carole Lombard , and Burns and Allen , under
9480-756: 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
9638-586: 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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#17327931621609796-583: 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
9954-560: 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
10112-612: 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
10270-655: 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
10428-552: The Redeemer, where their daughter was baptized. Merman's parents were strict about church attendance and she spent every Sunday attending morning services, Sunday school, afternoon prayer meetings, and evening study groups for children. Merman's parents insisted she have an education with training in secretarial skills, in case her entertainment career failed. Merman attended P.S. 4 and William Cullen Bryant High School (which later named its auditorium in her honor), where she pursued
10586-582: 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
10744-463: 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
10902-497: 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
11060-477: 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
11218-486: 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
11376-498: The acclaim, Merman lost the Tony Award to her close friend Mary Martin in The Sound of Music , and jokingly quipped "How are you going to buck a nun?" Shortly after she divorced Robert Six, his affair with television actress Audrey Meadows became public, and she found solace in her work. Throughout the 702-performance run of Gypsy, Mervyn LeRoy saw it numerous times, repeatedly assuring Merman that he planned to cast her in
11534-507: 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
11692-712: The airline, and her decision to forgo the limelight did not sit well with him. He urged her to accept the lead in Happy Hunting , with a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse (who had written Call Me Madam ) and a score by Harold Karr and Matt Dubey. Merman acquiesced to her husband's demands, although she clashed with the composers from the start and soon was at odds with co-star Fernando Lamas and his wife Arlene Dahl , who frequently attended rehearsals. The show opened in New York with an advance sale of $ 1.5 million, and despite Merman's dissatisfaction with it, garnered respectable reviews. Although Brooks Atkinson thought
11850-407: The box-office receipts. In 1963, Merman starred in the ensemble comedy film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World alongside Spencer Tracy , Sid Caesar , Jonathan Winters , Phil Silvers , Buddy Hackett , and Mickey Rooney . Merman played Mrs. Marcus, the loudmouthed mother in-law of Milton Berle . The film was a major box-office success, earning $ 60 million on a budget of $ 9.4 million and becoming
12008-474: 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
12166-557: 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
12324-508: 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
12482-452: 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
12640-548: 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
12798-494: 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
12956-472: The direction of Academy Award -winning director Norman Taurog , Merman was unhappy with the experience, and she was dismayed to discover one of her musical numbers had been cut when she attended the New York opening with her family and friends. She also appeared on screen with Eddie Cantor in Kid Millions (also 1934), but her return to Broadway established her as a major star and cemented her image as
13114-403: 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
13272-409: 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
13430-544: 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
13588-409: 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
13746-481: The film adaptation he was preparing. Before the show's closing, it was announced that Rosalind Russell instead had been signed to star. Russell's husband, theater producer Frederick Brisson (whom Merman later called "the lizard of Roz"), had sold the screen rights to the Leonard Spigelgass play A Majority of One to Warner Bros. on the condition that his wife would star in both films. Because Russell
13904-438: 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
14062-499: The following month. Producer Buddy DeSylva , who also had written the book and lyrics, was certain it could be reworked into a success, and with a revamped script and additional songs by Vincent Youmans , it opened with the new title Take a Chance on November 26 at the 42nd Street Apollo Theatre , where it ran for 243 performances. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times called it "fast, loud, and funny" and added Merman "has never loosed herself with quite so much abandon." Following
14220-515: 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
14378-472: 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
14536-527: 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
14694-447: 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
14852-548: 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
15010-402: 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,
15168-505: 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
15326-535: 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 ,
15484-477: The lyrics. Dietz took exception to Merman's singing the altered lyrics and gave her an ultimatum to sing his original lyrics or leave the show. In response, Merman withdrew from the production. Commentators have speculated that Merman's departure was probably due to her reluctance to assume such a serious role in her first dramatic musical. June Havoc left her starring role in Mexican Hayride and assumed
15642-517: The matriarch of the singing and dancing Donahue family in There's No Business Like Show Business , a film with a score written by Berlin. Merman returned to Broadway at the behest of her third husband, Continental Airlines executive Robert Six , who was upset she had chosen to become a housewife in Colorado following their wedding in 1953. He expected her public appearances to generate publicity for
15800-445: 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
15958-585: 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
16116-423: 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
16274-480: 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:
16432-490: The musical play Sadie Thompson with a score by Vernon Duke and Howard Dietz , directed and produced by Rouben Mamoulian . The musical play was based on the short story " Rain " by W. Somerset Maugham . The serious nature of the production was a departure from Merman's string of successful musical comedies. During rehearsals, Merman had difficulties memorizing the lyrics, and she blamed Dietz for his use of sophisticated and foreign words. She had her husband tone down some of
16590-650: The national tour. In San Francisco, she severely injured her back, but continued to perform for packed houses. During the Los Angeles run, LeRoy visited her backstage and claimed Russell was so ill that "I think you're going to end up getting this part." Believing the film version of Gypsy was within her grasp, she provided him with the many house seats he requested for friends and industry colleagues, only to discover she had been duped. Merman's role in Gypsy earned her an estimated $ 130,000 per year, plus an additional 10% of
16748-418: 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:
16906-766: 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
17064-502: 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
17222-464: 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
17380-643: 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
17538-517: The presence of Jimmy Durante and Bob Hope in the cast, Red, Hot and Blue closed after less than six months. Back in Hollywood, Merman was featured in Happy Landing , one of the top-10 box-office hits of 1938 comedy with Sonja Henie , Cesar Romero , and Don Ameche . She also starred in the box-office hit Alexander's Ragtime Band , a pastiche of Irving Berlin songs interpolated into
17696-579: The president of Continental Airlines . They separated in December 1959 and were divorced in 1960. According to Merman's son, he, his sister and mother and even his elderly grandparents had suffered emotional and physical violence from Six.Merman's fourth and final marriage was to actor Ernest Borgnine . They were married in Beverly Hills on June 27, 1964. They separated on August 7, 1964, and Borgnine filed for divorce on October 21, 1964. Merman filed
17854-515: The project, Merman was cast in the role. From the beginning, it was clear to Merman the film would not be the enjoyable experience she had hoped it would be. The focus was shifted to Crosby, leaving her in a supporting role. Many of Porter's ribald lyrics were altered to conform to the guidelines of the Motion Picture Production Code , and "Blow Gabriel Blow" was eliminated, replaced by a song, "Shang Hai-de-Ho", which Merman
18012-764: 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
18170-528: The result was Annie Get Your Gun , which opened on May 16, 1946, at the Imperial Theatre , where it ran for nearly three years and 1,147 performances. During this time, Merman took only two vacations and missed only two performances due to illness. Merman lost her role in the film version to Judy Garland (who eventually was replaced by Betty Hutton), but starred in a Broadway revival two decades later at Lincoln Center alongside Bruce Yarnell , who
18328-451: 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
18486-470: The role of San Francisco café singer Kate Fothergill in the new George and Ira Gershwin musical Girl Crazy . Upon hearing her sing "I Got Rhythm", the Gershwins immediately cast her, and Merman began balancing daytime rehearsals with her matinee and evening performance schedule at the Palace. Merman introduced the songs " Sam and Delilah " and " Boy! What Love Has Done to Me! " as well as "I Got Rhythm" in
18644-464: The role, instead. Sadie Thompson opened on Broadway on November 16, 1944, to mixed reviews. Havoc received almost uniformly favorable reviews. Reactions to the score and the book were mixed, with the score called "undistinguished." The show only lasted 60 performances and closed on January 6, 1945. In August 1945, while in the hospital recovering from the Caesarean birth of her second child, Merman
18802-630: The run of Girl Crazy , Paramount signed Merman to appear in a series of 10 short musical films, most of which allowed her to sing both a rousing number and a ballad. She also performed at the Central Park Casino , the Paramount Theatre , and a return engagement at the Palace. As soon as Girl Crazy closed, her parents and she departed for a vacation in Lake George in upstate New York, but after their first day there, Merman
18960-441: The same time, Stephen Sondheim found success with some of his musicals, as mentioned above. Caleb Bragg Caleb Smith Bragg (November 23, 1885 – October 24, 1943) was an American racing driver , speedboat racer, aviation pioneer, and automotive inventor. He participated in the 1911, 1913 and 1914 Indianapolis 500 . In speedboat racing, Caleb won three consecutive APBA Challenge Cup races in Detroit from 1923 to 1925. He
19118-584: The score of Hello, Dolly! specifically for Merman's vocal range, but when he offered her the role, she declined it. She finally joined the cast on March 28, 1970, six years after the production opened. On Merman's opening night, her performance was continually brought to a halt by prolonged standing ovations, and the critics unanimously heralded her return to the New York stage. Walter Kerr in The New York Times described her voice: "Exactly as trumpet-clean, exactly as penny whistle-piercing, exactly as Wurlitzer-wonderful as it always was." He wrote: "Her comic sense
19276-517: The score was "hardly more than adequate", he called Merman "as brassy as ever, glowing like a neon light whenever she steps on the stage." Several months into the run, she insisted that two of her least-favorite numbers be replaced by songs written by her friend Roger Edens , who, because of his exclusive contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , credited them to Kay Thompson . She lost the Tony Award to Judy Holliday in Bells Are Ringing , and
19434-415: 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
19592-583: The show closed after 412 performances, with Merman happy to see what she considered "a dreary obligation" come to an end. Gypsy was based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee and starred Merman as Rose Hovick , her domineering stage mother . The musical opened on May 21, 1959, at the Broadway Theatre . In the New York Post, Richard Watts called Merman "a brilliant actress", and Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times wrote that "She gives an indomitable performance, both as actress and singer." Despite
19750-420: 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
19908-407: 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
20066-484: The show. Girl Crazy opened on October 14, 1930, at the Alvin Theatre , where it ran for 272 performances. The New York Times noted Merman sang "with dash, authority, good voice and just the right knowing style", and The New Yorker called her "imitative of no one." Merman was indifferent to her reviews, prompting George Gershwin to ask her mother: "Have you ever seen a person so unconcerned as Ethel?" During
20224-516: The sleep she had lost the previous night when she was out late performing at private parties. During this period, Merman began appearing in nightclubs , first hired by Jimmy Durante 's partner Lou Clayton . At this time, she decided the name Ethel Zimmermann was too long for a theater marquee. She considered combining Ethel with Gardner or Hunter, which was her grandmother's maiden name. Her father strongly disapproved of these considerations, so she abbreviated Zimmermann to Merman to appease him. During
20382-460: The spring of 1976, in which she told Match Game regular Brett Somers to "shut up" in one of the series' self-proclaimed "Gold Star" episodes. In 1979, she recorded The Ethel Merman Disco Album , with many of her signature songs set to a disco beat. She was a guest host on an episode in the first season of The Muppet Show . Her last screen role was a self-parody in the 1980 comedy film Airplane! , in which she portrayed Lieutenant Hurwitz,
20540-476: 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
20698-402: 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
20856-515: 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
21014-623: 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
21172-679: 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
21330-508: The turn of the 20th century. The Princess Theatre musicals (1915–1918) were artistic steps forward beyond 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
21488-440: The ultimate skill in the art of singing songs. Merman was married and divorced four times. Her first marriage, in 1940, was to theatrical agent William Smith. They were divorced in 1941. Later that same year, Merman married newspaper executive Robert Levitt. The couple had two children: Ethel (born July 20, 1942) and Robert Jr. (born August 11, 1945). Merman and Levitt were divorced in 1952. In March 1953, Merman married Robert Six ,
21646-449: 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
21804-464: 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
21962-566: The year of her birth was 1912. She was an only child. Her father, Edward Zimmermann, was an accountant with James H. Dunham & Company, a Manhattan wholesale dry-goods company, and her mother, Agnes ( née Gardner ) Zimmermann, was a schoolteacher. Edward Zimmermann had been raised in the Dutch Reformed Church and his wife was Presbyterian . Shortly after they married, they joined the Episcopal congregation at Church of
22120-420: 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
22278-420: 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
22436-471: Was a co-inventor of the Bragg-Kliesrath brake . Bragg was born on November 23, 1885, in Cincinnati, Ohio , to Cais C. Bragg and Eugenia Hofer who were wealthy. While at Yale University , Bragg became interested in automobile racing. Bragg graduated from Yale in 1908 and took a post-graduate engineering course at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1909. On October 5, 1912, Bragg driving
22594-526: Was cast as Frank E. Butler , Annie Oakley's husband and manager. Yarnell was 27 years younger than Merman. Merman and Berlin reunited for Call Me Madam in 1950, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical , and she starred in the 1953 screen adaptation as well, winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her performance. The following year, she appeared as
22752-869: Was deemed terminal (doctors gave Merman eight and a half months to live). The tumor caused her to become aphasic , and as her illness progressed, she lost her hair and her face swelled. According to her biographer Brian Kellow, Merman's family and manager did not want the true nature of her condition revealed to the public. Merman's son, Robert, Jr., who took charge of her care, later said he chose not to publicly disclose his mother's condition because she strove to keep her personal life private. He stated, "Mom truly appreciated [her fans'] presence and their applause. But you shouldn't attempt to be personal—she drew lines, and she could cut you off." Merman's health eventually stabilized enough for her to be brought back to her apartment in Manhattan. On February 15, 1984, 10 months after she
22910-513: Was diagnosed with brain cancer, Merman died at her home at the age of 76. On the evening of Merman's death, all 36 theaters on Broadway dimmed their lights at 9 pm in her honor. A private funeral service for Merman was held in a chapel at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church on February 27, after which Merman was cremated at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel . In accordance with her wishes, Merman's remains were given to her son Robert Jr. Merman
23068-468: 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
23226-561: Was forced to perform in a headdress made of peacock feathers while surrounded by dancers dressed as Chinese slave girls. The film was completed $ 201,000 over budget and 17 days behind schedule. Richard Watts Jr. of the New York Herald Tribune described it as "dull and commonplace", stating that Merman did "as well as possible", but she was unable to register "on screen as magnificently as she does on stage." Merman returned to Broadway for another Porter musical, but despite
23384-586: 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
23542-588: Was hired as a stenographer by the Boyce-Ite Company. One day during her lunch break, she met Vic Kliesrath , who offered her a job at the Bragg-Kliesrath Corporation for a US$ 5 increase above the weekly $ 23 salary she was earning, and Merman accepted the offer. She eventually was made personal secretary to company president Caleb Bragg , whose frequent lengthy absences from the office to race automobiles allowed her to catch up on
23700-650: Was interred in the Shrine of Remembrance Mausoleum in Colorado Springs, Colorado, next to her daughter Ethel. Upon her death, Merman left an estate estimated to be worth $ 1.5 million (equivalent to $ 4.4 million in 2023) to be divided between her son and two grandchildren. On October 10, 1984, an auction of her personal effects, including furniture, artwork, and theater memorabilia, earned over $ 120,000 (equivalent to $ 352,000 in 2023) at Christie's East . The 56th Academy Awards , held on April 2, 1984, ended with
23858-622: Was more powerful than ever. While performing on the prestigious Keith Circuit , Merman was signed to replace Ruth Etting in the Paramount film Follow the Leader (1930), starring Ed Wynn and Ginger Rogers . Following a successful seven-week run at the Brooklyn Paramount , she was signed to perform at the Palace for $ 500 per week. During the run, theater producer Vinton Freedley saw her perform and invited her to audition for
24016-452: 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
24174-426: Was published by Doubleday & Co. and written with the assistance of Pete Martin. The second, Merman (1978), was published by Simon & Schuster and written with George Eels. Merman became forgetful with advancing age, and on occasion, had difficulty with her speech. At times, her behavior was erratic, causing concern among her friends. On April 7, 1983, she was preparing to travel to Los Angeles, to appear on
24332-476: Was ruled accidental. Her son Robert, Jr., was married to actress Barbara Colby . Colby, at the time estranged from Robert, was shot and killed (along with a friend, James Kiernan), in a parking garage in Los Angeles in July 1975. The shooting was by apparent gang members who had no clear motive. Merman was notorious for her brash demeanor and for telling vulgar stories at public parties. For instance, she once shouted
24490-430: Was still a major box-office draw with the success of Auntie Mame a few years earlier, and Merman having never established herself as a popular screen presence, the studio agreed to Brisson's terms. Merman was devastated at this turn of events and called the loss of the role "the greatest professional disappointment of my life." Following the Broadway closing of Gypsy on March 25, 1961, Merman halfheartedly embarked on
24648-772: Was summoned to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to help salvage the troubled latest edition of George White's Scandals . Because she was still under contract to Freedley, White was forced to pay the producer $ 10,000 for her services, in addition to her weekly $ 1,500 salary. Following the Atlantic City run, the show played in Newark, New Jersey, and then Brooklyn before opening on Broadway, where it ran for 202 performances. Merman's next show, Humpty Dumpty , began rehearsals in August 1932 and opened—and immediately closed—in Pittsburgh
24806-482: 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
24964-457: Was visited by Dorothy Fields , who proposed she star as Annie Oakley in a musical her brother Herbert and she were writing with Jerome Kern . Merman accepted, but in November, Kern suffered a stroke while in New York City visiting Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein (the producers of the show) and died a few days later. Rodgers and Hammerstein invited Irving Berlin to replace Kern, and
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