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118-455: The Bruce Ariss Wharf Theater is a musical theater located in Monterey , California . It began its history after World War II when Bruce Ariss , an artist and friend of John Steinbeck , returned to the city of Monterey after working with his father's construction company. Friend Yanko Varda introduced Bruce Ariss to Angelo Di Girolamo whose brother had originally proposed the idea of

236-565: 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

354-579: 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

472-518: 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

590-542: A familiar plot line – a chorus girl breaks into high society or a shop girl makes a good marriage to a wealthy aristocrat (who is often in disguise). There was always a misunderstanding during act one and an engagement at the end. In the words of a contemporary review, Edwardes’ musicals were "Light, bright and enjoyable." Later Gaiety Theatre "girl" musicals included The Orchid (1903), The Spring Chicken (1905), The Girls of Gottenberg (1907), Our Miss Gibbs (1909), The Sunshine Girl (1912) and The Girl on

708-520: 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

826-402: 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

944-641: 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

1062-517: 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

1180-510: 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

1298-416: 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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1416-497: 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

1534-467: 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

1652-547: 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

1770-464: 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

1888-583: A record setting 1,074 performances in London and 376 in New York. The story concerns couples who honeymoon in China and inadvertently break the kissing laws (shades of The Mikado ). Later enormously popular hits included Chu Chin Chow (1916), which ran for 2,238 performances (more than twice as many as any previous musical), Theodore & Co (1916), The Boy (1917), Yes, Uncle! (1917) and The Maid of

2006-409: A resident company of artists, and the greatest stars of the era included actresses Marie Tempest , Gertie Millar , Lily Elsie , Ellaline Terriss and Phyllis Dare , leading men such as Hayden Coffin and Harry Grattan , and comics such as Rutland Barrington , George Grossmith, Jr., Huntley Wright and Edmund Payne . One critic wrote of Joseph Coyne that, like other stars of musical comedy, "It

2124-468: 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

2242-552: 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

2360-544: 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

2478-547: 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

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2596-789: 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

2714-460: A theater, the location was enlarged with the purchase of three barracks buildings by Ariss and their use as building material. The new theatre complex would have an art gallery and an office off the main lobby while on the first floor there would be room for shops. On December 3, 1976, The new Wharf Theater opened its doors with a production of Guys and Dolls . Ariss died in September 1994 at

2832-427: A theatre on Fisherman's Wharf . Along with Dan Totheroh and Kenn Smith the group located financial backing from two sisters, Virginia and Barbara Blair, who also found the location for the new theatre on the wharf. Opening night was May 18, 1950, with a production of "Happy Birthday". Ariss designed and built the set. In 1951 Kenn Smith leased the theater to "The Wharf Players, Inc". One of their presentations that year

2950-409: 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

3068-451: 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

3186-473: Is no good their pretending to be any one else. We go to see themselves, and all we ask is that the authors and others shall give them every chance of being themselves in the most pronounced and personal fashion". The Arcadians is generally regarded as the masterpiece of the genre. The composers were Monckton and Talbot, both at the height of their powers. The story, about the havoc wreaked when truth-telling Arcadians arrive in corrupt London, neatly parallels

3304-477: 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

3422-464: 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

3540-753: The Gilbert and Sullivan operas' dominance had ended, until the rise of American musicals by Jerome Kern , Rodgers and Hart , George Gershwin and Cole Porter following the First World War . Between In Town in 1892 and The Maid of the Mountains , premiering in 1917, this new style of musical theatre proliferated across the musical stages of Britain and the rest of the English-speaking world. The popularity of In Town and A Gaiety Girl (1893), led to an astonishing number of hits over

3658-640: 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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3776-491: 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

3894-557: 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

4012-543: 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

4130-622: 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

4248-649: The 1880s and, at first, improved the quality of the Gaiety Theatre's earlier burlesques. Perceiving that their time had passed, he experimented with a modern-dress, family-friendly musical theatre style, with breezy, popular songs, snappy, romantic banter, and stylish spectacle. These drew on the traditions of Savoy opera and also used elements of burlesque and of Americans Harrigan and Hart . Their plots were simple, and they included elaborate displays of contemporary fashion and settings, and lighthearted parody of modern social convention and topical issues. He replaced

4366-504: 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

4484-555: 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

4602-412: 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

4720-810: 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

4838-551: 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

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4956-677: 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

5074-425: 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

5192-1062: The British craze for all things oriental. Other Edwardes hits included The Girl from Kays (1902), The Earl and the Girl (1903) and The Quaker Girl (1910). The chief glories of Edwardian musical comedies lie in their musical scores. At their best, these combined the delicacy and sophistication of operetta with the robust tunefulness of the music hall . The major composers of the genre were Sidney Jones ( The Geisha ), Ivan Caryll ( Our Miss Gibbs ), Lionel Monckton ( The Quaker Girl ), Howard Talbot ( A Chinese Honeymoon ), Leslie Stuart ( Florodora ) and Paul Rubens ( Miss Hook of Holland ). Scores were constantly refreshed with "additional" or "specialty" numbers and re-arranged, often by several different composers and lyricists, to keep audiences coming back. Important writers included Adrian Ross , Harry Greenbank , Percy Greenbank , Owen Hall , Charles H. Taylor and Oscar Asche . Generally,

5310-689: 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

5428-640: The Film (1913). Perhaps to balance the "girl" musicals, the Gaiety also presented a series of what could be described as "boy" musicals, such as The Messenger Boy (1900), The Toreador (1901), The New Aladdin (1906) and Theodore and Co. (1916) . Edwardes expanded his empire to other theatres and presented slightly more complex comedy hits beginning with An Artist's Model (1895). The Geisha (1896) and San Toy (1899) each ran for more than two years and found great international success, capitalizing on

5546-586: 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

5664-583: 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

5782-452: 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

5900-655: 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

6018-582: 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

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6136-463: 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

6254-497: 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

6372-477: 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

6490-486: 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

6608-507: 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

6726-547: The age of 82 and Di Girolamo died on September 21, 2014, at the age of 93. Today, the Wharf Theatre is under the management of Stacy Meheen, and continues to produce theatrical shows and serves as a venue for concerts and events. In the summer of 2018, the Wharf Theater produced a very successful production of the musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street . Musical theater Musical theatre

6844-430: The bawdy women of burlesque with his "respectable" corps of dancing, singing Gaiety Girls who wore the latest fashions, and also showed off their bodies in chorus lines and bathing attire, as well as singing, to complete the musical and visual fun. These shows were immediately widely copied at other London theatres and then in America. The first Edwardian musical comedy was In Town in 1892. Its success, together with

6962-449: The book, lyrics and music were each written by different people, which was a first for the musical stage, although now this is the usual way of doing things. Adrian Ross wrote the lyrics for well over 50 Edwardian musicals. Besides Edwardes, American producer Charles Frohman and actor-managers like Seymour Hicks , Robert Evett and George Grossmith, Jr. were responsible for many of these shows. The musicals were frequently built around

7080-474: 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

7198-557: 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

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7316-508: 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

7434-452: 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

7552-548: 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

7670-494: 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

7788-403: 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

7906-409: 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

8024-544: 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

8142-543: 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 . 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 the light opera works of Jacques Offenbach in France, Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and

8260-408: The even greater sensation of A Gaiety Girl in 1893, confirmed Edwardes on the path he was taking. These "musical comedies", as he called them, revolutionized the London stage and set the tone for the next three decades. According to musical theatre writer Andrew Lamb , "The British Empire and America began to fall for the appeal of the [Edwardian] musical comedy from the time when A Gaiety Girl

8378-409: 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

8496-438: 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

8614-515: 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

8732-472: 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

8850-527: 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

8968-447: 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

9086-634: The last decade of the Victorian era and captured the optimism, energy and good humour of the new century and the Edwardian era , as well as providing comfort to audiences seeking light entertainment during the First World War. The Gaiety Theatre 's well-loved but racy burlesques were coming to the end of their popularity, and so was the phenomenally successful series of family-friendly Gilbert and Sullivan operas. These two genres had dominated

9204-548: 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

9322-402: 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,

9440-450: 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

9558-535: 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 ,

9676-819: 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 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

9794-445: 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

9912-585: 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

10030-423: 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

10148-480: 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:

10266-504: The musical stage in English-speaking countries since the 1870s. A few lighter, more romantic comic operas , beginning with Dorothy (1886) found success and showed that audiences wanted something lighter than operetta, but more coherent in construction than burlesque, that featured the modern fashions and culture of the day. The father of the Edwardian musical was George "The Guv'nor" Edwardes . He took over London's Gaiety Theatre in

10384-418: 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:

10502-414: The next three decades, into the 1920s, the most successful of which included The Shop Girl (1894), The Geisha (1896), Florodora (1899), A Chinese Honeymoon (1901), The Earl and the Girl (1903), The Arcadians (1909), Our Miss Gibbs (1909), The Quaker Girl (1910), Betty (1914), Chu Chin Chow (1916) and The Maid of the Mountains (1917). Edwardian musical comedy began in

10620-766: 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

10738-502: 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

10856-464: 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

10974-643: 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

11092-530: The position of Edwardian musical comedies in theatrical history, with operetta -singing Arcadians, representing the past, meeting with music hall -singing Londoners, representing the future. This is an example of a common feature of shows of this period: sophistication with a common touch. Florodora (1899) by Leslie Stuart and Paul Rubens made a splash on both sides of the Atlantic, as did A Chinese Honeymoon (1901), by British lyricist George Dance and American-born composer Howard Talbot , which ran for

11210-764: 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

11328-451: 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

11446-399: The same time, Stephen Sondheim found success with some of his musicals, as mentioned above. Edwardian musical comedies Edwardian musical comedy is a genre of British musical theatre that thrived from 1892 into the 1920s, extending beyond the reign of King Edward VII in both directions. It began to dominate the English musical stage, and even the American musical theatre, when

11564-415: 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

11682-420: 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

11800-407: 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

11918-476: 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

12036-402: 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

12154-515: 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

12272-623: 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

12390-578: The theater re-opened with an Equity agreement in a newly refurbished location a few blocks from the wharf. Formerly " The Monterey Theater ", home of the city's legitimate theatre from 1905 to 1930 and later a movie theater, its first production was "West Side Story." Brock and Carson continued producing shows that featured local talent as well as established theatrical names such as John Kerr, Joe E. Brown, Ethel Waters, Patricia Morison, Anthony Dexter, Charles Coburn, Jack Carson, Jack Kelly, Marsha Hunt, Gypsy Rose Lee, Zasu Pitts and Dame Judith Anderson. In 1963 it

12508-679: 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

12626-449: 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

12744-464: 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

12862-504: 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 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

12980-420: 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

13098-423: Was Bruce Ariss' "Point of Departure". The production was successful enough that MGM brought Ariss to Hollywood, where he worked for the following 5 years. The theatre expanded and changed hands through the mid to late 1950s. Tom Brock and his partner Bob Carson produced and directed plays there until December 1959. On December 31, 1959, the Wharf Theater was destroyed by a fire, which broke out at 1:31 am. In 1960

13216-420: 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

13334-468: 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

13452-586: 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

13570-510: 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

13688-426: Was renamed "The Old Monterey Opera House", and continued until the mid-1960s when redevelopment and urban renewal leveled the location. After several years the idea of a new Wharf Theater gained momentum again with both Angelo Di Girolamo and Bruce Ariss. The new theatre proposed by Di Girolamo would be on Fisherman's Wharf again, located on a site he owned across from his restaurant. Although originally too small for

13806-467: Was taken on a world tour in 1894." Edwardes' early Gaiety hits included a series of light, romantic "poor maiden loves aristocrat and wins him against all odds" shows, usually with the word "Girl" in the title. After A Gaiety Girl came The Shop Girl (1894), The Circus Girl (1896) and A Runaway Girl (1898) and eleven other "girl" musicals followed. The heroines were independent young women who often earned their own livings. The stories followed

13924-482: 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

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