Online Encyclopedia
Musical theater
Musical theater is a form of theater combining music, songs, dance, and spoken dialogue. It is closely related to opera, frequently being distinguished by the use of popular music of various forms (and thus usually different instrumentation), the use of unaccompanied dialogue (though some musicals are entirely accompanied, such as Les Misérables, and some operas have spoken dialogue, such as Carmen), and the avoidance of many operatic conventions.
The musical components of a musical are generally referred to as the score, with sung lines considered the lyrics and the spoken lines the book, or occasionally the libretto (a term also frequently applied to text of an opera).
Many familiar musical theater works have been the basis for successful musical films, or were adapted for television presentations. While some popular television programs have set one single episode in the style of a musical as a play on their usual format (examples include episodes of Ally McBeal, Buffy the Vampire Slayer's episode Once More with Feeling, or Oz's Variety), the television series Cop Rock, which extensively used the musical format, was not a success.
While musical theater works are performed around the world, they are perhaps most frequently produced on Broadway in New York and London's West End.
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History
The first theatre piece that conforms to the modern conception of a musical is generally considered to be The Black Crook , which premiered at Niblo's Garden on September 12, 1866.
The Golden Age of the Broadway musical is generally considered to have begun with Oklahoma! (1943) and to have ended with Hair (1968).
- Era of the Concept Musical
- Industrial musicals (1950s-1970s)
- The "British Invasion" ("pop operas," etc.)
- Smaller musicals, etc.
Famous Composers/Writers
Lee Adams - Lynn Ahrens - Maxwell Anderson - Harold Arlen - Howard Ashman - Lionel Bart - Irving Berlin - Leonard Bernstein - Jerry Bock - Alain Boublil - Leslie Bricusse - Mel Brooks - Jason Robert Brown - George M Cohan - Cy Coleman - Betty Comden - Marc Connelly - Noel Coward - Fred Ebb - Edna Ferber - Dorothy Fields - William Finn - Stephen Flaherty - George Forrest - Noel Gay - George Gershwin - Ira Gershwin - Ricky Ian Gordon - Adolph Green - Adam Guettel - Marvin Hamlisch - Oscar Hammerstein II - Otto Harbach - Sheldon Harnick - Lorenz Hart - Moss Hart - Jerry Herman - John Kander - George S. Kaufman - Jerome Kern - Michael Kunze - Michael John LaChiusa - Burton Lane - Jonathan Larson - Mitch Leigh - Alan Jay Lerner - Andrew Lippa - Andrew Lloyd Webber - Frank Loesser - Frederic Loewe - Galt MacDermot - Johnny Mercer - Lionel Monckton - Anthony Newley - Ivor Novello - Richard O'Brien - Cole Porter - Tim Rice - Mary Rodgers - Richard Rodgers - Sigmund Romberg - Harold Rome - Claude-Michel Schönberg - Harvey Schmidt - Stephen Schwartz - Julian Slade - Stephen Sondheim - Charles Strouse - Leslie Stuart - Jule Styne - Harry Tierney - Kurt Weill - Meredith Willson - Sandy Wilson - P. G. Wodehouse - Robert Wright - Vincent Youmans
Famous choreographers
George Balanchine - Michael Bennett - Agnes DeMille - Bob Fosse - Michael Kidd - Tommy Tune - Onna White
Famous performers
Julie Andrews - Beatrice Arthur - Fred and Adele Astaire - Michael Ball - Jack Buchanan - Carol Burnett - Betty Buckley - Liz Callaway Carolee Carmello - Kristin Chenoweth - George M. Cohan - Barbara Cook - Michael Crawford - Pia Douwes - Heather Headley - Ruthie Henshall - Linda Hopkins - Nathan Lane - Gertrude Lawrence - Patti LuPone - Mary Martin - Millicent Martin - Jessie Matthews - Marin Mazzie - Audra McDonald - Idina Menzel - Ethel Merman - Brian Stokes Mitchell - Zero Mostel - Donna Murphy Bebe Neuwirth - Christiane Noll - Jerry Orbach - Elaine Paige - John Partridge - Adam Pascal - Bernadette Peters - Jonathan Pryce - John Raitt - Alice Ripley - Daphne Rubin-Vega - Lea Salonga - Emily Skinner - Gwen Verdon - Anthony Warlow - Colm Wilkinson