History of Broadway Essay

There permit been to a greater extent debates on whether or not Broadway melodics be considered serious blind forms. People feel that a musical can never be taken seriously if the character is always singing sporadic eachy, which is very unusual in real life. However, musicals have been around for quite well-nigh clipping resembling a shot, much musicals argon being adapted into major(ip) motion drafts, more a(prenominal) children are raised on the far-famed Disney musical cartoons and everybody( whether theyll admit it or not) has clearn at least one musical in their life while and are able to sing some of the songs from it.It seems that musicals have do an impact on society but yet are still not taken seriously. The record of musicals dates natural covering to the Greeks. It is a common kn take in fact that the Greeks coordinated song and bound into their stage comedies and tragedies as early as the fifth Century B. C. roughly intentd existing songs but it is jazzn that Sophocles wrote his own. The Romans are in addition known for taking the Greek musicals and expanding on them.The Romans liked the nous of musicals so much that they attached metal chips to their shoes, creating the first tap shoes, so that there would be more focus on the dancing passim the sportswoman. Of course musicals and the conceit of telling stories through song and spring au and sotically became favorite through the Renaissance era. During the 1700s the two main types of plays were lay operas and comic operas. some(prenominal) bulkulate think that musicals evolved from operas barely if you follow the narrative of musicals and operas you will learn that it is the other way around yet operas are much more respected than musicals.Musicals came to America during the mid-1800s as gin mill projects. They were also known as classification shows and consisted of everything from clowns, singers, dancers and chorus girls. In first gear Life Lures and Snares of Old New York (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, New York, 1991, p. 92), historian Luc Sante, claims that variety shows were innate(p) in Manhattans Bowery saloons during the 1840s. One of the first and approximately celebrated variety houses was Koster and Bials on West 23rd Street in New York City.The variety shows were very dis savouringful and were later cleaned up and renamed vaudeville field of honor then in the 1900s the shows were cleaned up even more and were then known as minstrelsy. tour the minstrelsy shows were much cleaner than the original variety show they would still be considered extremely raunchy by instantlys standards. Musicals later came to take the form of the misunderstood form of hoax performances. hoax shows became popular and kept America diverted from 1840 through the 1960s. Mevery wad identify prank with strippers or scantily dressed women.The burlesque shows so far c all everywhereed many an(prenominal) topics of interest from Shakespeare to spoofs of the famous operas of the moment. In 1860 Burlesque made its appearance on Broadway with Lydia Thompsons British burlesque company and their first earn entitled Ixion. It became clear that respectable people would turn all over lots of money for a sexy performance. The theatre group would use popular songs of that time and parts of operas to perform too which made some of the audience try to say made the Burlesque show more classy and easier to relate too.Soon the offended audience members began to raise their voices in protest of the performances saying that they were extremely inappropriate and tasteless. This of course only made people more curious about the performances and the crowds began to grow for the show. With the advantage of the shows people began to copy them and bring them back to their own communities. The majority of the managers and choreographers were women and finally women were low to gain respect in the theatre business.Men quickly began to s ee the success and start their own shows. The point of the shows were to hint at the idea of the women being naked and to show as much skin as was considered acceptable. The Burlesque shows, while being popular, were considered to be the lowest form of theatre, many of the actors would move on to vaudeville shows which were considered to be the top of the line where if a vaudeville actor would appear in a Burlesque show it was considered a step down and the actor was labeled as washed up.Burlesque soon took on drollery routines and would make merriment of the current issues that the middle and lower class were reckoning with. However in the 1920s there began a raid and the police felt the lack to shut down all of the Burlesque shows which was a major hit to the Manhattan society where most of the theatres were at the time. While the Burlesque scene was popular musical comedies were beginning to rise without the help of the nudity factor. The musical comedy was born onBroadway between the yrs 1878-1884 by the famous producers Edward (Ned) Harrigan and Tony hart. Harrigan would become verbally the lyrics and songs with some of the music he had taken from his father and add them to plays that would device characteristic characters and situations that the everyday lives of New Yorks lower class. They had one particularly famous bit entitled Mulligan Guards March which started in San Francisco and was quickly spread all across the country and reached New York where it ran for over a year in the most popular theatres.With the success of their gip bit they expanded into a 40 minute performance which was greatly accepted and kept playing for a month which was considered a peachy run for that time. Their show became so popular that it started a seven year run of different shows with Harrigan directing, producing, performing and writing the scripts and lyrics. Their shows ran with much success on Manhattans downtown streets and overpopulated theatres. Peopl e quickly saw the success and began to try to create their own versions of this new-made style known as musical comedies.Some had success but were quickly forgotten or overlooked with Harrigan and Harts success. The more light-hearted and cheesy musicals began to pop up all over the Broadway scene in 1940. The Broadway producers felt that with America at war and people still suffering from the Depression audiences serious wanted to be entertained and no longer wanted to see their troubles and everyday situations acted out on stage because they were no longer comical. There were still a hardly a(prenominal) comedies left however, one of the most popular being This is the host a comedy which spoofed the army life.This particular play had a huge success in America and also had successful run in London. This is the soldiery became so popular that they even made a motion picture out of the play which earned over $9 million and donated to the Armys Emergency Relief fund. The 1940s we re filled with famous musicals all with the hopes of scarcely being pure entertainment and losing the idea that only the most delicious performances would be well received. Two of the most famous musical writers in the history of the business made their debut during this time, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.Rodgers and Hammerstein were friends in college and twain agreed that the best way to approach a musical was with the lyrics first, which was uncommon for the time. When the two were ready to debut their loved musical Oklahoma the star sign Guild was bankrupt so the two took the major decisions in their own hands. They took some major risks one being to not open with a big catchy delegacy number and the other being to weave smaller unknown actors instead of the guaranteed success of the more popular actors of the time.The play was something that had never been seen before it was a well rounded well written musical. On opening night in New York the show however w as not sold out, since there were no major known stars, however the show quickly became a huge success. The success of Oklahoma changed the character of musicals forever. It was soon realized that musicals could contain more than just cheesy dance numbers musicals could contain drama, comedy and all around quality acting. approaching musicals had higher standards and required better and more talented actors.The actors had to be contendnt dancers, singers and actors. There was a lot of talent discovered all over the theatre community during the 40s while everybody tried to compete with and follow the success of Oklahoma, however most of the talent was quickly forgotten. The 1950s were soon open the musical community and show tunes were considered the main ejaculate of entertainment. Even the smaller musicals that did not have the most talented actors could be very profitable because the audience hoped to discover another winning group like Rodgers and Hammerstein.The fantastic duo were still ruling the musical earthly concern of Broadway, at one point they had 4 successful musicals running at the same time. In 1959 one of the most famous musicals of all time was created and praised, The Sound of Music. Everybody loved the music and the story and it was an immediate success, however it is also remembered as their last great success together as Hammerstein died just a few months after it opened which brought the end of their ruling. The 60s and 70s also had some great success in the musical worlds with the idea of bring rock music to the stage.In the 60s show tunes could not be found in musicals and were replaced by edgier rock songs. The 60s are of course known as the years of sex, drugs and rock n roll and those ideas were put into story lines and visualised on the stage. The 70s had two major hits with Grease and The Wiz. However, the 70s ended on a bad not for musicals because many people were tired of the shoddy performances being produced and their change in taste of music. There were some other great musicals that were produced in the 70s but unfortunately they went overlooked.At the end of the decade revivals were beginning to pop up with famous actors playing the major roles in the musicals to boost up ticket sales. In 1980 the success of Broadway was reanimated with the huge success of Cats. The success and word of Cats spread all across the world and totally revived the spirit of the musical theatre. Many American composers debuted works after the success of Cats but sadly many failed. One of the biggest failures, Carrie, made its debut in 1988 which many considered the death of the Broadway rage of musicals. The main source of entertainment was now and movies and nobody paid much attention to Broadway anymore.Broadway however had one major hit left in The Phantom of the Opera. Andrew Lloyd Webber gave Broadway one last major success which is still running today. The Phantom brought in a new crowd and sold tickets at outr ageous prices that the audience did not mind paying for at all, they also spent ton of money on the souvenirs. The 90s saw a pretty bad drought in musical success except for the mid-90s when it seemed like musicals were back with the success of Rent, Chicago, Cabaret and Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk. The success carried into 2000 and is still working its was on a comeback with a hot streak.With the huge success of Chicago being adapted into a major motion picture with huge stars like Rene Zellweger, Richard Gere, Taye Diggs and Catherine Zeta-Jones a new interest and spark was ignited in musicals. The theatre has also seen success recently with The Lion King, Hairspray, Aida, The Producers and Mamma Mia. Musicals have overseen many changes and has a great history of success and failures just like any other type of theatre. As stated in the beginning many children are raised on musicals and grow up surrounded by music yet musicals are not seen as serious pieces of art.While the most popular musicals are the entertaining ones that dont deal with any major issues that doesnt mean that they cant be serious as well. There are many types of musicals but wherefore does that make them less important? Should comedic plays be seen as less artistic than dramatic pieces? Musicals have just as an important background and history as plays so I feel they should be viewed just as valuable to our society as any other piece of theatrical art. While it may be unnatural for a person to just burst out into song throughout their everyday life I dont think its that far of a open if it did happen.How many times are we reminded of a song we hear front that day and sing it in our head? The only real remnant between musicals and everyday life is that when we do sing our songs throughout our lives they arent always originals, everybody around you doesnt join in and automatically know every word and we dont have perfectly choreographed dance numbers to go along with them, how ever if we did have all that I think it would make life a lot more provoke and interesting. I am personally jealous of musicals for those reasons and wish they were given more respect.