Review for UT Dallas Final Exam Spring 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Z_Rp_7igg
George M. Cohan, Bert Williams etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXs-YkvhPgs Ziegfeld Follies

Irving Berlin:

“Puttin’ On the Ritz” by Irving Berlin

“There’s No Business-Like Show Business” by Irving Berlin

George and Ira Gershwin

“Summertime” by George and Ira Gershwin

“Fascinating Rhythm” by George and Ira Gershwin
“Someone to Watch Over Me” by George and Ira Gershwin

Cole Porter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKZtnURkNOk So In Love by Cole Porter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyTa_gJkYwI I’ve Got You Under My Skin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTdHQ065A_o I Get a Kick Out of You

George M. Cohan – first great American song-and-dance man from Vaudeville

who wrote earliest American musicals – developed athletic performance style
Yankee Doodle Dandy, Give my Regards to Broadway
AABA Song Structure

Tin Pan Alley – What and where was this?

Book Musical or Concept Musical – Define difference.

Florenz Ziegfeld and the Ziegfeld Follies

SPECTACLE and MUSICAL REVUES
Eugene Sandow and Billie Burke
Ziegfeld’s legacy?

Irving Berlin
American popular standards
Started in Tin Pan Alley ?
LEGACY of Berlin?
Puttin on the Ritz, God Bless America, There’s No Business Like Show Business
George and Ira Gershwin – fusion of jazz, blues and classical
Fascinating Rhythm
Someone to Watch Over Me
Summertime

Cole Porter
Night and Day, So In Love, I Get a Kick Out of You, I’ve Got You Under My Skin,
It’s DeLovely, Let’s Do It, Love for Sale (banned from radio)
Set new standards for sophistication and wit – made theater safe for sex

The Golden Age of Broadway Musicals – 1940s to 1960s

Era of the great Book musicals –
NARRATIVE DRIVEN - heavy on story, plot, characters, songs and dances
Rodgers and Hammerstein – greatest composer/lyricist duo in US Musical
History
Oklahoma!, Carousel, Sound of Music, The King and I, South Pacific, etc.
Oklahoma!

Cole Porter
Songs We covered:
Night and Day,
So In Love – he wrote this for his wife -
I’ve Got You Under My Skin,
Let’s Do It,
I Get a Kick Out of You
Love for Sale (why was this song banned from radio)

Kiss Me Kate:
This was Porter’s most successful musical – what was the plot premise?
Porter Set new standards for sophistication and wit –
Porter made theater safe for sex – what did that mean in regards to
Porter’s songs?
Why was his marriage to Linda Lee Porter called a White Marriage?
What was His Riding Accident? How did it affect his work?
The Golden Age of Broadway Musicals – 1940s to 1960s

Seamless Integration of story, music, dialogue, song and dance

Era of the great Book musicals –
NARRATIVE DRIVEN - heavy on story, plot, characters, songs and
dances
Rodgers and Hammerstein – greatest composer/lyricist duo in US Musical
History

Oklahoma!, premiered in 1945 – what was the plot premise? – Two

Pairs of lovers – one serious and one comical – Influence of
Choreography by Agnes deMille
Hugh Jackman starred in a significant revival of Oklahoma!

South Pacific, Sound of Music, many others

What were the plot premises of South Pacific and Sound of Music?
Hammerstein believed that “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” had to
stay in the show, South Pacific. WHY??

West Side Story 1957

Creative Team – Leonard Bernstein (Composer)

Stephen Sondheim (Lyricist)
Jerome Robbins (Director/choreographer)
What was the basis for the plot?
Robbins – dance fusion of ballet, jazz and Puerto Ricans vs Italians
I Like to be in America

Musicals in the 1960s

ZEITGEIST OF THE 1960S?

JFK, RFK, Malcolm X, MLK, Assassinations
Drugs, Sex, Rock and Roll
Vietnam War, Civil Rights, Women’s Rights etc

First Concept Musicals:

Cabaret – 1966
Creative Team –
Composer/Lyricist – Kander and Ebb
Producer – Harold Prince
Director/Choreographer – Bob Fosse
Based on Berlin Stories about Berlin in the 1930s and the rise of Hitler
Sally Bowles and the androgynous M.C.
Wilkommen, Mein Herr, Cabaret

HAIR – 1967
Cultural Explosion of Sex, drugs, rock and roll.
Plot premise? The Age of Aquarius. Full Nudity onstage

Concept Musicals and Sondheim Dominate 1970s:

Sondheim’s Life story and his Apprenticeship with Oscar Hammerstein

Company – 1970 by Sondheim

Being Alive, Another Hundred People, Not Getting Married,

Chorus Line – 1975

Plot premise?
No name stars, almost no scenery, two costumes per actor, small cast
Michael Bennett – director/choreographer – what was causing chorus
dancers (gypsies) to be out of work

Chicago – 1975
Creative Team:
Bob Fosse – Director/Choreographer
Kander and Ebb – Music/lyrics
All That Jazz – Fosse’s style seeps in broader culture

Sweeney Todd – 1979 – Sondheim

The British Invasion of the 1980s
Andrew Lloyd Webber Cats, Phantom of the Opera
Alain Boublil Les Miserables, Miss Saigon

Cameron Mackintosh
Marketing of musicals – single logo advertising - BRANDING
EMPHASIS OF SPECTACLE OVER SUBSTANCE

Sondheim dominates American Musical Theatre for 40 years

Sweeney Todd
Into the Woods - Based on Grimm’s fairy tales
Hello, Little Girl
No One Is Alone
Assassins –1990 and revived in 2004
Based on misfits who were presidential assassins – show is set in a
Shooting Gallery
“Everybody’s Got the Right”
“Ballad of Booth” – The country is not what it was – Damn you Johnny
(Booth) you paved the way for other madmen to have their way
Booth: I killed the man who killed the country, Oh the Country is
Not what it Was
Balladeer: Guns Don’t right the wrongs

Disney Dominates the 1990s and beyond

With Broadway musical versions of their animated musicals –
Merchandising!
The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid etc.

WICKED – 2004
Backstory to The Wizard of Oz
Defying Gravity

Significant Musicals from 2000 – 2021

New Works and Conversion of Movies to Musicals:

Avenue Q
American Psycho
Book of Mormon
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Color Purple
Come From Away
Dear Evan Hanson
Hairspray
Hamilton
Hadestown
Legally Blonde
Last Ship