Chapter 17

Oscar Hammenstein

"It is nonsense to say what a musical should or should not be. It should be anything it wants to be, and if you don't like it you don't have to go to it. There is only one absolutely indispensable element that a musical must have. It must have music."

Burlesque

A form of musical entertainment that features bawdy songs, dancing women, and sometimes striptease. Begun in the 1840s as a parody of opera or the upper class.

Ballad

A love song

Juxebox Musicals

A musical that features a particular band's song

Dance Musicals

A musical that features the work of a director-choreographer such as Tommy Tune, Michael Bennett, of Bob Fosse

Operatic Musicals

A musical that is mostly singing, with less spoken dialogue and usually a darker, more dramatic tone than an operetta has. Examples are Les Miserables and Evita

Book Musicals

A musical with a particularly well developed story and characters, such as Fiddler on the Roof

Vauderville

A popular form of stage entertainment from the 1880s to the 1930s, descended from burlesque. Programs included, slapstick comedy routines, song-and-dance numbers, magic arts, juggling, and acrobatic performances

Revue

A program of satirical sketches, singing, and dancing about a particular theme; also called a "musical review."

Variety Show

A program of unrelated singing, dancing, and comedy numbers

Comedy Number

A song in a musical that provides comic relief

Comic Opera

A style of opera, including operetta, that developed out of intermezzi, or comic interludes performed during the intermissions of operas. Popularized by the work of Gilbert and Sullivan

Opera

A type of drama introduced at the end of the sixteenth century that is entirely sung

Musical Comedy

A type of musical characterized by a lighthearted, fast moving comic story, whose dialogue is interspersed with popular music

Hooray for Bollywood!

An average of 800 films made in India each year and many of the are musicals. Bollywood musicals typically have stock love stories, heroes, heroines, love affairs and song and dance sequences and happy endings.

Ballad Operas

Comic opera that mixed popular songs of the day with spoken dialogue; brought from england to the colonies during the colonial period

Lyricist

For a music, the person who writes the lyrics

Librettist

For a musical, the person who writes the book, or the spoken lines of dialogue and plot

Composer

For a musical, the person who writes the music

Book

For a musical, the spoken lines of dialogue and the plot; written by the librettist

Lyrics

For a musical, the sung words; the writer is called a lyricist

Showstopper

In a musical, a big production number which receives so much applause that it stops the show

Reprise

In a musical, the repetition of a song, sometimes with new lyrics, in a later scene. The new meaning or subtext makes a dramatic point

straight plays

In contrast to a musical, the category of plays without music

Music

In musical scripts, the orchestrated melodies,which are written by the composer

Opretta

Like an opera, a drama set to music, but with a frivolous, comic theme, some spoken dialogue, a melodramtic story, and usually a little dancing. Also called "light opera." Popularized by Gilbert and Sullivan

Minstrel Show

Stage entertainment consisting of songs, dances, and comic scenes performed by white actors in blackface makeup; originated in the nineteenth century

Unsung Heroines of the American Musical

Women have sung and danced, but most composers, librettists and lyricists have been men. In 2008, women wrote only 17 percent of Broadway and off Broadway musicals and plays; women of color-only 2%

Steven Sondheim

wrote his first musical at 15. protege of Oscar Hammerstein II-wrote lyrics for west Side Story and Gypsy