Week 8:  Musical Theater

Musical theater encompasses music written for theatrical shows.  Musical theater is a distinctly Amercian form of theater that has influences in European opera.  Early Amercian theatrical shows were called "vaudeville".  These were entertaining shows that featured a variety of "acts", always including musical performances.  Vaudevillian music was popular music based on folk and jazz.  Over time, Americans began combining theatrical plays with vaudeville style music. This developed into a new form of "opera" that utilized popular songs and styles of singing, combined with acting and dance to tell the story.  Songs written for musical theater are varied in style and incorporate all genres of music.  Composers work closely with lyricists to write music that captures the intellectual and emotional journey of the play's story and characters. Today, we have movie musicals.  Whether animated or live action, the songs incorporated in the movie have the same function as if it were theater. 

• Jerome Kern (1885-1945) and Dorothy Fields (1904-1974): Jerome Kern was a composer who wrote over 700 songs used in more than 100 stage -shows.  He built upon earlier traditions of theater music by incorporating jazz progressions and syncopation. Kern worked with many lyricists to create hundreds of works now included in the Great American Songbook (a collection of popular and jazz music created from the 1920s - 1960s with timeless meaning and sung by generations of performers). Dorothy Kerns was a librettist (writer of musical plays) and lyricist who wrote over 400 Broadway songs. She is one of the most successful female theater and cinematic songwriters of all time with a career that spanned over 50 years.  She collaborated with many composers, but she and Kerns created some of the most well-known and beloved pieces of classical musical theater. Listen: Pick Yourself Up (Swingtime)

• Irving Berlin (1888-1989): Irving Berlin was a composer and lyricist who wrote over 1500 songs over a 60-year career.  He left school at 13 and busked on the streets of the Lower East Side in NYC to survive. He learned what songs were popular with the public and began writing songs, mostly humorous parodies (songs that make fun of something), to please his customers.  He taught himself to play the piano in his off-hours working as a waiter in Chinatown.  Listen: White Christmas (White Christmas)

• Cole Porter (1891-1964): Cole Porter was a composer and songwriter.  He was a classically trained musician from a wealthy mid-western family.  His songs are often witty with refined lyrics.  Listen: Brush Up Your Shakespeare (Kiss Me Kate)

• George (1898-1937) and Ira Gershwin (1896-1983): George Gershwin was a pianist and is one of America's most well-known 20th century jazz and classical composers.  Ira Gershwin was a lyricist who, together with his brother, wrote hundreds of "standards" for musical theater (songs sung by generations of performers as standard repertoire). Listen:  I Got Rhythm (An American In Paris)

• Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) and Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960):  Richard Rodgers was a prolific composer of the early 20th century.  His music greatly influenced popular song for a generation.  Oscar Hammerstein was a lyricist and theater producer and director.  While both Rodgers and Hammerstein worked with other composers/lyricists in musical theater, together they wrote 11 shows that are part of the "Golden Age" Broadway repertoire - a collection of the first theatrical plays that weaved song and dance into the story plot.  Listen: Soliloquy (Carousel)

• Frederick Loewe (1901 - 1988) and Alan Jay Lerner (1918-1986): Frederick Loewe was a child prodigy pianist and composer.  Alan Lerner was a young lyricist when he met Loewe at  the Lambs Club (a hangout for theater performers) in New York City.  The two went on to write 8 of the most well-known classical musical theater shows. Listen: Wouldn't It Be Loverly (My Fair Lady)

• Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990):  Leonard Bernstein is a composer in two of our challenges genres.  One of America's best classical composers, Bernstein was also one of America's best composers for musical theater.  Composing during Broadways "Golden Age", Bernstein's contributions to musical were new, somewhat edgy and comprised of musical depth not seen in works of the same era.  Listen: Prologue (West Side Story)

• John Kander (b.1927) and Fred Ebb (1928 -2004): John Kander was a composer known for his deceptively sophisticated harmonies and Fred Ebb was a lyricist known for accessible and sometimes humorous lyrics.  Together they wrote over 20 musicals.  Listen: When You're Good To Mama (Chicago)

• Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021): One of the most important figures in 20th century musical theater, Stephen Sondheim was a composer and lyricist that brought Broadway out of the Golden Age into a new phase of often experimental works that addressed unexpected and often darker themes of the human experience.  He was an expert at fusing very specific, often quite intellectual, lyrics together with musical compositions that carried clever emotional undertones, adding complexity and sophistication to his songs.  Listen: No One Is Alone (Into the Woods)

• Marvin Hamlisch (1944-2012): Marvin Hamlisch was a piano prodigy and began attend the Julliard Schools Pre-College program at the age of 7.  He went on to become an accomplished composer and conductor, winning Emmy, Golden Globe, Oscar and Tony awards as well as a Pulitzer Prize for his compositions.  Listen: What I Did For Love (A Chorus Line)

• Stephen Schwartz (b.1948): Stephen Schwartz is a composer and lyricist for musical theater and film who has written over 20 musicals.  He is one of the most well-known contemporary musical theater composers.  Listen: For Good (Wicked)

• Lynn Ahrens (b.1948) and Stephen Flattery (b.1960): Lynn Ahrens is a songwriter and librettist.  Stephen Flattery is a composer.  The duo is known for creating works that address the complex struggles of humanity, often at the expense of a best-seller. Listen: Sarah Brown Eyes (Ragtime)

• Jonathan Larson (1960-1996): Jonathan Larson was a playwright composer and lyricist who, in his short life and career, wrote pieces that defined a generation of musical theater both musically (writing in the rock genre) and thematically, tackling themes of self-doubt, self-actualization, multiculturism, drug abuse and homophobia. Listen:  Rent (Rent)

• Jeanine Tesori (b.1961): A composer and musical arranger, Jeanine Tesori is the most successful female composer for theater.   Her musical style spans from traditional jazz-inspired to contemporary pop.  Listen: Laundry Quintet (Caroline, Or Change)

• Jason Robert Brown (b.1970): Jason Robert Brown is a composer and lyricist.  He is known for fusing theatrical lyrics with pop-rock compositions, often incorporating large vocal ranges, unconventional harmonies and odd rhyming schemes. Listen: My Child Will Forgive Me (Parade)

• Lin Manuel Miranda (b.1980): Lin Manuel Miranda is a singer, rapper, actor, songwriter, composer and activist.  He has pioneered bringing the rap genre into musical theater.  He has also written for movie musicals, including several Disney films.  He is known for his clever rhymes fused with catchy melodies, and multicultural approach to writing. Listen: We Don't Talk About Bruno (Encanto)