Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of
theatre 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 (or at least popular singing styles), the use of unaccompanied dialogue (though some musicals are entirely accompanied, such as
Les Misérables, and some operas have spoken dialogue, such as
Carmen), often a greater emphasis on dance by the principal performers and chorus, and the avoidance of many operatic conventions (though some operas avoid these, too).
Amplification of the singers is usually approved of in larger theatres where musicals are played, while it is generally disapproved of in opera houses.
The three main components of a musical are the music, the lyrics, and the book. The
book of a musical refers to the spoken (not sung) lines in the play; however, "book" can also refer to the overall dramaticness of a show. The music and lyrics together form the score of the musical; the lyrics and book together are often printed as the
libretto (
Italian for "little book"). Other components are the direction,
choreography, and technical aspects, such as set,
costumes, lighting, etc., that generally change from production to production.
Musical theatre works are performed around the world. The big budget
Broadway and
West End theatre productions in
New York City and
London have often been creatively matched by
Off-Broadway or regional productions, such as
The Fantasticks or
Bat Boy: The Musical, and by the recent development of musical theatre scenes in Germany, Austria, France, Japan, Eastern Europe, Australia, and other places.
A musical can be anywhere from a short one-act entertainment to several hours long; however, most musicals range from one and a half hours to 3 hours. Musicals today are typically presented in two acts, with one
intermission fifteen to twenty minutes in length, and the first act is almost always somewhat longer than the second act. A musical will usually have at least 4-6 main theme tunes that are reprised throughout the show. Dialogue is usually interspersed between musical numbers. Some musicals, however, are "sung-through" and do not have any spoken dialogue. This can blur the line between musical theatre and opera. See
Rock Opera.
A musical's moments of greatest dramatic intensity are often performed in song. Proverbially, "when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing; when it becomes too strong for song, you dance." A song must be crafted to suit the character (or characters) and their situation within the story. A show usually opens with a song that sets the tone of the musical, introduces some or all of the major characters, and shows the setting of the play. Within the compressed nature of the musical, the writers must develop the characters and the plot.
Music provides a means to express emotion. However, typically, many fewer words are sung in a five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore there is less time to develop drama than in a straight play of equivalent length, since a musical usually devotes more time to music than to dialogue.
Many familiar musical theatre works have been the basis for popular
musical films, such as
Sound of Music and
My Fair Lady (although some movie musicals have been disappointing, as compared to the stage works) or were adapted or even written for
television presentations (for example
Cinderella). Recently, some popular television programs have set an episode in the style of a musical. There has also been a recent revival of the movie musical, such as
Chicago, and popular animated film musical (which are often then turned into stage musicals, such as
Beauty and the Beast. Also, India produces numerous musical films, referred to as "Bollywood" musicals, and Japan produces numerous
Anime musicals.
In the Beginning
Musical theatre, the art of telling stories either through or with songs, dates back at least to the
ancient Greeks, who included music and dance in their stage comedies and tragedies as early as the 5th Century B.C.
Aeschylus and
Sophocles even composed their own music to accompany their plays. The Third Century B.C.
Roman comedies of
Plautus included song and dance routines performed with orchestrations. To make the dance steps more audible in large open air theatres, Roman actors attached metal chips called "sabilla" to their stage footwear â€" the first tap shoes. (See Denny Martin Flynn, "Musical: A Grand Tour" (New York: Schirmer Books, 1997), p. 22.)
In the 12th and 13th centuries, religious dramas, such as
The Play of Herod and
The Play of Daniel taught the liturgy, set to church chants. These plays developed into an autonomous form of musical theatre, with poetic forms sometimes alternating with the prose dialogues and liturgical chants. The poetry was provided with modified or completely new melodies. (See Rochard H. Hoppin, "Medieval Music" (New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1978), pp. 180-181.) By the
Renaissance, these forms had evolved into
commedia dell'arte, an Italian tradition where raucous clowns improvised their way through familiar stories, and from there, opera buffa.
Moliere turned several of his comedies into musical entertainments with songs (music provided by
Jean Baptiste Lully) in the late 1600s.
By the 1700s, two forms of musical theater were popular in Britain, France and Germany:
ballad operas, like
John Gay's
The Beggar's Opera (1728), that borrowed popular songs of the day and rewrote the lyrics, and
comic operas, with original scores and mostly romantic plot lines, like
Michael Balfe's
The Bohemian Girl (1845). In addition to these sources, musical theatre traces its lineage to
vaudeville,
British music hall,
melodrama and
burlesque. What a piece was called did not necessarily define what it was. The Broadway extravaganza
The Magic Deer (1852) advertised itself as "A Serio Comico Tragico Operatical Historical Extravaganzical Burletical Tale of Enchantment." Broadway's first "long-run" musical record was a 50 performance hit called
The Elves (1857). Laura Keene's "musical burletta"
Seven Sisters (1860) shattered this record with an unprecedented run of 253 performances.
The first theater piece that conforms to the modern conception of a musical is generally considered to be
The Black Crook - with a book by
Charles M. Barras and musical adaptations by
Giuseppe Operti - which premiered at
Niblo's Gardens in New York on
September 12,
1866. The production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for 474 performances. The same year,
The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy." (See Sheridan Morley, "Spread A Little Happiness". New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987. p. 15)
Edward Harrigan and
Tony Hart produced musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1884, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham, these musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from the everyday life of New York's lower classes. Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 1900s comprising music written in New York's
Tin Pan Alley involving composers such as
Gus Edwards,
John J McNally,
John Walter Bratton and
George M. Cohan.
Musicals had also spread to the London stage and were popular by the 1890s.
George Edwardes, who had managed some of
Richard D'Oyly Carte's
Gilbert and Sullivan productions, staged British musical comedies at the
Gaiety Theater, London. His early hits included a series of "poor maiden loves aristocrat and wins him against all odds" shows, usually with the word "Girl" in the title, including
The Shop Girl (1894) and
A Runaway Girl (1898), with
Ivan Caryll, who also wrote the successful musicals,
The Toreador (1901),
The Orchid (1903), and
Our Miss Gibbs (1909). Another Edwardes hit,
The Geisha (1896) by
Sidney Jones with lyrics by
Harry Greenbank and
Adrian Ross and then
San Toy (opening in 1899) each ran for more than two years, which was unusual at the time.
Edward Solomon started out writing comic opera, but switched to musicals.
The British musical comedy
Florodora (1899) made a splash on both sides of the Atlantic, as did British lyricist George Dance and American-born composer Howard Talbot's
A Chinese Honeymoon (1901) which ran for a record setting 1,074 performances in London and 376 in New York. The story concerns couples who honeymoon in China and inadvertently break the kissing laws (shades of
The Mikado).
Lionel Monckton wrote a number of musicals for the London's
Gaiety Theatre beginning in the 1890s and up until World War I. Likewise, Osmond Carr wrote musicals for the London stage at the turn of the century.
Operetta
Musicals were also influenced by
light opera and
operetta. Probably the best known composers of operetta, beginning in the second half of the
19th century were
Jacques Offenbach,
Johann Strauss II, and
Franz Lehár. In England,
W. S. Gilbert and
Arthur Sullivan created a series of
comic operas, including
The Mikado,
The Pirates of Penzance, and
H.M.S. Pinafore that became hits in Britain and the U.S. in the 1870s and '80s. Their colleague,
Edward Solomon, began writing comic opera, but moved to musicals by the end of his career.
At and after the turn of the
20th century, the operettas of
Franz Lehár and
Oscar Straus became popular in Europe and spread throughout the English-speaking world. The legacy of
Gilbert and Sullivan and these other composers served as an inspiration for the likes of
Victor Herbert,
Sigmund Romberg,
George Gershwin,
Noel Coward and other composers of musical theatre after the turn of the
20th century, and these, in turn, influenced the musicals of Rodgers, Sondheim and many others, later in the century.
The Roaring Twenties
The musicals of the
Roaring Twenties, borrowing from
vaudeville,
music hall and other such entertainments, tended to ignore plot in favor of emphasizing star actors and actresses, big dance routines, and popular songs (throughout the first half of the twentieth century, popular music was dominated by theater writers). Many shows were revues with little plot. Typical of the times were lighthearted productions like
Lady Be Good,
Sunny,
Tip Toes,
No, No, Nanette,
Oh, Kay, and
Funny Face. Their books may have been forgettable, but they produced enduring standards from
George Gershwin,
Cole Porter,
Vincent Youmans, and
Richard Rodgers and
Lorenz Hart, among others.
Leaving these lighthearted entertainments behind, and taking a cue from Herbert and operetta,
Show Boat, which premiered on
December 27,
1927 at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York was a complete integration of book and score, with dramatic themes, as told through both the music and dialogue, woven seamlessly together. Up to this point,
Florenz Ziegfeld had been known for his spectacular song-and-dance revues featuring extravagant sets and elaborate costumes, but there was no common theme tying the various numbers together.
Show Boat, with a book and lyrics adapted from
Edna Ferber's novel by
Oscar Hammerstein II and
P. G. Wodehouse and music by
Jerome Kern, presented a new concept that was embraced by audiences immediately. Despite some of its startling themes - miscegenation among them - the original production ran a total of 572 performances.
The Thirties
Encouraged by the success of
Show Boat, creative teams began following the "format" of that popular hit.
Of Thee I Sing (
1931), a political satire with music by George Gershwin and lyrics by
Ira Gershwin and
Morrie Ryskind, was the first musical to be awarded the
Pulitzer Prize.
The Band Wagon (1931), with a score by
Arthur Schwartz and
Howard Dietz, starred dancing partners
Fred Astaire and his sister Adele. While it was primarily a revue, it served as the basis for two subsequent film versions that were "book" musicals in the truest sense. Porter's
Anything Goes (
1934) affirmed
Ethel Merman's position as the First Lady of musical theatre - a title she maintained for many years. Gershwin's
Porgy and Bess (
1935) was closer to opera than it was to the typical musical, but in style and scope it foreshadowed such contemporary productions as
Evita and
Les Misérables.
The Cradle Will Rock (
1937), with a book and score by
Marc Blitzstein and directed by
Orson Welles, was a highly political piece that, despite the controversy surrounding it, managed to run for 108 performances.
Kurt Weill's
Knickerbocker Holiday brought to the musical stage New York City's early history, using as its source writings by
Washington Irving. Clearly, musical theatre was evolving into something beyond feathers and beads worn by statuesque showgirls.
The Golden Age (1940s/1950s/1960s)
The Golden Age of the Broadway musical is generally considered to have begun with
Oklahoma! (
1943) and to have ended with
Hair (
1968).
Rodgers and Hammerstein's
Oklahoma! had a cohesive (if somewhat slim) plot, songs that furthered the action of the story, and featured dream ballets which advanced the plot and developed the characters, rather than using dance as an excuse to parade scantily-clad women across the stage. It defied musical conventions by raising its first act curtain not on a bevy of chorus girls, but rather on a woman churning butter, with an off-stage voice singing the opening lines of
Oh, What a Beautiful Morning. It was the first "blockbuster" Broadway show, running a total of 2,212 performances, and remains one of the most frequently produced of the team's projects. The two collaborators created an extraordinary collection of some of musical theater's best loved and most enduring classics, including
Carousel (
1945),
South Pacific (
1949),
The King and I (
1951), and
The Sound of Music (
1959).
Americana was displayed on Broadway during the "Golden Age", as the wartime cycle of shows began to arrive. An example of this would be "
On The Town" (
1944), written by
Betty Comden and
Adolph Green, composed by
Leonard Bernstein and choreographed by
Jerome Robbins. The musical is set during wartime, where a group of three sailors are on a 24 hour shore leave in New York. During their day, they each meet a wonderful woman. The women in this show have a specific power to them, as if saying, "Come here! I need a man!" The show also gives the impression of a country with an uncertain future, as the sailors also have with their women before leaving.
Oklahoma! inspired others to continue the trend.
Irving Berlin used sharpshooter
Annie Oakley's career as a basis for his
Annie Get Your Gun (
1944, 1,147 performances);
Burton Lane,
E. Y. Harburg, and
Fred Saidy combined political satire with Irish whimsy for their fantasy
Finian's Rainbow (
1944, 1,725 performances); Cole Porter found inspiration in
William Shakespeare's
Taming of the Shrew for
Kiss Me, Kate (
1944, 1,077 performances);
Damon Runyan's eclectic characters were at the core of
Frank Loesser's and
Abe Burrows'
Guys and Dolls, (
1950, 1,200 performances); and the
Gold Rush was the setting for
Alan Jay Lerner and
Frederick Loewe's
Paint Your Wagon (
1951).
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My Fair Lady Playbill with Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison |
The fairly brief run - 289 performances - of that show didn't discourage them from collaborating again, this time on an adaptation of
George Bernard Shaw's
Pygmalion -
My Fair Lady (
1956), with
Rex Harrison and
Julie Andrews, which at 2,717 performances held the long-run record for many years. Popular Hollywood movies were made of these musicals.
As in
Oklahoma!, dance was an integral part of
West Side Story (
1957), which transported
Romeo and Juliet to modern day New York City and converted the feuding Montague and Capulet families into opposing ethnic gangs, the Sharks and the Jets. The book was adapted by
Arthur Laurents, with music by
Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by newcomer
Stephen Sondheim. It was embraced by the critics but failed to be a popular choice for the "blue-haired matinee ladies," who preferred the small town River City, Iowa of
Meredith Willson's
The Music Man to the alleys of
Manhattan's Upper West Side. Apparently
Tony Award voters were of a similar mind, since they favored the latter over the former.
West Side Story had a respectable run of 732 performances (1,040 in the West End), while
The Music Man ran nearly twice as long, with 1,375.
Laurents and Sondheim teamed up again for
Gypsy (
1959, 702 performances), with
Jule Styne providing the music for a backstage story about the most driven stage mother of all-time, stripper
Gypsy Rose Lee's mother Rose. The original production ran for 702 performances, but proved to be a bigger hit in its three subsequent revivals, with
Angela Lansbury,
Tyne Daly, and
Bernadette Peters tackling the role made famous by Ethel Merman.
Stephen Sondheim would be one of the most important composer/lyricists from
1960 on. His first project for which he wrote both music and lyrics was
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (
1962, 964 performances), with a book based on the works of
Plautus by
Burt Shevelove and
Larry Gelbart, and starring
Zero Mostel. Sondheim was not one to concentrate on the romantic plots typical of productions of the time; his work tended to be darker, exploring the grittier sides of life both present and past. Some of his earlier works are
Anyone Can Whistle (
1964, which - at a mere nine performances, despite having star power in
Lee Remick and
Angela Lansbury - is a legendary flop),
Company (
1970),
Follies (
1971), and
A Little Night Music (
1973), which featured the only standard ever to emerge from the extensive Sondheim catalogue,
Send in the Clowns. He has found inspiration in the unlikeliest of sources - the opening of
Japan to Western trade for
Pacific Overtures, a legendary murderous barber -
Sweeney Todd - seeking revenge in the
Industrial Age of London, the paintings of
Georges Seurat for
Sunday in the Park with George, and a collection of individuals intent on eliminating the
American President in
Assassins. His works are generally known for their lyrical sophistication and musical complexity, which many critics argue has led to his works receiving relatively little popularity among the general public.
Jerry Herman, too, has played a significant role in American musical theater, beginning with his first Broadway production,
Milk and Honey (1961, 563 performances), about the founding of the state of
Israel, and continuing with the smash hits
Hello, Dolly! (1964, 2,844 performances),
Mame (1966, 1,508 performances), and
La Cage aux Folles (1983, 1,761 performances). Even his less successful shows like
Dear World (1969) and
Mack & Mabel (1974) have had memorable scores (
Mack & Mabel was later reworked into a London hit). Writing both words and music, many of Herman's showtunes have become popular standards, including "
Hello, Dolly!", "
If He Walked Into My Life", "
We Need a Little Christmas", "
I Am What I Am", "
Mame", "
Shalom", "
The Best of Times", "
Before the Parade Passes By", "
Put On Your Sunday Clothes", "
It Only Takes a Moment", "
It's Today!", "
Open a New Window", "
Bosom Buddies", "
I Won't Send Roses", and "
Time Heals Everything", recorded by such luminaries as
Louis Armstrong,
Eydie Gorme,
Barbra Streisand,
Petula Clark and
Bernadette Peters. Herman's songbook has been the subject of two popular musical revues,
Jerry's Girls (Broadway, 1985), and
Showtune (off-Broadway, 2003). Jerry Herman is to traditional musical comedy what Stephen Sondheim is to the avant-garde.
The musical started to diverge from the relatively narrow confines of the 1950s.
Rock music would be used in several Broadway musicals, perhaps the most significant of which was
Hair, which featured not only rock music but also
nudity and controversial opinions about the Vietnam War. Other important
rock musicals of the 1960s and 1970s included
Jesus Christ Superstar,
Godspell, and
Two Gentlemen of Verona. In fact, some of these rock musicals began with "concept albums" and then moved to film or stage, such as
Tommy. Some of these had no dialogue or were otherwise reminiscent of opera, with dramatic, emotional themes, and were styled
rock operas.
The musical also went in other directions. Shows like
Raisin,
Dreamgirls,
Purlie, and
The Wiz brought a significant African-American influence to Broadway. More and more different musical genres were turned into musicals either on or
off-Broadway. Automotive companies and other types of corporations hired Broadway talent to write
corporate musicals, private shows which were only seen by their employees.
More Recent Eras
1970s
1976 brought one of the great contemporary musicals to the stage.
A Chorus Line emerged from recorded group therapy-style sessions
Michael Bennett conducted with Gypsies - those who sing and dance in support of the leading players - from the Broadway community. From hundreds of hours of tapes,
James Kirkwood, Jr. and
Nick Dante fashioned a book about an audition for a musical, incorporating into it many of the real-life stories of those who had sat in on the sessions - and some of whom eventually played variations of themselves or each other in the show. With music by
Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by
Edward Kleban,
A Chorus Line first opened at
Joseph Papp's
Public Theater in lower
Manhattan. Advance word-of-mouth - that something extraordinary was about to explode - boosted box office sales, and after critics ran out of superlatives to describe what they witnessed on opening night, what initially had been planned as a limited engagement eventually moved to the
Shubert Theater uptown for a run that seemed to last forever. The show swept the Tony Awards and won the
Pulitzer Prize, and its hit song,
What I Did for Love, became an instant standard.
Clearly, Broadway audiences were eager to welcome musicals that strayed from the usual style and substance.
John Kander and
Fred Ebb explored pre-
World War II Nazi Germany in
Cabaret and
Prohibition-era
Chicago, which relied on old
vaudeville techniques to tell its tale of murder and the media.
Pippin, by
Stephen Schwartz, was set in the days of
Charlemagne.
Federico Fellini's autobiographical film
8½ became
Maury Yeston's
Nine. But old-fashioned values were embraced, as well, in such hits as
Annie,
42nd Street,
My One and Only, and popular revivals of
No, No, Nanette and
Irene.
1980s and 1990s
The 1980s and 1990s saw the influence of European "mega-musicals" or "pop operas," which typically featured a pop-influenced score and had large casts and sets and were identified as much by their notable effects - a falling chandelier, a helicopter landing on stage - as they were by anything else in the production. Many were based on novels or other works of literature. The most important writers of mega-musicals include the French team of
Claude-Michel Schönberg and
Alain Boublil, responsible for
Les Misérables and
Miss Saigon (inspired by
Madame Butterfly); and the British composer
Andrew Lloyd Webber, who wrote
Evita, based on the life of
Argentina's
Eva Perón,
Cats, derived from the poems of
T. S. Eliot,
The Phantom of the Opera derived from the novel "Le Fantôme de l'Opéra" written by
Gaston Leroux , and
Sunset Boulevard (from the classic film of the same name). These decades also saw the influence of large corporations that produced musicals. The most important has been
Disney, which adapted some of their animated movie musicals - such as
Beauty and the Beast and
The Lion King (which is said to have been responsible for the revitalization of 42nd Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, previously a strip of tourist trap souvenir shops, arcades, peep shows, and porn theaters) for the stage - and also created original stage productions like
Aida with music by
Elton John.
The growing scale (and cost) of musicals led to some concern that musicals were eschewing substance in favor of style. The 1990s and 2000s have seen many writers create smaller musicals (
Falsettoland,
Passion); the topics vary widely and the music ranges from Sondheimesque to pop, but they generally are produced off-Broadway and feature much smaller casts (and thus much lower costs).
There also had been the concern that the musical had lost touch with the tastes of the general public in America and that the musical was increasingly doomed to be something viewed by a smaller and smaller audience. One of the most important writers who attempted to increase the popularity of musicals among a younger audience was
Jonathan Larson, whose musical
Rent (based on the opera
La Bohème) featured a cast of twentysomethings and whose score was heavily rock-influenced. The musical has been a smash success, even with its composer dying of an aortic aneurysm on the night of the final dress rehearsal at
New York Theatre Workshop, before he could see it reach Broadway. He ultimately succeeded and a groups of young fans began to come to the
Nederlander Theatre hours early in hopes they would win the lottery ($20 front row tickets). They named themselves the
RENTheads and some have seen the show more than 50 times. The show is currently the seventh longest running musical on broadway. Other writers who have attempted to bring a taste of modern rock music to the stage include
Jason Robert Brown, and the UK's Komedy Kollective whose musical
Restart combines urban dance with non-traditional music scores.
Another trend has been to create a plot to fit a collection of songs that have already been hits - thus
Mamma Mia! (featuring songs by
ABBA),
Movin' Out (based on the tunes of
Billy Joel),
Good Vibrations (
the Beach Boys),
All Shook Up (
Elvis Presley), and
Jersey Boys (
The Four Seasons). This style is often referred to as "Jukebox Musicals" in the theater industry.
The New Century
Familiarity may breed contempt - but it's also embraced by producers anxious to guarantee they recoup their very considerable investments, if not show a healthy profit. Some are willing to take chances on the new and unusual, such as
Avenue Q (which utilizes puppets to tell its very adult-themed story),
Edit:Undo (a by-students for-students musical about high school in the digital age), or
Bombay Dreams (about the "Bollywood" musicals churned out by Indian cinema). But the majority prefer to hedge their bets by sticking with the familiar - revivals of family fare like
Wonderful Town or
Fiddler on the Roof or proven hits like
La Cage aux Folles. Today's composers are finding their sources in already proven material - cult films like
The Producers, Spamalot, or
Hairspray (musical); classic literature such as
Little Women and
Dracula - hoping they'll have a built-in audience as a result.
At the present time (late
2004), the musical is being pulled in a number of different directions. Gone are the days when a sole producer - a
David Merrick or a
Cameron Mackintosh - backs a production. Corporate sponsors dominate Broadway, and often alliances are formed to stage musicals which require an investment of $10 million or more. In 2002, the credits for
Thoroughly Modern Millie listed ten producers, and among those names were entities comprised of several individuals. Typically, off-Broadway and regional theaters tend to produce smaller and therefore less expensive musicals, and in recent times more and more development of new musicals has taken place outside of New York.
Wicked, for example, first opened in
San Francisco, and its creative team relied on the mostly mediocre reviews to assist them in retooling the show before it reached Broadway, where it ultimately became a major success.
As we move on into the future of musicals, it would appear that the spectacle format is on the rise again, returning to the times when Romans would have mock sea battles on stage. This is most apparent in Toronto, Canada where David and Ed Mirvish are presenting the world premiere of "The Lord Of The Rings", billed as the biggest stage production in musical theatre history.
Renaissance of the Movie-Musical and TV "Musicals"
With
Moulin Rouge! (2001),
Baz Luhrman revived the moribund movie musical. This was followed by a string of film successes, including
Chicago in 2002 and
Phantom of the Opera in 2004. Disney and other animiated musicals and more adult animated musical films, like
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, paved the way for these. In addition, India is producing numerous "Bollywood" musicals, and Japan is producing numerous "Anime" film musicals.
Some recent television shows have set an episode as 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,
Oz's Variety, or
Space Ghost Coast to Coast's
O Coast to Coast!/Boatshow) the television series
Cop Rock, which extensively used the musical format, was not a success.
The International Musicals Scene
Recent decades have also seen the development of vibrant musical theatre scenes in Germany (
Elixier and
Ludwig II (musical), Austria (
Dance of the Vampires and
Elisabeth (musical)), France (
Notre Dame de Paris (musical) and
Romeo & Juliette), Japan (both animated and live action, mostly based on
Anime and
Manga, such as
Kiki's Delivery Service and
Tenimyu), Eastern Europe, and other places.
*
List of currently running Broadway shows*
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Cast recording*
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Rock Opera*
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List of famous composers and writers of musicals*
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Internet Broadway Database (ibdb.com)*
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Science Fiction Musicals Sourcebook*
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