(26 December 1931, Music Box, 441 performances.) Music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, stage direction by Kaufman, produced by Sam H. Harris. A brilliant satire that became the first Broadway musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (with George Gershwin’s name excluded since it was a literary award), Of Thee I Sing is one of the genre’s most storied creations from the 1930s. The Gershwin brothers first tried their hands at musical satire with George S. Kaufman in Strike Up the Band!, which failed out of town in 1927 but became a hit in 1930. The targets for barbs in Of Thee I Sing were presidential politics and American governance. A political party seeks an issue to galvanize the electorate and chooses “love.” Nobody can recall the vice-presidential candidate’s name (Alexander Throttlebottom, played by Victor Moore), but they know they want to elect John P. Wintergreen (William Gaxton) as president and will run him on a “platform of love.” The party leaders decide that Wintergreen will marry the winner of an Atlantic City beauty contest. The winner is a southern belle, Diana Deveraux(Grace Brinkley), but Wintergreen has already fallen in love with the pageant’s secretary, Mary Turner (Lois Moran). She bakes excellent corn muffins, somehow without even using corn. Wintergreen wins the election and marries Mary Turner during the inauguration ceremony. Diana interrupts with her tale of woe, but the Supreme Court rejects her suit, ruling that corn muffins are more important than justice. The title song, cleverly titled “Of Thee I Sing, Baby,” closes act 1. In act 2, the French ambassador comes to Diana’s rescue because she is “the illegitimate daughter of an illegitimate son of an illegitimate nephew of Napoleon.” Congress tries to impeach Wintergreen but cancels the proceedings when Mary says that she is pregnant. Further French threats come to nothing when Wintergreen realizes that the vice president fills in for him when he cannot fulfill a duty, meaning that Throttlebottom marries Diana, and all ends happily.
Although conceived early in the Depression, this rich and pointed satire holds up remarkably well. No major institution in Washington is spared, but the blows are softened and made more delightful by the outrageous silliness. The Senate’s willingness to impeach President Wintergreen, for example, is callous and opportunistic, but it is rendered absurd by Throttlebottom’s sung insistence that he will call for votes only from states whose names rhyme. It is remarkable to hear how much of the story occurs during the music, with entire scenes told mostly in song. The score is one of the Gershwin brothers’ best, providing many lyrical highlights and winning melodies. The opening “Wintergreen for President,” a gem of a lyric from Ira Gershwin, benefits from George Gershwin’s haunting melody. “Some Girls Can Bake a Pie,” “A Kiss for Cinderella,” and “Who Cares” function well in the show and boast unforgettable melodies. George Gershwin made excellent use of special effects as well, such as the whole-tone scale that introduces the Supreme Court, and quoting his own An American in Paris at the arrival of the French ambassador. Brooks Atkinson wrote in the New York Times that the musical was “funnier than the government, and not nearly as dangerous,” while Burns Mantle, writing in the Daily News, called it “the newest, maddest and brightest of musical satire.”
Officially, in terms of Actors’ Equity Association union contracts, an “off-Broadway” theater is one with between 100 and 499 seats. An “off-off-Broadway” theater has fewer than 100 seats and is often a large room or other multiuse facility. Despite the fact that the term sounds like a designation of location, technically an off-Broadway theater can be in the Broadway district (midtown Manhattan, around Times Square, between about 40th and 60th Streets). Smaller theaters can present experimental works that are not economically viable at larger theaters. Off-Broadway productions figure prominently in the musical’s history, and some fans do not make important distinctions about a show’s origin. The Fantasticks, for example, is often called a “Broadway musical” despite its extraordinary off-Broadway run of 17,162 performances. Musicals that did not run on Broadway as part of their initial runs but became important representatives of the genre include, among others, The Fantasticks, Little Shop of Horrors, Nunsense, and Assassins.
(20 February 1917, Princess, 463 performances.) Music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by P. G. Wodehouse, book by Wodehouse and Guy Bolton. One of the famed Princess Theatre musicals of the 1910s that Broadway historians look back on as significant steps in the integration of music and plot, Oh, Boy! was a smash hit that followed its 14-month run with a five-year tour. George Budd (Tom Powers) has just married Lou Ellen (Marie Carroll) but learns that his Aunt Penelope (Edna May Oliver) is coming to try to prevent the marriage and fears that his aunt will discontinue his allowance. Lou Ellen leaves for the time being, but things become much more complicated when Jackie (Anna Wheaton) enters his home. She flees from a policeman that she struck, and during the remainder of the show, Jackie finds herself playing either George’s wife or his aunt. When the real aunt arrives, she accepts George’s marriage after drinking spiked lemonade. Kern’s score was of very high quality and included “Till the Clouds Roll By,” “An Old-Fashioned Wife,” “You Never Knew about Me,” and “Nesting Time in Flatbush.” Critics were ecstatic. The New York Times review stated, “You might call this a musical comedy that is as good as they make them if it were not palpably so much better.” According to the Sun, if such a category existed, then sure Oh, Boy! was one of the “masterpieces of musical comedy.” Alan Dale wrote in the American that “there are so many delightful musical numbers that it is next to impossible to mention all of them.”
(8 November 1926, Imperial, 256 performances.) Music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, produced by Alex A. Aarons and Vinton Freedley. A musical comedy featuring Gertrude Lawrence in her first lead role in the United States and some great Gershwin songs. The story involved an English duke (Gerald Oliver Smith) who bootlegs liquor to assist with his cash flow problems. Lawrence played his sister Kay, who becomes the love interest of Jimmy Winter (Oscar Shaw), on whose estate the Duke hides his supply of liquor. Victor Moore played “Shorty” McGee, the Duke’s butler. Brooks Atkinson opened his New York Times review by stating that “musical comedy seldom proves more intensely delightful than ‘Oh, Kay!’” Gershwin wrote songs with both his brother and Howard Dietz, the latter uncredited. Lawrence and Shaw sang “Maybe” and “Do, Do, Do,” and the entire cast performed the memorable “Clap Yo’ Hands.” The huge hit from the show was “Someone to Watch over Me,” sung by Lawrence. The show was reworked as Nice Work If You Can Get It (2012).
Operatically trained soprano who created the roles of Susan in Sweet Smell of Success (2002), Lucy Westenra in Dracula: The Musical (2004), and Clara in The Light in the Piazza (2005). She played Babe Williams in the 2006 revival of The Pajama Game opposite Harry Connick Jr., Ella Peterson in the 2010 City Center Encores! production of Bells Are Ringing, and Billie Bendix in Nice Work If You Can Get It (2012). Her dramatic and sensitive portrayals of Francesca in The Bridges of Madison County (2014) and Anna Leonowens in the 2015 revival of The King and I brought her tremendous accolades.
Director best known for musicals with rock-based scores, including Hair (1968), Jesus Christ Superstar (1971), and Dude (1972). He also conceived Jesus Christ Superstar for the stage.
(31 March 1943, St. James, 2,212 performances.) Music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics and book by Oscar Hammerstein II, orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, choreographed by Agnes de Mille, produced by Lawrence Langner and Theresa Helburn. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s first collaboration and one of the most important shows in the history of Broadway for its close integration of plot, music, and dance. When the curtain rose on opening night to an almost bare stage and the simple waltz “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!” was heard offstage, it was clear that the creators wanted to be innovative.
The show’s deceptively simple story focused on Laurey Williams (Joan Roberts) and which boy should accompany her to the box social: the “good” cowboy Curly (Alfred Drake) or the “bad” farmhand Jud Fry (Howard Da Silva). Curly teases Laurey about taking her in “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” in which the clip-clop of the team of horses is heard in the orchestra. Their courtship follows with the “maybe” love duet in “People Will Say We’re in Love,” one of the year’s most popular songs. Curly tries to dissuade Jud in the dirge-like “Poor Jud Is Daid,” the lyrics of which include some of Hammerstein’s blackest humor. In the somber “Lonely Room,” Jud reveals his true nature. The comic romance for the secondary leads between Ado Annie (Celeste Holm) and Will Parker (Lee Dixon) is complicated by the presence of peddler Ali Hakim (Yiddish comic Joseph Buloff ) because Ado Annie admits, “I Cain’t Say No.” Laurey dreams about her decision concerning her suitors and, in the dramatic “Dream Ballet” that concludes act 1, finds Jud Fry’s world terrifying. In act 2, Curly and Laurey marry, but Jud returns to cause trouble, and Curly kills him in self-defense. “Evil” has been defeated, and the couple and the cast sing about their hope in the future in “Oklahoma!” This song marked the emotional peak of the show when the cast walks to the front of the stage with a jubilant “Yeow!,” an affirmation of community and the desire for statehood.
Oklahoma! originated in 1942 when Lawrence Langner and Theresa Helburn of the Theatre Guild dreamed of reviving Green Grow the Lilacs and adding typical western songs and square dancing. The Theatre Guild approached Rodgers, who for the first time collaborated with Hammerstein. The lyricist had not had a hit in a decade, but Rodgers still wanted to work with the man who had written Show Boat. They hired Agnes de Mille, who had just created the western ballet Rodeo to Aaron Copland’s music, as choreographer. For Oklahoma!, she fashioned the dream ballet and used elements of vernacular dance and even a tap solo, minimizing the obvious square dancing. Hammerstein originally wanted her dream sequence to be a circus ballet, but de Mille answered that was not what young naive girls dream about, so she brought the world of Jud Fry’s French postcard women to life. Still titled Away We Go!, the show opened in New Haven, where it received a good reception, before moving to Boston. During the Boston tryout, Laurey and Curly’s duet “Oklahoma!” became an ensemble number, and a reprise of “People Will Say We’re in Love” replaced “Boys and Girls Like You and Me.” Oklahoma! received a special Pulitzer Prize, and in 1953, the title song became the state song of Oklahoma. Notable revivals include the National Theatre’s production in London, which starred Hugh Jackman and subsequently transferred to Broadway in 2002 with Patrick Wilson and ran for 338 performances. The 1955 film starred Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones.
(6 January 1963, Imperial, 774 performances.) Lyrics, music, and book by Lionel Bart; staged by Peter Coe; presented by David Merrick and Donald Albery. Based on Charles Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist, Oliver! was disliked by critics, but appreciative audiences came to see it for almost two years, and it has remained in the repertory. Bart kept the novel’s basic story and even included some of Dickens’s dialogue. Familiar characters were given musical treatments, including Oliver Twist (Bruce Prochnik), Mr. Bumble (Willoughby Goddard), Fagin (Clive Revill), Artful Dodger (David Jones), Nancy (Georgia Brown), and Bet (Alice Playten). Critics found fault with the overly happy nature of the show and the excision of some of the story’s horror. Howard Taubman, for example, writing for the New York Times, wondered how Fagin’s “odious diggings” could become “a jolly rumpus room.” He deplored the fact that Fagin had been made a “complacent low comedian” and that Dickens, with his “burning social conscience,” had been reduced to “modern show business.” Two songs, “As Long as He Needs Me” and “Consider Yourself,” became popular outside of the theater, and among the show’s other delightful tunes were the jaunty title song, “Food, Glorious Food,” “You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two,” and “Who Will Buy?”
(17 October 1965, Mark Hellinger, 280 performances.) Music by Burton Lane, lyrics and book by Alan Jay Lerner, staged by Robert Lewis, dances and musical numbers staged by Herbert Ross. Based on an original story by Lerner, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever struggled because of a weak book. Lerner originally planned to write the show with Richard Rodgers, but their collaboration never bore fruit. Lerner retained rights to the story and produced many lovely songs with Burton Lane, including a title number that is one of Broadway’s most enduring tunes. A great asset was the star Barbara Harris, who played Daisy Gamble, a nervous young woman with ESP. She goes to a psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Bruckner (John Cullum), for help to stop smoking. He discovers her psychic gifts and learns that she has lived another life in the 18th century as Melinda Wells. Bruckner falls in love with Melinda. Daisy discovers how he has used her to reach Melinda, but she is unable to leave him, and as the show ends, they continue to work together. Howard Taubman reviewed the show for the New York Times, and although he admired Harris and the songs, he described Lerner’s book as “labored and creaky.” Barbra Streisand and Yves Montand starred in the 1970 film version.
(28 December 1944, Adelphi, 463 performances.) Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics and book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, entire production directed by George Abbott, musical numbers and choreography staged by Jerome Robbins. Based on Jerome Robbins’s original concept that first found a home in the ballet Fancy Free (also with music by Bernstein), On the Town was a fleshed-out version of the story that became a brilliant musical comedy. Three sailors hit Manhattan for a 24-hour leave, looking for girls and fun. Ozzie (Adolph Green) finds his hands full with Claire de Loon (Betty Comden), an anthropology student. Chip (Chris Alexander) meets a randy cab driver named Hildegard Esterhazy (Nancy Walker). Chip wants to see the sights, but Hildy just wants to take him to her apartment. Gaby (John Battles) falls in love with a subway poster of “Miss Turnstiles” (Sono Osato) and spends his leave looking for her. The show was a valentine to New York City, taking place in a number of famous places. The three couples, of course, find out that 24 hours is not long enough to get to know each other, and they sing “Some Other Time” as they part. Three more sailors then burst out of the Brooklyn Naval Yard, ready for action. On the Town was nearly the perfect show for its time and place. New York City experienced a constant flow of soldiers and sailors on leave, and the public knew of Fancy Free’s riotous success.
In the short time since Oklahoma!, dance had become an expected part of the plot in progressive musicals, and Robbins, if anything, made the dance even more important in On the Town than it was in Oklahoma! Osato was a ballet dancer by training and was featured in most of the important dance numbers. Bernstein’s score was sophisticated and dissonant by Broadway’s standards, but it was ebullient and included convincing references to popular styles. Among the many highlights were the opening “New York, New York,” the lovely ballad “Lonely Town,” the humorous “Carried Away,” the naughty and hysterical “I Can Cook, Too,” and the nostalgic “Some Other Time.” Bernstein also wrote his own dance music for the show; usually, an arranger took care of this task. The show’s publicist could have quoted almost any line in Lewis Nichols’s rave review in the New York Times. Nichols called it “the freshest and most engaging musical . . . since the golden day of ‘Oklahoma!’” The book is “literate,” one that the audience can actually enjoy. Nichols recalled Bernstein’s recent triumphs in the concert music work and wrote that the music “has humor and is unpedantic,” praised the principals, found the show’s “charm” in its totality, and called On the Town one of Abbott’s “perfect jobs.” A highly acclaimed revival opened in 2014.
(19 February 1978, St. James, 449 performances.) Music by Cy Coleman, lyrics and book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, directed by Hal Prince. Based on the play Twentieth Century by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, which also became a movie starring John Barrymore and Carole Lombard, On the Twentieth Century was a funny and spirited musical that fell a few feet short of a smash hit. John Cullum played Oscar Jaffe, a theatrical producer who badly needs a hit and hopes to convince Lily Garland (Madeline Kahn), a Hollywood star who used to work with him, to help him and perhaps become romantically interested in him. He woos her on the “Twentieth Century,” the luxury train from New York to Chicago. Also on board are Letitia Primrose (Imogene Coca), a screwball millionaire who runs all over the train affixing “Repent” stickers to everything, and Bruce Granit (Kevin Kline), Lily’s lover. The four stars delivered very strong performances, as did Robin Wagner’s ingenious set, which presented the train from a number of different views. Some critics believed that the set overwhelmed the show; the Variety review opened with the line, “It’s ominous when an audience leaves a musical whistling the scenery.” Richard Eder, however, writing in the New York Times, gave the show a positive review, calling it “funny, elegant and totally cheerful” but with some “rough spots.” He noted that scenic designer Wagner “manages all kinds of extraordinary things” and that Coleman’s music always managed “to heighten the spirit of the production.” Songs included the title number, “Repent,” and “We’ve Got It All.” The 2015 revival starred Kristin Chenoweth as Lily Garland and Peter Gallagher as Oscar Jaffee.
(11 April 1936, Imperial, 315 performances.) Music by Richard Rodgers; lyrics by Lorenz Hart; book by Rodgers, Hart, and George Abbott; staged by Worthington Miner; choreography by George Balanchine. Based on an original story by Rodgers and Hart, On Your Toes had a major ballet component, notable integration of music and plot, and a winning performance by Ray Bolger as Phil Dolan III, the son of two vaudeville performers who helped him get an education. He now is a music professor at the Works Progress Administration’s Knickerbocker University but would rather be a dancer. His love interest is Frankie Frayne (Doris Carson), but Phil begins to assist a Russian ballet company and starts to fancy himself as a consort for the prima ballerina Vera Barnova (Tamara Geva). Phil helps put on a jazz ballet and dances the male lead himself when that dancer disappears. Gangsters are after the dancer, and they mistake Bolger’s character for him and intend to kill him. Frankie warns Phil, and he realizes his foolishness and returns to her. Balanchine choreographed two major ballets for the show: act 1’s “Princess Zenobia,” a satirical look at classical ballets, and act 2’s famous “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” in which the male lead pays the owner of a seedy bar to spend time with a stripper. The jealous owner shoots the girl, and then the lead male dancer shoots the owner. The ballet music was an impressive effort from Rodgers, one of the few instrumental works in the history of Broadway to become famous in the concert hall. The ballet did not advance the show’s plot, but it was an early, substantive use of ballet in a musical. Brooks Atkinson, in his New York Times review, described it as “sophisticated” but hoped that the reader would not find that word too “unpalatable.” He was impressed by the show’s “uniformity of viewpoint,” with its “mocking book” and “raised eyebrows.” He suggested that because of the show’s musical and literary allusions, one might want to look into Beethoven and Rimsky-Korsakov, and he found the show somewhat elitist. Among the show’s songs were “There’s a Small Hotel,” “It’s Got to Be Love,” “Glad to Be Unhappy,” “The 3 B’s,” and “Too Good for the Average Man.”
(18 March 2012, Bernard B. Jacobs, 1,168 performances.) Based on the 2006 Irish film of the same name, Once was an engrossing, surprising show that positioned itself delightfully outside the Broadway mainstream. The film and the musical tell of an Irish folk/rock musician whose girlfriend has just left for New York when he meets a Czech woman living in Dublin. She becomes his musical soul mate as they write unforgettable songs together while their hearts lie elsewhere. The musical was directed with moving understatement by John Tiffany, and the cast of actor/musicians made the audience feel like it was joining an emotional, simple story told at a jam session. The score by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, who starred in the film, included such memorable numbers as “When Your Mind’s Made Up” and “Falling Slowly,” which the cast performed with appropriate senses of melancholy and timelessness. The sound designer Clive Goodwin and movement director Steven Hoggett helped bring the music alive and retain the requisite intimacy. The lead roles, simply named “Guy” and “Girl,” belonged to Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti. Both were praised by the New York Times reviewer, who embraced the show’s “single, universal feeling” and the way the production “massages that feeling until it hurts quite exquisitely.” Once won several Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical (Enda Walsh), and Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Kazee).
(11 May 1959, Phoenix, 460 performances.) Music by Mary Rodgers; lyrics by Marshall Barer; book by Jay Thompson, Barer, and Dean Fuller; staged by George Abbott; choreography by Joe Layton. A musical version of “The Princess and the Pea,” Once upon a Mattress ran for almost 14 months and launched Carol Burnett’s career. Jane White played the formidable queen who wishes to test any princess who might want to marry her son, Prince Dauntless (Joe Bova). Before subjecting Princess Winnifred (Burnett) to the famous test, she forces her to swim a moat and serve as a maid. Jack Gilford worked in pantomime as he played the mute king. The music was by Richard Rodgers’s daughter Mary, the score for which she remains best known. Brooks Atkinson reviewed the show for the New York Times, offering substantial praise for Burnett and for Rodgers’s music. He found the show “full of good music” that sounds nothing like the composer’s father, asserting that Mary Rodgers “has a style of her own” and is a good melodist. He noted Burnett’s “metallic voice” and “ironic gleam” and her excellent feeling for “the comic gesture.” Musical highlights included “Shy,” “The Swamps of Home,” “Happily Ever After,” “Man to Man Talk,” and “Yesterday I Loved You.” The 1996 revival starring Sarah Jessica Parker ran for almost six months.
(24 October 1963, Broadhurst, 330 performances.) Music by Harvey Schmidt, lyrics by Tom Jones, book by N. Richard Nash, choreography by Agnes de Mille, presented by David Merrick. Based on Nash’s play The Rainmaker, 110 in the Shade included a score by the creators of The Fantasticks and managed a 10-month run. Inga Swenson played Lizzie Curry, a plain young woman who is unsuccessful in finding a husband. She lives in the drought-ridden West, and a young con man named Bill Starbuck (Robert Horton) offers to produce a rainstorm for $100. Lizzie is suspicious, but the family is desperate and pays Starbuck. She falls in love with him, and Starbuck confesses to her that he is a fraud. Another potential suitor for Lizzie is the sheriff (Stephen Douglass), but she does not want him to arrest Starbuck. Finally, it rains, to everyone’s surprise, and Starbuck leaves a more confident Lizzie, who might spark more interest from the sheriff. The songs did not become popular outside of the show but worked well within it. Some of the more effective were “Hungry Men,” “Rain Song,” and “Love, Don’t Turn Away.” Howard Taubman, in the New York Times, described the show as “dry as the parched land outside the Broadhurst Theater,” and all of the theatrical effects available “cannot substitute for warmth, humor or enchantment.” He remarked that all Inga Swenson seemed to do was weep and understood why she might. The 2007 revival (9 May 2007, Studio 54, 94 performances) starred Steve Kazee as Bill Starbuck and Audra McDonald as Lizzie.
(7 October 1943, Imperial, 567 performances.) Music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ogden Nash, book by S. J. Perelman and Nash, staged by Elia Kazan, choreography by Agnes de Mille, presented by Cheryl Crawford. With a plot suggested by F. Anatey’s novella The Tinted Venus (1885), One Touch of Venus was Weill’s biggest hit written for the American stage and Mary Martin’s first major lead role. She played the goddess who is brought to life from a statue when barber Rodney Hatch (Kenny Baker) places the engagement ring he purchased for his girlfriend on the statue’s finger. Venus tries to take Rodney for herself but stops when she realizes the mundane nature of life in suburban Ozone Heights. She again becomes a statue, and Rodney then meets a young lady in the museum who looks much like Venus. The show’s book was literate, and Ogden Nash’s lyrics were outstanding. Weill’s score, which he orchestrated himself, showed his uncanny ability to write theatrical music appropriate to any subject, even in this, the closest thing he ever wrote to a conventional musical comedy. The score included one of his greatest hits, “Speak Low,” and “That’s Him” also enjoyed popularity. Agnes de Mille produced two memorable ballets. The first depicted “Forty Minutes for Lunch,” a droll look at the midday business of Rockefeller Center. The second, “Venus in Ozone Heights,” was the dream ballet that convinced the goddess that she is better off as a statue. Critics thought that One Touch of Venus was the best Broadway musical since Oklahoma! more than six months earlier. Lewis Nichols reviewed the show for the New York Times. He called Nash’s lyrics “soft and sweet” but at times “a shade confused” and noted that several of Weill’s songs should become popular. Nichols proclaimed Mary Martin “a lady of high charm” who can “toss a song over the footlights.”
(2 November 1914, 39th Street, 240 performances.) Music by Victor Herbert, lyrics and book by Henry Blossom. Based on Frank Mandel’s comic play Our Wives, The Only Girl combined a solid score and a book somewhat better than that of the average musical comedy. The story involved four bachelors who have forsworn marriage, all of whom are married by the end of the show. A musical librettist, Alan “Kim” Kimbrough (Thurston Hall), needs a composer and hears a delightful tune being played upstairs. The composer turns out to be pretty, young Ruth Wilson (Wilda Bennett). They decide to work together and avoid romantic connections, but Ruth quickly falls for Kim. Meanwhile, the other three bachelors get married. Kim tries to remain single but in the end falls for Ruth. Another major character was Patrice La Montrose (Adele Rowland), the female comic. Blossom used lofty and more archaic language in the romantic tunes and words with a more contemporary twist in Rowland’s songs, the latter including “The More I See of Others, Dear, the Better I Like You.” The unnamed reviewer for the New York Times wrote that Herbert’s music “has just the right swing to be exceedingly popular.” The critic cautioned that this was a show not for tired businessmen but rather for “a very wide-awake person” who desires “a thoroughly enjoyable evening.”
A musical theater work usually sung straight through with arias, recitatives, and ensemble numbers, recognizably part of the international operatic tradition, including works by such composers as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi. The most famous reference to opera and Broadway is Oscar Hammerstein II’s quip that opera is something that loses money on Broadway. Famous operas have actually been produced on Broadway. The Society of American Singers produced several operas in repertory for seven months during the 1918–1919 season, as did the San Carlo Opera Company in the springs of 1944 and 1948. Other European operas on Broadway have included Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia (1948–1949) and Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème (2002–2003), in addition to a Verdi spoof (Ill Treated Il Trovatore, 1880) and the updated My Darlin’ Aida (1952–1953). Several American composers have had operas produced in Broadway theaters, including, for example, George Gershwin (Porgy and Bess, 1935), Marc Blitzstein (Regina, 1949), Leonard Bernstein (Trouble in Tahiti, part of All in One, 1955), and Gian Carlo Menotti, who has had the most success in this category (The Telephone, 1947; The Medium, 1950; The Consul, 1950; The Saint of Bleecker Street, 1954–1955; and Maria Golovin, 1958). Operas have also inspired Broadway shows, such as Rent (1996), an updating of La Bohème, and Aida, with a new score by Elton John and Tim Rice. A fascinating opera on Broadway was Carmen Jones (1943), Oscar Hammerstein II’s revision of Georges Bizet’s Carmen placed in the American South with an African American cast.
Opera has strongly influenced the American musical theater. Light operas by Austrian, French, and English composers had a huge effect on the American operetta, and many staging techniques used in musicals were first explored in opera houses. Despite the creators’ unwillingness to label the works as such, opera has made a major comeback on Broadway since the 1970s in such sung-through shows as Jesus Christ Superstar (1971), Les Misérables (1987), The Phantom of the Opera (1988), Miss Saigon (1991), Marie Christine (1999), and The Light in the Piazza (2005). Musical styles range from that of Giacomo Puccini to pop, but these works share with earlier operas their use of recitative-like passages, memorable melodies, and demanding writing for singers.
A musical theater genre dominated by its score, which usually requires a variety of voice types, ranging from the operatic to the comic. Operettas often took place in a foreign land, typically an imaginary Central European kingdom, Asia, or South America, but also were set in familiar European and North American locales. Glorious, expansive, and emotive music filled operettas; waltzes, marches, and ensemble numbers were plentiful. A coloratura soprano and a rousing baritone were the typical romantic leads. The history of operetta is rooted in Europe, but the genre had become a Broadway institution by the late 19th century. European works frequently appeared on Broadway stages, and newly written American works played alongside them. Among the most successful American works of the time were Reginald De Koven’s Robin Hood (1891) and Victor Herbert’s The Fortune Teller (1898). In 1907, Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow, a Viennese import, captivated American audiences and catapulted the operetta genre to tremendous popularity. Three composers became closely identified with the genre on Broadway: Herbert, Rudolf Friml, and Sigmund Romberg. Herbert’s Naughty Marietta (1910) and Sweethearts (1913); Friml’s The Firefly (1912), Rose Marie (1924), and The Vagabond King (1925); and Romberg’s Maytime (1917), Blossom Time (1921), The Student Prince (1924), The Desert Song (1926), and The New Moon (1928) became classics of the genre. With the stock market crash and Great Depression, operetta faded in popularity on Broadway due to production costs and changing audience attitudes. However, the genre found new life during the 1930s and 1940s in Hollywood as film adaptations of popular stage works, and original film operettas graced movie screens throughout the world.
Actor who was the original El Gallo in The Fantasticks (1960) and introduced “Try to Remember.” His Broadway roles included Paul in Carnival (1961), where he sang “Her Face”; Chuck in Promises, Promises (1968), where he introduced “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” and for which he won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical; Billy Flynn in Chicago (1975), immortalizing “Razzle Dazzle” and “All I Care About”; and Julian Marsh in 42nd Street (1980), singing the title song and “Lullaby of Broadway.” He is also known for his roles in the film Dirty Dancing (1987) and the television series Law and Order (1992–2004).
The person who creates the orchestral parts in a Broadway musical, the orchestrations. Often, after the composer creates the songs for voice(s) and piano, the music is given to the orchestrator, who assigns various parts to various instruments. One of the most important Broadway orchestrators was Robert Russell Bennett, who frequently worked with Rodgers and Hammerstein. Orchestrators often created the overtures and other instrumental numbers in Broadway musicals. A Tony Award for Best Orchestrations was established in 1997.
A cultural phenomenon with strong Broadway manifestations. Following the seminal work of scholars such as Edward V. Said, Orientalism concerns how and why the Western world created an image of the Orient (Asia), often for colonialist purposes. Asia and Asians were often portrayed as being somehow inferior to their European counterparts. Orientalist attitudes frequently appeared on Broadway stages in the 20th century, including scenes in revues and entire shows, such as Katinka (1915), The Desert Song (1926), East Wind (1931, music by Sigmund Romberg, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II), The King and I (1951), Kismet (1953), and Flower Drum Song (1958). Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures (1976) even went so far as to incorporate Japanese stage and acting conventions. At the turn of the 21st century, Orientalism acquired a broader definition as the appropriation of Western musical styles and techniques by creators of Asian origin. Two examples are Chinese American David Henry Hwang’s reworked book for the 2002 revival of Flower Drum Song and Indian composer A. R. Rahman’s score for Bombay Dreams (2004).
A sound recording of a musical featuring the original cast, chorus, orchestra, and orchestrations, also known by the abbreviation OCR. These are generally made in a recording studio rather than in a theater and are intended to provide an aural rendering of the show’s songs and sometimes dialogue. Since OCRs are highly engineered products of a studio and its engineers, they represent idealized versions of performances. Some details of pacing may differ from what takes place on stage (e.g., faster tempos or shorter instrumental passages) since the physical elements of stage movement are not part of studio performance. Important milestones in the history of OCRs are selections from The Band Wagon (1931) featuring Fred and Adele Astaire, an album of songs from The Cradle Will Rock (1938, with piano rather than an orchestra), and the landmark recording of Oklahoma! (1943) on Decca that sold millions of copies on 78-rpm records and LP and CD reissues. Major record labels that have released OCRs include Decca, Capitol, RCA Victor, and Columbia; important labels in the 21st century include PS Classics and Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records, the latter cofounded by Sherie Rene Scott. In addition to OCRs, studios may assemble a cast for a “studio recording,” and it has become common practice for casts of revivals to make a “revival cast recording.”
After winning the national television competition Grease: You’re the One That I Want!, Osnes played Sandy Dumbrowksi in the 2007 revival of Grease. She became known for lyrical singing roles, beginning as a replacement Nellie Forbush in Bartlett Sher’s revival of South Pacific in 2009 and 2010, Hope Harcourt in the 2011 revival of Anything Goes, Bonnie Parker in the short-lived Bonnie and Clyde (2011), Suzy in the City Center Encores! production of Pipe Dream (2012), and Ella in Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella (2013), for which she won the 2013 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical and her second Tony Award nomination.
Ostrow served as an apprentice to Frank Loesser and as vice president and general manager of Frank Music Corporation and Frank Productions, Incorporated, helping to bring several of Loesser’s shows to the stage. In 1973, he established the Stuart Ostrow Foundation’s Musical Theatre Lab, the first nonprofit professional workshop for original musical theater and hence the one that introduced the concept of workshop development for new musicals, and The Robber Bridegroom (1975) is one show to have originated there.