Alternative Paths To Performance - American Musical



          It took many years for the American musical theatre to acquire its own identity. The first musical production was in the colonies. Named Flora, it took place in a court room in Charleston, South Carolina, on February 8, 1735. It was a show imported from European operetta. Yet all the while that the European influence on the American musical theatre was pronounced and inescapable, tentative efforts were being made to achieve a musical entertainment basically American in style, spirit and format.

        When we reflect on American musical theatre, we think of the style that originated in the United States and is today adopted by nations all around the world. Many of the complementary styles of the past may appear unknown, but musical theatre itself is one with which we are all familiar. Its establishment merges the talents of many artists, much more than just singers. The American musical has always joined written materials and included the association of many authors.

          Music, lyrics, choreography, and dialogue which expand and give substance to the story line are combined to produce the musical form. These are constructed by a composer, lyricist, choreographer, and a book writer. Musical theatre has always been a complex style. In its background, it joined components of American melodrama, dance, popular song, and variety show entertainments such as vaudeville, burlesque, and minstrel shows, in combination with European operetta. As the significance of story line has developed, plots have come to be more complex leading to book musicals, a story portrayed through text and song. Recent decades have seen a reoccurrence to the non-story musical style due to the increasingly serious subject matter in book musicals.

          Musical theatre was one of the first styles to discover multicultural written components and subjects. African American musicals first showed up on Broadway in the early 1920's, although three more decades would go by before serious shows by an African American could obtain a Broadway production with a black cast and director. Ragtime and jazz were musical works adopted by white composers, and black dance forms were included into the normal dance selection. The history of the American musical reflects the multiculturalism of our nation and its use of music and dance as a instrument for adjustment and the understanding of differences. 

          In recent times, more and more musical theatre is including dance as the vital dramatic component. While dance has always been part of the musical form, it has moved to a essential part of the dramatic text. Starting in the 1930's, dance came to be used much the ways songs were to expand the plot or expose a character's mood or emotions. Musical theatre sometimes has no dialogue, or almost none. So, in the times, dance will stand in for the word or goes beyond the word to state feelings and emotion.

Today, the American musical is universal. Broadway musicals are presented all over the world, and other cultures have developed their own types of the style by joining them with foreign books and lyrics.