Olsen Brothers ( Danish : Brødrene Olsen ) were a Danish rock/pop music duo, formed by brothers Jørgen (born 15 March 1950) and Niels " Noller " Olsen (born 13 April 1954), both from Odense , who won the Eurovision Song Contest 2000 . They formed their first band, The Kids, in 1965. The Kids warmed up for The Kinks in the K.B. Hallen in 1965 and released their first single in 1967.
183-907: Both Jørgen and Niels Olsen participated in the musical Hair at the Cirkusbygningen in Copenhagen in March 1971, and went on tour afterwards throughout Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The Olsen Brothers' first album was released in 1972; in total they have released 13 albums. Some of the biggest hit singles include "Angelina" (1972), "For What We Are" (1973), "Julie" (1977), "San Francisco" (1978), "Dans Dans Dans" (1979), "Marie, Marie" (1982), "Neon Madonna" (1985), "Wings Of Love" (2000), "We Believe In Love" (2001), "Look Up Look Down" (performed with Cliff Richard ) (2009) and "Brothers To Brothers" (2013). The Olsen Brothers have sold approximately 3.2 million albums, 1.5 million singles and 2.7 million compilations. They have
366-455: A Broadway composer in the Rodgers and Hammerstein tradition. He went on to study acting with Lee Strasberg . Ragni, on the other hand, was an active member of The Open Theater , one of several groups, mostly Off-off Broadway , that were developing experimental theatre techniques. He introduced Rado to the modern theatre styles and methods being developed at The Open Theater. In 1966, while
549-557: A Little Christmas", "I Am What I Am", "Mame", "The Best of Times", "Before the Parade Passes By", "Put On Your Sunday Clothes", "It Only Takes a Moment", "Bosom Buddies" and "I Won't Send Roses", recorded by such artists as Louis Armstrong , Eydie Gormé , 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). The musical started to diverge from
732-704: A Piece of Work is Man"), Paul Jabara and Diane Keaton (both Moore and Keaton later played Sheila). Among the performers who appeared in Hair during its original Broadway run were Ben Vereen , Keith Carradine , Barry McGuire , Ted Lange , Meat Loaf , La La Brooks , Mary Seymour (of Musique ), Joe Butler , Peppy Castro (of the Blues Magoos ), Robin McNamara , Heather MacRae (daughter of Gordon MacRae and Sheila MacRae ), Eddie Rambeau , Vicki Sue Robinson , Beverly Bremers , Bert Sommer , Dale Soules and Kim Milford . It
915-579: A book musical are its music , lyrics and book . The book or script of a musical refers to the story, character development and dramatic structure, including the spoken dialogue and stage directions, but it can also refer to the dialogue and lyrics together, which are sometimes referred to as the libretto (Italian for "small book"). The music and lyrics together form the score of a musical and include songs, incidental music and musical scenes, which are "theatrical sequence[s] set to music, often combining song with spoken dialogue." The interpretation of
1098-463: A classic Christ figure at various points in the script. In Act I, Claude enters, saying, "I am the Son of God. I shall vanish and be forgotten," then gives benediction to the tribe and the audience. Claude suffers from indecision, and, in his Gethsemane at the end of Act I, he asks "Where Do I Go?". There are textual allusions to Claude being on a cross, and, in the end, he is chosen to give his life for
1281-510: A completely new genre – the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now ... everything else was subservient to that play. Now ... came complete integration of song, humor and production numbers into a single and inextricable artistic entity." As the Great Depression set in during the post-Broadway national tour of Show Boat , the public turned back to mostly light, escapist song-and-dance entertainment. Audiences on both sides of
1464-448: A crush on Mick Jagger, and a three-way embrace between Claude, Berger and Sheila turns into a Claude–Berger kiss. Illegal drugs taken by the characters include a hallucinogen during the trip sequence. The song "Walking in Space" begins the sequence, declaring "how dare they try to end this beauty ... in this dive we rediscover sensation ... our eyes are open, wide, wide, wide". Similarly, in
1647-511: A few exceptions, compared with London runs, until the 1920s. Gilbert and Sullivan were widely pirated and also were imitated in New York by productions such as Reginald De Koven 's Robin Hood (1891) and John Philip Sousa 's El Capitan (1896). A Trip to Coontown (1898) was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans on Broadway (largely inspired by the routines of
1830-402: A few players . Rock musicals usually employ a small group of mostly rock instruments, and some musicals may call for only a piano or two instruments. The music in musicals uses a range of "styles and influences including operetta , classical techniques, folk music , jazz [and] local or historical styles [that] are appropriate to the setting." Musicals may begin with an overture played by
2013-641: A five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore, there is less time to develop drama in a musical than in a straight play of equivalent length, since a musical usually devotes more time to music than to dialogue. Within the compressed nature of a musical, the writers must develop the characters and the plot. The material presented in a musical may be original, or it may be adapted from novels ( Wicked and Man of La Mancha ), plays ( Hello, Dolly! and Carousel ), classic legends ( Camelot ), historical events ( Evita and Hamilton ) or films ( The Producers and Billy Elliot ). On
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#17328595334372196-548: A hippie when I met Rado and Ragni." But he shared their enthusiasm to do a rock and roll show. "We work independently", explained MacDermot in May 1968. "I prefer it that way. They hand me the material. I set it to music." MacDermot wrote the first score in three weeks, starting with the songs "I Got Life", "Ain't Got No", "Where Do I Go" and the title song. He first wrote "Aquarius" as an unconventional art piece, but later rewrote it into an uplifting anthem. The creators pitched
2379-402: A joint to Claude that is laced with a hallucinogen . Claude starts to trip as the tribe acts out his visions ("Walking in Space"). He hallucinates that he is skydiving from a plane into the jungles of Vietnam. Berger appears as General George Washington and is told to retreat because of an Indian attack. The Indians shoot all of Washington's men. General Ulysses S. Grant appears and begins
2562-454: A list of things they lack ("Ain't Got No"). Four African-American tribe members recite street signs in symbolic sequence ("Dead End"). Sheila is carried onstage ("I Believe in Love") and leads the tribe in a protest chant. Jeanie, an eccentric young woman, appears wearing a gas mask, satirizing pollution ("Air"). She is pregnant and in love with Claude. Although she wishes it was Claude's baby, she
2745-416: A loincloth. Interacting with the audience, he introduces himself as a "psychedelic teddy bear" and reveals that he is "looking for my Donna" ("Donna"). The tribe recites a list of pharmaceuticals, legal and illegal ("Hashish"). Woof, a gentle soul, extols several sexual practices ("Sodomy") and says, "I grow things." He loves plants, his family and the audience, telling the audience, "We are all one." Hud,
2928-512: A love relationship sanctioned and restricted by Protestant ideals of marriage; that a married couple should make a moral home with children away from the city in a suburb or small town; that the woman's function was as homemaker and mother; and that Americans incorporate an independent and pioneering spirit or that their success is self-made. The 1950s were crucial to the development of the American musical. Damon Runyon 's eclectic characters were at
3111-549: A man out of you", presenting him with his draft notice. In defiance, Claude leads the tribe in celebrating their vitality ("I Got Life"). After handing out imaginary pills to the tribe members, saying the pills are for high-profile people such as Richard Nixon , the Pope , and " Alabama Wallace ", Berger relates how he was expelled from high school. Three tribe members dress up as principals in Hitler mustaches and swastika arm bands, mocking
3294-409: A manic dance number, echoing Maxwell's glee at reporting the enemy casualties, as the tribe chants "Take weapons up and begin to kill". The song also includes the repeated phrase "Prisoners in niggertown/ It's a dirty little war". "Don't Put It Down" satirizes the unexamined patriotism of people who are "crazy for the American flag". "Be In (Hare Krishna)" praises the peace movement and events like
3477-539: A militant African-American, is carried in upside down on a pole. He declares himself "president of the United States of Love" ("Colored Spade"). In a fake English accent, Claude says that he is "the most beautiful beast in the forest" from " Manchester , England". A tribe member reminds him that he's really from Flushing , New York ("Manchester England"). Hud, Woof and Berger declare what color they are ("I'm Black"), while Claude says that he's "invisible". The tribe recites
3660-428: A militant black male, is a long list of racial slurs ("jungle bunny ... little black sambo") topped off with the declaration that Hud is the "president of the United States of love". At the end of his song, he tells the tribe that the "boogie man" will get them, as the tribe pretends to be frightened. "Dead End", sung by black tribe members, is a list of street signs that symbolize black frustration and alienation. One of
3843-494: A modernized version of the Gettysburg Address, while a white female tribe member polishes Lincoln's shoes with her blond hair. The many references to Native Americans throughout the script are part of the anti-consumerism , naturalism focus of the hippie movement and of Hair . The characters in the show are referred to as the "tribe", borrowing the term for Native American communities. The cast of each production chooses
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#17328595334374026-564: A month later in Munich ; the tribe included Donna Summer , Liz Mitchell and Donna Wyant . A successful Parisian production of Hair opened on June 1, 1969. The original Australian production premiered in Sydney on June 6, 1969, produced by Harry M. Miller and directed by Jim Sharman , who also designed the production. The tribe included Keith Glass and then Reg Livermore as Berger, John Waters as Claude and Sharon Redd as The Magician. Redd
4209-502: A musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde 's 1895 hit The Importance of Being Earnest . West Side Story (1957) transported Romeo and Juliet to modern day New York City and converted the feuding Montague and Capulet families into opposing ethnic gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The book was adapted by Arthur Laurents , with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by newcomer Stephen Sondheim . It
4392-416: A musical generally became more expensive. Shuffle Along (1921), an all-African American show, was a hit on Broadway. A new generation of composers of operettas also emerged in the 1920s, such as Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg , to create a series of popular Broadway hits. In London, writer-stars such as Ivor Novello and Noël Coward became popular, but the primacy of British musical theatre from
4575-497: A musical is the responsibility of its creative team, which includes a director, a musical director, usually a choreographer and sometimes an orchestrator . A musical's production is also creatively characterized by technical aspects, such as set design , costumes , stage properties (props) , lighting and sound . The creative team, designs and interpretations generally change from the original production to succeeding productions. Some production elements, however, may be retained from
4758-462: A musical style more aptly suited to twentieth-century society and its vernacular idiom. It was from America that the more direct style emerged, and in America that it was able to flourish in a developing society less hidebound by nineteenth-century tradition." In France, comédie musicale was written between in the early decades of the century for such stars as Yvonne Printemps . Progressing far beyond
4941-535: A new Broadway record. In Britain, Me and My Girl ran for 1,646 performances. Still, a few creative teams began to build on Show Boat ' s innovations. Of Thee I Sing (1931), a political satire by the Gershwins, was the first musical awarded the Pulitzer Prize . As Thousands Cheer (1933), a revue by Irving Berlin and Moss Hart in which each song or sketch was based on a newspaper headline, marked
5124-460: A number of blockbusters, like Fiddler on the Roof (1964; 3,242 performances), Hello, Dolly! (1964; 2,844 performances), Funny Girl (1964; 1,348 performances) and Man of La Mancha (1965; 2,328 performances), and some more risqué pieces like Cabaret , before ending with the emergence of the rock musical . In Britain, Oliver! (1960) ran for 2,618 performances, but the long-run champion of
5307-423: A pensive romantic and Ragni's Berger an extrovert. Their close relationship, including its volatility, was reflected in the musical. Rado explained, "We were great friends. It was a passionate kind of relationship that we directed into creativity, into writing, into creating this piece. We put the drama between us on stage." Rado described the inspiration for Hair as "a combination of some characters we met in
5490-413: A protest chant and then wonder where Claude has gone. Berger calls out "Claude! Claude!" Claude enters dressed in a military uniform, his hair short, but they do not see him because he is an invisible spirit. Claude says, "like it or not, they got me." Claude and everyone sing "Flesh Failures". The tribe moves in front of Claude as Sheila and Dionne take up the lyric. The whole tribe launches into "Let
5673-475: A rejection of synthetics, a return to natural things and simpler times. ... [O]ld World War II or Civil War jackets [co-opted] the symbols of war into their newfound philosophy of nonviolence. Extending the precedents set by Show Boat (1927) and Porgy and Bess (1935), Hair opened the Broadway musical to racial integration; fully one-third of the cast was African American. Except for satirically in skits,
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5856-426: A rejection of the sexual repression of their parents and also as a statement about naturalism, spirituality, honesty, openness, and freedom. The naked body was beautiful, something to be celebrated and appreciated, not scorned and hidden. They saw their bodies and their sexuality as gifts, not as 'dirty' things." Hair glorifies sexual freedom in a variety of ways. In addition to acceptance of interracial attraction,
6039-517: A river ... with lots of obstacles and mishaps along the way". As transportation improved, poverty in London and New York diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night, the number of patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays ran longer, leading to better profits and improved production values, and men began to bring their families to the theatre. The first musical theatre piece to exceed 500 consecutive performances
6222-479: A roll call: Abraham Lincoln (played by a black female tribe member), John Wilkes Booth , Calvin Coolidge , Clark Gable , Scarlett O'Hara , Aretha Franklin , Colonel George Custer . Claude Bukowski is called in the roll call, but Clark Gable says "he couldn't make it". They all dance a minuet until three African witch doctors kill them – all except for Abraham Lincoln who says, "I'm one of you". Lincoln, after
6405-547: A run of 931 performances. Gilbert and Sullivan's influence on later musical theatre was profound, creating examples of how to "integrate" musicals so that the lyrics and dialogue advanced a coherent story. Their works were admired and copied by early authors and composers of musicals in Britain and America. A Trip to Chinatown (1891) was Broadway's long-run champion (until Irene in 1919), running for 657 performances, but New York runs continued to be relatively short, with
6588-540: A series of 2.5D musicals based on popular anime and manga comics has developed in recent decades. Shorter or simplified "junior" versions of many musicals are available for schools and youth groups, and very short works created or adapted for performance by children are sometimes called minimusicals . The antecedents of musical theatre in Europe can be traced back to the theatre of ancient Greece , where music and dance were included in stage comedies and tragedies during
6771-540: A series of successful Broadway shows, including On Your Toes (1936, with Ray Bolger , the first Broadway musical to make dramatic use of classical dance), Babes in Arms (1937) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938). Porter added Du Barry Was a Lady (1939). The longest-running piece of musical theatre of the 1930s in the US was Hellzapoppin (1938), a revue with audience participation, which played for 1,404 performances, setting
6954-757: A story-telling device in On Your Toes in 1936, which was followed by Agnes de Mille 's ballet and choreography in Oklahoma! . After Abbott collaborated with Jerome Robbins in On the Town and other shows, Robbins combined the roles of director and choreographer, emphasizing the story-telling power of dance in West Side Story , A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) and Fiddler on
7137-438: A trap door in the stage wearing a gas mask and then sings the song "Air": "Welcome, sulfur dioxide. Hello carbon monoxide. The air ... is everywhere". She suggests that pollution will eventually kill her, "vapor and fume at the stone of my tomb, breathing like a sullen perfume". In a comic, pro-green vein, when Woof introduces himself, he explains that he "grows things" like "beets, and corn ... and sweet peas" and that he "loves
7320-471: A tribal name: "The practice is not just cosmetic ... the entire cast must work together, must like each other, and often within the show, must work as a single organism. All the sense of family, of belonging, of responsibility and loyalty inherent in the word 'tribe' has to be felt by the cast." To enhance this feeling, O'Horgan put the cast through sensitivity exercises based on trust, touching, listening and intensive examination that broke down barriers between
7503-619: A two-voice harmony, and among their “fans" are Cliff Richard and Björn Ulvaeus , who both call the Olsen Brothers the "European Everly Brothers". The Olsen Brothers, and, on occasion, Jørgen Olsen on his own, took part in a number of annual competitions known as Dansk Melodi Grand Prix , the winner of which would represent Denmark in the Eurovision Song Contest . They won the annual Dansk Melodi Grand Prix song competition in 2000 in Copenhagen, and went on to represent Denmark in
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7686-437: A yellow shirt. He goofs around and ends up tearing it in two. Sheila voices her distress that Berger seems to care more about the "bleeding crowd" than about her (" Easy to Be Hard "). Jeanie summarizes everyone's romantic entanglements: "I'm hung up on Claude, Sheila's hung up on Berger, Berger is hung up everywhere. Claude is hung up on a cross over Sheila and Berger." Berger, Woof and another tribe member pay satiric tribute to
7869-525: Is a bad scene". The song "Hashish" provides a list of pharmaceuticals, both illegal and legal, including cocaine, alcohol, LSD, opium and the antipsychotic Thorazine . The theme of opposition to the war that pervades the show is unified by the plot thread that progresses through the book – Claude's moral dilemma over whether to burn his draft card . Pacifism is explored throughout the extended trip sequence in Act 2. The lyrics to "Three-Five-Zero-Zero", which
8052-451: Is frequently longer than the second. The first act generally introduces nearly all of the characters and most of the music and often ends with the introduction of a dramatic conflict or plot complication while the second act may introduce a few new songs but usually contains reprises of important musical themes and resolves the conflict or complication. A book musical is usually built around four to six main theme tunes that are reprised later in
8235-513: Is happening in the streets', and we wanted to bring it to the stage." According to Rado's obituary in The New York Times , the title was inspired by "a museum stroll in mid-1965, [when he and Ragni saw] a painting of a tuft of hair by the Pop artist Jim Dine . Its title was 'Hair'." Rado and Ragni came from different artistic backgrounds. In college, Rado wrote musical revues and aspired to be
8418-477: Is often difficult to distinguish among the various kinds of musical theatre, including "musical play", "musical comedy", "operetta" and "light opera". Like opera, the singing in musical theatre is generally accompanied by an instrumental ensemble called a pit orchestra , located in a lowered area in front of the stage. While opera typically uses a conventional symphony orchestra , musicals are generally orchestrated for ensembles ranging from 27 players down to only
8601-464: Is primarily a singer and only secondarily an actor (and rarely needs to dance), a musical theatre performer is often an actor first but must also be a singer and dancer. Someone who is equally accomplished at all three is referred to as a "triple threat". Composers of music for musicals often consider the vocal demands of roles with musical theatre performers in mind. Today, large theatres that stage musicals generally use microphones and amplification of
8784-415: Is sung during that sequence, evoke the horrors of war ("ripped open by metal explosion"). The song is based on Allen Ginsberg 's 1966 poem, " Wichita Vortex Sutra ". In the poem, General Maxwell Taylor proudly reports to the press the number of enemy soldiers killed in one month, repeating it digit by digit, for effect: "Three-Five-Zero-Zero." The song begins with images of death and dying and turns into
8967-447: Is the someone, that tells me why I live and die?" ("Where Do I Go"). The tribe emerges naked, intoning "beads, flowers, freedom, happiness." Four tribe members have the "Electric Blues". After a black-out, the tribe enters worshiping in an attempt to summon Claude ("Oh Great God of Power"). Claude returns from the induction center, and tribe members act out an imagined conversation from Claude's draft interview, with Hud saying "the draft
9150-499: Is their son and they are very proud of him. The bodies rise and play like children. The play escalates to violence until they are all dead again. They rise again and comment about the casualties in Vietnam: "It's a dirty little war" (" Three-Five-Zero-Zero "). At the end of the trip sequence, two tribe members sing, over the dead bodies, a Shakespeare speech about the nobility of Man ("What A Piece of Work Is Man"), set to music. After
9333-486: Is white people sending black people to make war on the yellow people to defend the land they stole from the red people". Claude gives Woof a Mick Jagger poster, and Woof is excited about the gift, as he has said he's hung up on Jagger. Three white women of the tribe tell why they like "Black Boys" ("black boys are delicious ..."), and three black women of the tribe, dressed like The Supremes , explain why they like "White Boys" ("white boys are so pretty ..."). Berger gives
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#17328595334379516-623: The Aquarius Theater in Los Angeles beginning about six months after the Broadway opening and running for an unprecedented two years. The Los Angeles tribe included Rado, Ragni, Ben Vereen (who started as Hud and then replaced Ragni), Willie Weatherly (who played Berger and Claude), Ted Neeley (who replaced Rado), Meat Loaf , Gloria Jones , Táta Vega , Jobriath , Jennifer Warnes and Dobie Gray . There were soon nine simultaneous productions in U.S. cities, followed by national tours. Among
9699-625: The Eurovision Song Contest 2000 in Stockholm . where they won with the song " Fly on the Wings of Love " (translated from the Danish "Smuk som et Stjerneskud" (literally translated as "Beautiful as a Shooting Star"). At one stage, they sold 100,000 copies in one day in Denmark; they became the second Danish act to win the competition. On the day of their victory, Jørgen Olsen was 50 years and 61 days of age, making him
9882-466: The Pietà and Christ on the cross. Before the song, Woof recites a modified rosary . In Act II, when Berger gives imaginary pills to various famous figures, he offers "a pill for the Pope ". In "Going Down", after being kicked out of school, Berger compares himself to Lucifer : "Just like the angel that fell / Banished forever to hell / Today have I been expelled / From high school heaven." Claude becomes
10065-632: The Roaring Twenties , borrowing from vaudeville, music hall and other light entertainments, tended to emphasize big dance routines and popular songs at the expense of plot. Typical of the decade were lighthearted productions like Sally ; Lady, Be Good ; No, No, Nanette ; Oh, Kay! ; and Funny Face . Despite forgettable stories, these musicals featured stars such as Marilyn Miller and Fred Astaire and produced dozens of enduring popular songs by Kern, George and Ira Gershwin , Irving Berlin , Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart . Popular music
10248-549: The San Francisco and Central Park Be-Ins . Throughout the show, the tribe chants popular protest slogans like "What do we want? Peace! – When do we want it? Now!" and "Do not enter the induction center". The upbeat song, "Let the Sun Shine In", is a call to action, to reject the darkness of war and change the world for the better. Hair also aims its satire at the pollution caused by civilization. Jeanie appears from
10431-487: The Tudor period that involved music, dancing, singing and acting, often with expensive costumes and a complex stage design . These developed into sung plays that are recognizable as English operas, the first usually being thought of as The Siege of Rhodes (1656). In France, meanwhile, Molière turned several of his farcical comedies into musical entertainments with songs (music provided by Jean-Baptiste Lully ) and dance in
10614-482: The anti-Vietnam War peace movement . The musical's profanity, its depiction of the use of illegal drugs, its treatment of sexuality , its irreverence for the American flag , and its nude scene caused much comment and controversy. The work broke new ground in musical theatre by defining the genre of "rock musical", using a racially integrated cast, and inviting the audience onstage for a " Be-In " finale. Hair tells
10797-547: The minstrel shows ), followed by ragtime -tinged shows. Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 20th century, composed of songs written in New York's Tin Pan Alley , including those by George M. Cohan , who worked to create an American style distinct from the Gilbert and Sullivan works. The most successful New York shows were often followed by extensive national tours. Meanwhile, musicals took over
10980-399: The revues and other frothy entertainments of the early 20th century and led to such groundbreaking works as Show Boat (1927), Of Thee I Sing (1931) and Oklahoma! (1943). Some of the most famous musicals through the decades that followed include My Fair Lady (1956), The Fantasticks (1960), Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), Les Misérables (1985), The Phantom of
11163-536: The "Golden Age" of American musical theatre. Americana was displayed on Broadway during the "Golden Age", as the wartime cycle of shows began to arrive. An example of this is On the Town (1944), written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green , composed by Leonard Bernstein and choreographed by Jerome Robbins . The story is set during wartime and concerns three sailors who are on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City, during which each falls in love. The show also gives
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#173285953343711346-475: The "tribe" mingles with the audience. Tribe members Sheila, a New York University student who is a determined political activist , and Berger, an irreverent free spirit, cut a lock of Claude's hair and burn it in a receptacle. After the tribe converges in slow-motion toward the stage, through the audience, they begin their celebration as children of the Age of Aquarius ("Aquarius"). Berger removes his trousers to reveal
11529-618: The 1850s to the 1870s and Johann Strauss II in the 1870s and 1880s. Offenbach's fertile melodies, combined with his librettists' witty satire, formed a model for the musical theatre that followed. Adaptations of the French operettas (played in mostly bad, risqué translations), musical burlesques , music hall, pantomime and burletta dominated the London musical stage into the 1870s. In America, mid-19th century musical theatre entertainments included crude variety revue , which eventually developed into vaudeville , minstrel shows , which soon crossed
11712-504: The 1910s, the team of P. G. Wodehouse , Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern , following in the footsteps of Gilbert and Sullivan , created the " Princess Theatre shows" and paved the way for Kern's later work by showing that a musical could combine light, popular entertainment with continuity between its story and songs. Historian Gerald Bordman wrote: These shows built and polished the mold from which almost all later major musical comedies evolved. ... The characters and situations were, within
11895-555: The 1968 Tonys, the New York Theatre League ruled Hair ineligible, moving the cutoff date to March 19. The producers brought suit but were unable to force the League to reconsider. At the 1969 Tonys , Hair was nominated for Best Musical and Best Director but lost out to 1776 in both categories. The production ran for four years and 1,750 performances, closing on July 1, 1972. The West Coast version played at
12078-491: The 19th century through 1920 was gradually replaced by American innovation, especially after World War I, as Kern and other Tin Pan Alley composers began to bring new musical styles such as ragtime and jazz to the theatres, and the Shubert Brothers took control of the Broadway theatres. Musical theatre writer Andrew Lamb notes, "The operatic and theatrical styles of nineteenth-century social structures were replaced by
12261-412: The 19th century, such as music hall , melodrama and burletta , which were popularized partly because most London theatres were licensed only as music halls and not allowed to present plays without music. Colonial America did not have a significant theatre presence until 1752, when London entrepreneur William Hallam sent a company of actors to the colonies managed by his brother Lewis . In New York in
12444-519: The 19th century, with many structural elements established by the light opera works of Jacques Offenbach in France, Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and the works of Harrigan and Hart in America. These were followed by Edwardian musical comedies , which emerged in Britain, and the musical theatre works of American creators like George M. Cohan at the turn of the 20th century. The Princess Theatre musicals (1915–1918) were artistic steps forward beyond
12627-810: The 5th century BCE. The music from the ancient forms is lost, however, and they had little influence on later development of musical theatre. In the 12th and 13th centuries, religious dramas taught the liturgy . Groups of actors would use outdoor Pageant wagons (stages on wheels) to tell each part of the story. Poetic forms sometimes alternated with the prose dialogues, and liturgical chants gave way to new melodies. The European Renaissance saw older forms evolve into two antecedents of musical theatre: commedia dell'arte , where raucous clowns improvised familiar stories, and later, opera buffa . In England, Elizabethan and Jacobean plays frequently included music, and short musical plays began to be included in an evenings' dramatic entertainments. Court masques developed during
12810-488: The Act 2 "trip" sequence: four African witch doctors, who have just killed various American historical, cultural and fictional characters, sing the praises of Abraham Lincoln, portrayed by a black female tribe member, whom they decide not to kill. The first part of the song contains stereotypical language that black characters used in old movies, like "I's finished ... pluckin' y'all's chickens" and "I's free now thanks to y'all, Master Lincoln". The Lincoln character then recites
12993-437: The American education system. Berger and the tribe defy them, singing "Going Down". Claude returns from his draft board physical, which he passed. He pretends to burn his Vietnam War draft card, which Berger reveals as a library card. Claude agonizes about what to do about being drafted. Two tribe members dressed as tourists come down the aisle to ask the tribe why they have such long hair . In answer, Claude and Berger lead
13176-405: The American flag as they fold it ("Don't Put it Down"). The tribe runs out to the audience, inviting them to a Be-In . After young and innocent Crissy describes "Frank Mills", a boy she's looking for, the tribe participates in the "Be-In". The men of the tribe burn their draft cards . Claude puts his card in the fire, then changes his mind and pulls it out. He asks, "where is the something, where
13359-545: The Angry Inch and other shows in recent decades. Parade is a sensitive exploration of both anti-Semitism and historical American racism, and Ragtime similarly explores the experience of immigrants and minorities in America. After the success of Hair , rock musicals flourished in the 1970s, with Jesus Christ Superstar , Godspell , The Rocky Horror Show , Evita and Two Gentlemen of Verona . Some of those began as " concept albums " which were then adapted to
13542-666: The Atlantic had little money to spend on entertainment, and only a few stage shows anywhere exceeded a run of 500 performances during the decade. The revue The Band Wagon (1931) starred dancing partners Fred Astaire and his sister Adele , while Porter's Anything Goes (1934) confirmed Ethel Merman 's position as the First Lady of musical theatre, a title she maintained for many years. Coward and Novello continued to deliver old fashioned, sentimental musicals, such as The Dancing Years , while Rodgers and Hart returned from Hollywood to create
13725-425: The Atlantic to Britain, and Victorian burlesque, first popularized in the US by British troupes. A hugely successful musical entertainment that premiered in New York in 1866, The Black Crook , combined dance and some original music that helped to tell the story. The spectacular production, famous for its skimpy costumes, ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and
13908-523: The Broadway show. Castelli was a writer/producer who traveled in Paris art circles and rubbed elbows with Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau . Butler described him as a "crazy showman ... the guy with the business suit and beads". Castelli decided to do the show in the local language of each country at a time when Broadway shows were always done in English. The translations followed the original script closely, and
14091-484: The Broadway staging served as a rough template for these and other early regional productions. A notable addition to the team in Los Angeles was Tom Smothers , who served as co-producer. Regional casts consisted mostly of local actors, although a few Broadway cast members reprised their roles in other cities. O'Horgan or the authors sometimes took new ideas and improvisations from a regional show and brought them back to New York, such as when live chickens were tossed onto
14274-604: The Broadway stagings were used. Each script contained local references, such as street names and the names or depictions of local politicians and celebrities. Castelli produced companies in France, Germany, Mexico and other countries, sometimes also directing the productions. The first European production opened in Stockholm , Sweden, on September 20, 1968, with a cast including Ulf Brunnberg and Bill Öhrström , produced and directed by Pierre Fränckel and choreographed by Julie Arenal, and ran for 134 performances until March 1969. A German production, directed by Castelli, opened
14457-688: The English-speaking stage by competition from the ubiquitous Edwardian musical comedies, operettas returned to London and Broadway in 1907 with The Merry Widow , and adaptations of continental operettas became direct competitors with musicals. Franz Lehár and Oscar Straus composed new operettas that were popular in English until World War I. In America, Victor Herbert produced a string of enduring operettas including The Fortune Teller (1898), Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle. Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906) and Naughty Marietta (1910). In
14640-476: The Eurovision Song Contest , held in Copenhagen, Denmark on 22 October 2005. They performed the song at the event, finishing 6th overall from 14 songs. The winner was " Waterloo " by ABBA . In 2019, the brothers called a hiatus to their musical career after Niels was diagnosed with brain cancer . However, Niels was declared cancer-free by the end of 2020, in a development that was described as "against
14823-574: The Golden Age, automotive companies and other large corporations began to hire Broadway talent to write corporate musicals , private shows only seen by their employees or customers. The 1950s ended with Rodgers and Hammerstein 's last hit, The Sound of Music , which also became another hit for Mary Martin. It ran for 1,443 performances and shared the Tony Award for Best Musical. Together with its extremely successful 1965 film version , it has become one of
15006-569: The London stage in the Gay Nineties , led by producer George Edwardes , who perceived that audiences wanted a new alternative to the Savoy -style comic operas and their intellectual, political, absurdist satire. He experimented with a modern-dress, family-friendly musical theatre style, with breezy, popular songs, snappy, romantic banter, and stylish spectacle at the Gaiety and his other theatres. These drew on
15189-551: The Mountains (1,352 performances) and especially Chu Chin Chow . Its run of 2,238 performances was more than twice as long as any previous musical, setting a record that stood for nearly forty years. Even a revival of The Beggar's Opera held the stage for 1,463 performances. Revues like The Bing Boys Are Here in Britain, and those of Florenz Ziegfeld and his imitators in America, were also extraordinarily popular. The musicals of
15372-465: The Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria. According to Billboard '' , the various productions of the show were raking in almost $ 1 million every ten days, and royalties were being collected for 300 different recordings of the show's songs, making it "the most successful score in history as well as the most performed score ever written for the Broadway stage." Hair explores many of the themes of
15555-608: The Opera (1986), Rent (1996), Wicked (2003) and Hamilton (2015). Musicals are performed around the world. They may be presented in large venues, such as big-budget Broadway or West End productions in New York City or London. Alternatively, musicals may be staged in smaller venues, such as off-Broadway , off-off-Broadway , regional theatre , fringe theatre , or community theatre productions, or on tour . Musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces. In addition to
15738-647: The Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy." In 1874, Evangeline or The Belle of Arcadia , by Edward E. Rice and J. Cheever Goodwin , based loosely on Longfellow’s Evangeline , with an original American story and music, opened successfully in New York and was revived in Boston, New York, and in repeated tours. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 ( The Mulligan Guard Picnic ) and 1885. These musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from
15921-567: The Public Theater or Cheetah production. Hair underwent a thorough overhaul between its closing at the Cheetah in January 1968 and its Broadway opening three months later. The off-Broadway book, already light on plot, was loosened even further and made more realistic. Thirteen new songs were added, including "Let the Sun Shine In", to make the ending more uplifting. Before the move to Broadway,
16104-575: The Roof (1964). Bob Fosse choreographed for Abbott in The Pajama Game (1956) and Damn Yankees (1957), injecting playful sexuality into those hits. He was later the director-choreographer for Sweet Charity (1968), Pippin (1972) and Chicago (1975). Other notable director-choreographers have included Gower Champion , Tommy Tune , Michael Bennett , Gillian Lynne and Susan Stroman . Prominent directors have included Hal Prince , who also got his start with Abbott, and Trevor Nunn . During
16287-459: The Shrew for Kiss Me, Kate (1948, 1,077 performances). The American musicals overwhelmed the old-fashioned British Coward/Novello-style shows, one of the last big successes of which was Novello's Perchance to Dream (1945, 1,021 performances). The formula for the Golden Age musicals reflected one or more of four widely held perceptions of the "American dream": That stability and worth derives from
16470-484: The Sun Shine In", and as they exit, they reveal Claude lying down center stage on a black cloth. During the curtain call, the tribe reprises "Let the Sun Shine In" and brings audience members up on stage to dance. (Note: This plot summary is based on the original Broadway script. The script has varied in subsequent productions. ) Hair opened on Broadway at the Biltmore Theatre on April 29, 1968. The production
16653-491: The Times Square area until the 1920s and 1930s. New York runs lagged far behind those in London, but Laura Keene 's "musical burletta" Seven Sisters (1860) shattered previous New York musical theatre record, with a run of 253 performances. Around 1850, the French composer Hervé was experimenting with a form of comic musical theatre he called opérette . The best known composers of operetta were Jacques Offenbach from
16836-414: The United States and Britain, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in continental Europe, Asia, Australasia, Canada and Latin America. Since the 20th century, the "book musical" has been defined as a musical play where songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made story with serious dramatic goals and which is able to evoke genuine emotions other than laughter. The three main components of
17019-404: The United States and Europe followed shortly thereafter, including a successful London production that ran for 1,997 performances. Since then, numerous productions have been staged around the world, spawning dozens of recordings of the musical, including the 3 million-selling original Broadway cast recording . Some of the songs from its score became Top 10 hits, and a feature film adaptation
17202-481: The West End in the 21st century have been presented in one act. Moments of greatest dramatic intensity in a book musical 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." In a book musical, a song is ideally crafted to suit the character (or characters) and their situation within the story; although there have been times in
17385-507: The actors' singing voices in a way that would generally be disapproved of in an operatic context. Some works, including those by George Gershwin , Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim , have been made into both musical theatre and operatic productions. Similarly, some older operettas or light operas (such as The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan ) have been produced in modern adaptations that treat them as musicals. For some works, production styles are almost as important as
17568-471: The cast and crew and encouraged bonding. These exercises were based on techniques developed at the Esalen Institute and Polish Lab Theater. The idea of Claude, Berger and Sheila living together is another facet of the 1960s concept of tribe . The brief nude scene at the end of Act I was a subject of controversy and notoriety. Miller writes that "nudity was a big part of the hippie culture, both as
17751-466: The characters express their ideas. 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 Mornin' unaccompanied. It drew rave reviews, set off a box-office frenzy and received a Pulitzer Prize . Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times that
17934-419: The characters' lifestyle acts as a sexually and politically charged updating of La bohème ; as Rado explained, "The love element of the peace movement was palpable." In the song "Sodomy", Woof exhorts everyone to "join the holy orgy Kama Sutra ". Toward the end of Act 2, the tribe members reveal their free love tendencies when they banter back and forth about who will sleep with whom that night. Woof has
18117-546: The comparatively frivolous musicals and sentimental operettas of the decade, Broadway's Show Boat (1927) represented an even more complete integration of book and score than the Princess Theatre musicals, with dramatic themes told through the music, dialogue, setting and movement. This was accomplished by combining the lyricism of Kern's music with the skillful libretto of Oscar Hammerstein II . One historian wrote, "Here we come to
18300-503: The continent, singspiel , comédie en vaudeville , opéra comique , zarzuela and other forms of light musical entertainment were emerging. The Beggar's Opera was the first recorded long-running play of any kind, running for 62 successive performances in 1728. It would take almost a century afterwards before any play broke 100 performances, but the record soon reached 150 in the late 1820s. Other musical theatre forms developed in England by
18483-452: The controversy surrounding it, ran for 108 performances. Rodgers and Hart's I'd Rather Be Right (1937) was a political satire with George M. Cohan as President Franklin D. Roosevelt , and Kurt Weill 's Knickerbocker Holiday depicted New York City's early history while good-naturedly satirizing Roosevelt's good intentions. The motion picture mounted a challenge to the stage. Silent films had presented only limited competition, but by
18666-543: 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). The relatively brief seven-month run of that show did not discourage Lerner and Loewe from collaborating again, this time on My Fair Lady (1956), an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw 's Pygmalion starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews , which at 2,717 performances held
18849-759: The creative team hired director Tom O'Horgan , who had built a reputation directing experimental theater at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club . He had been the authors' first choice to direct the Public Theater production, but he was in Europe at the time. Newsweek described O'Horgan's directing style as "sensual, savage, and thoroughly musical ... [he] disintegrates verbal structure and often breaks up and distributes narrative and even character among different actors. ... He enjoys sensory bombardment." In rehearsals, O'Horgan used techniques passed down by Viola Spolin and Paul Sills involving role playing and improvisational "games". Many of
19032-494: The decade was The Black and White Minstrel Show (1962), which played for 4,344 performances. Two men had considerable impact on musical theatre history beginning in this decade: Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman . The first project for which Sondheim 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 , starring Zero Mostel . Sondheim moved
19215-559: The draft as his friends have done, or to serve in Vietnam, compromising his pacifist principles and risking his life. After an off-Broadway debut on October 17, 1967, at Joseph Papp 's Public Theater and a run at the Cheetah nightclub from December 1967 through January 1968, the show opened on Broadway in April 1968 and ran for 1,750 performances. Simultaneous productions in cities across
19398-403: The earlier musical forms of comic opera and operetta. The Geisha (1896) was one of the most successful in the 1890s, running for more than two years and achieving great international success. The Belle of New York (1898) became the first American musical to run for over a year in London. The British musical comedy Florodora (1899) was a popular success on both sides of the Atlantic, as
19581-409: The end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer could be presented with synchronized sound. "Talkie" films at low prices effectively killed off vaudeville by the early 1930s. Despite the economic woes of the 1930s and the competition from film, the musical survived. In fact, it continued to evolve thematically beyond the gags and showgirls musicals of the Gay Nineties and Roaring Twenties and
19764-533: The end of the Golden Age, several shows tackled Jewish subjects and issues, such as Fiddler on the Roof , Milk and Honey , Blitz! and later Rags . The original concept that became West Side Story was set in the Lower East Side during Easter-Passover celebrations; the rival gangs were to be Jewish and Italian Catholic . The creative team later decided that the Polish (white) vs. Puerto Rican conflict
19947-484: The entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals . Although music has been a part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during
20130-409: The everyday life of New York's lower classes. They starred high quality singers ( Lillian Russell , Vivienne Segal and Fay Templeton ) instead of the ladies of questionable repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. In 1879, The Brook by Nate Salsbury was another national success with contemporary American dance styles and an American story about "members of an acting company taking a trip down
20313-438: The first Broadway show in which an African-American, Ethel Waters , starred alongside white actors. Waters' numbers included " Supper Time ", a woman's lament for her husband who has been lynched. The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (1935) featured an all African-American cast and blended operatic, folk and jazz idioms. The Cradle Will Rock (1937), directed by Orson Welles , was a highly political pro- union piece that, despite
20496-565: The first time since their victory, they re-entered the Danish Melodi Grand Prix, the national pre-selection for the Eurovision contest, with the song "Little Yellow Radio". It was widely reported that they hoped to repeat their triumph; however, this time they had to settle for second place, finishing behind Jakob Sveistrup . Their song "Fly on the Wings of Love" was nominated as one of the 14 finalists for Congratulations: 50 Years of
20679-469: The flowers and the fuzz and the trees". Religion, particularly Catholicism, appears both overtly and symbolically throughout the piece, and it is often made the brunt of a joke. Berger sings of looking for "my Donna", giving it the double meaning of the woman he's searching for and the Madonna . During "Sodomy", a hymn-like paean to all that is "dirty" about sex, the cast strikes evocative religious positions:
20862-515: The founding of the state of Israel, and continuing with the blockbuster 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 and Mabel (1974) have had memorable scores ( Mack and Mabel was later reworked into a London hit). Writing both words and music, many of Herman's show tunes have become popular standards, including " Hello, Dolly! ", "We Need
21045-428: The hippie movement of the 1960s. Theatre writer Scott Miller described these as follows: [Youth protests in the 1960s concerned]: racism, environmental destruction, poverty, sexism and sexual repression, violence at home and the war in Vietnam, depersonalization from new technologies, and corruption in politics. ... [T]he hippies had great respect for America and believed that they were the true patriots. ... [Long] hair
21228-472: The history of the musical (e.g. from the 1890s to the 1920s) when this integration between music and story has been tenuous. As The New York Times critic Ben Brantley described the ideal of song in theatre when reviewing the 2008 revival of Gypsy : "There is no separation at all between song and character, which is what happens in those uncommon moments when musicals reach upward to achieve their ideal reasons to be." Typically, many fewer words are sung in
21411-641: The idea into the show. O'Horgan had used nudity in many of the plays he directed, and he helped integrate the idea into the fabric of the show. Papp declined to pursue a Broadway production, and so Butler produced the show himself. For a time it seemed that Butler would be unable to secure a Broadway theater, as the Shuberts , Nederlanders and other theater owners deemed the material too controversial. However, Butler had family connections and knew important people; he persuaded Biltmore Theatre owner David Cogan to make his venue available. Claude sits center stage as
21594-518: The impression of a country with an uncertain future, as the sailors and their women also have. Irving Berlin used sharpshooter Annie Oakley 's career as a basis for his Annie Get Your Gun (1946, 1,147 performances); Burton Lane , E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy combined political satire with Irish whimsy for their fantasy Finian's Rainbow (1947, 725 performances); and Cole Porter found inspiration in William Shakespeare 's The Taming of
21777-546: The improvisations tried during this process were incorporated into the Broadway script. O'Horgan and new choreographer Julie Arenal encouraged freedom and spontaneity in their actors, introducing "an organic, expansive style of staging" that had never been seen before on Broadway. The inspiration to include nudity came when the authors saw an anti-war demonstration in Central Park where two men stripped naked as an expression of defiance and freedom, and they decided to incorporate
21960-447: The interplay of lyrics and music in his shows. Some of Sondheim's notable innovations include a show presented in reverse ( Merrily We Roll Along ) and the above-mentioned Anyone Can Whistle , in which the first act ends with the cast informing the audience that they are mad. Jerry Herman played a significant role in American musical theatre, beginning with his first Broadway production, Milk and Honey (1961, 563 performances), about
22143-548: The late 17th century. These influenced a brief period of English opera by composers such as John Blow and Henry Purcell . From the 18th century, the most popular forms of musical theatre in Britain were ballad operas , like John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera , that included lyrics written to the tunes of popular songs of the day (often spoofing opera), and later pantomime , which developed from commedia dell'arte, and comic opera with mostly romantic plot lines, like Michael Balfe 's The Bohemian Girl (1845). Meanwhile, on
22326-402: The limitations of musical comedy license, believable and the humor came from the situations or the nature of the characters. Kern's exquisitely flowing melodies were employed to further the action or develop characterization. ... [Edwardian] musical comedy was often guilty of inserting songs in a hit-or-miss fashion. The Princess Theatre musicals brought about a change in approach. P. G. Wodehouse,
22509-500: The long-run record for many years. Popular Hollywood films were made of all of these musicals. Two hits by British creators in this decade were The Boy Friend (1954), which ran for 2,078 performances in London and marked Andrews' American debut, and Salad Days (1954), which broke the British long-run record with a run of 2,283 performances. Another record was set by The Threepenny Opera , which ran for 2,707 performances, becoming
22692-484: The longest-running off-Broadway musical until The Fantasticks . The production also broke ground by showing that musicals could be profitable off-Broadway in a small-scale, small orchestra format. This was confirmed in 1959 when a revival of Jerome Kern and P. G. Wodehouse 's Leave It to Jane ran for more than two years. The 1959–1960 off-Broadway season included a dozen musicals and revues including Little Mary Sunshine , The Fantasticks and Ernest in Love ,
22875-445: The most observant, literate and witty lyricist of his day, and the team of Bolton, Wodehouse and Kern had an influence felt to this day. The theatre-going public needed escapist entertainment during the dark times of World War I , and they flocked to the theatre. The 1919 hit musical Irene ran for 670 performances, a Broadway record that held until 1938. The British theatre public supported far longer runs like that of The Maid of
23058-567: The most popular musicals in history. In 1960, The Fantasticks was first produced off-Broadway. This intimate allegorical show would quietly run for over 40 years at the Sullivan Street Theatre in Greenwich Village , becoming by far the longest-running musical in history. Its authors produced other innovative works in the 1960s, such as Celebration and I Do! I Do! , the first two-character Broadway musical. The 1960s would see
23241-423: The music for a story about Rose Thompson Hovick , the mother of the titular stripper Gypsy Rose Lee . Although directors and choreographers have had a major influence on musical theatre style since at least the 19th century, George Abbott and his collaborators and successors took a central role in integrating movement and dance fully into musical theatre productions in the Golden Age. Abbott introduced ballet as
23424-480: The musical beyond its concentration on the romantic plots typical of earlier eras; his work tended to be darker, exploring the grittier sides of life both present and past. Other early Sondheim works include Anyone Can Whistle (1964, which ran only nine performances, despite having stars Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury ), and the successful Company (1970), Follies (1971) and A Little Night Music (1973). Later, Sondheim found inspiration in unlikely sources:
23607-418: The necessary encouragement for other gifted writers to create musical plays of their own". The two collaborators created an extraordinary collection of some of musical theatre's best loved and most enduring classics, including Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951) and The Sound of Music (1959). Some of these musicals treat more serious subject matter than most earlier shows:
23790-434: The odds". He has not ruled out returning to music in the future. (Selected) Hair (musical) Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado and music by Galt MacDermot . The work reflects the creators' observations of the hippie counterculture and sexual revolution of the late 1960s, and several of its songs became anthems of
23973-467: The oldest artist to win the contest. However, he only held the record for one year, as Dave Benton triumphed in 2001 at the age of 50 years and 101 days. The combined ages of The Olsen Brothers make them the oldest aged act ever to win the contest. They opened the Eurovision Song Contest 2001 in Copenhagen with a short reprise of their winning song from the previous year, followed by a full performance of their new release, "Walk Right Back". In 2005 for
24156-746: The opening of Japan to Western trade for Pacific Overtures (1976), a legendary murderous barber seeking revenge in the Industrial Age of London for Sweeney Todd (1979), the paintings of Georges Seurat for Sunday in the Park with George (1984), fairy tales for Into the Woods (1987), and a collection of presidential assassins in Assassins (1990). While some critics have argued that some of Sondheim's musicals lack commercial appeal, others have praised their lyrical sophistication and musical complexity, as well as
24339-498: The orchestra that "weav[es] together excerpts of the score's famous melodies." There are various Eastern traditions of theatre that include music, such as Chinese opera , Taiwanese opera , Japanese Noh and Indian musical theatre , including Sanskrit drama , Indian classical dance , Parsi theatre and Yakshagana . India has, since the 20th century, produced numerous musical films, referred to as " Bollywood " musicals, and in Japan
24522-459: The original production, for example, Bob Fosse 's choreography in Chicago . There is no fixed length for a musical. While it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several acts and several hours in length (or even a multi-evening presentation), most musicals range from one and a half to three hours. Musicals are usually presented in two acts, with one short intermission , and the first act
24705-643: The other hand, many successful musical theatre works have been adapted for musical films , such as West Side Story , My Fair Lady , The Sound of Music , Oliver! and Chicago . Musical theatre is closely related to the theatrical form of opera, but the two are usually distinguished by weighing a number of factors. First, musicals generally have a greater focus on spoken dialogue. Some musicals, however, are entirely accompanied and sung-through, while some operas, such as Die Zauberflöte , and most operettas , have some unaccompanied dialogue. Second, musicals usually include more dancing as an essential part of
24888-449: The others. Berger has been seen as a John the Baptist figure, preparing the way for Claude. Musical theatre Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue , acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos , love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of
25071-411: The performers in these were Joe Mantegna , André DeShields , Charlotte Crossley and Alaina Reed (Chicago), David Lasley , David Patrick Kelly , Meat Loaf, and Shaun Murphy ( Detroit ) Kenny Ortega and Arnold McCuller (tour), Bob Bingham ( Seattle ) and Philip Michael Thomas (San Francisco). The creative team from Broadway worked on Hair in Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco, as
25254-494: The production received 250 performances and was attended by president Tito . Local references in the script included barbs aimed at Mao Zedong as well as Albania , Yugoslavia's traditional rival. By 1970, Hair was a huge financial success, and nineteen productions had been staged outside of North America. In addition to those named above, these included productions in Scandinavia, South America, Italy, Israel, Japan, Canada,
25437-658: The production was banned by the government after one night in Acapulco. An 18-year-old Sônia Braga appeared in the 1969 Brazilian production. Another notable production was in Belgrade , Yugoslavia , in 1969. It was the first Hair to be produced in a communist country. The show, translated into Serbian, was directed by female producer-director Mira Trailović at the Atelje 212 theatre. It featured Dragan Nikolić , Branko Milićević , Seka Sablić and Dušan Prelević . Over four years,
25620-758: The relatively narrow confines of the 1950s. Rock music would be used in several Broadway musicals, beginning with Hair , which featured not only rock music but also nudity and controversial opinions about the Vietnam War , race relations and other social issues. After Show Boat and Porgy and Bess , and as the struggle in America and elsewhere for minorities' civil rights progressed, Hammerstein, Harold Arlen , Yip Harburg and others were emboldened to write more musicals and operas that aimed to normalize societal toleration of minorities and urged racial harmony. Early Golden Age works that focused on racial tolerance included Finian's Rainbow and South Pacific . Towards
25803-451: The revolution begun by Show Boat , by tightly integrating all the aspects of musical theatre, with a cohesive plot, songs that furthered the action of the story, and featured dream ballets and other dances that advanced the plot and developed the characters, rather than using dance as an excuse to parade scantily clad women across the stage. Rodgers and Hammerstein hired ballet choreographer Agnes de Mille , who used everyday motions to help
25986-415: The roles for the black members of the tribe portrayed them as equals, breaking away from the traditional roles for black people in entertainment as slaves or servants. An Ebony magazine article declared that the show was the biggest outlet for black actors in the history of the U.S. stage. Several songs and scenes from the show address racial issues. "Colored Spade", which introduces the character Hud,
26169-674: The same creative team as the Broadway production. The opening night was delayed until the abolition of theatre censorship in England under the Theatres Act 1968 so that the show could include nudity and profanity. As with other early productions, the London show added a sprinkling of local allusions and other minor departures from the Broadway version. The original London tribe included Sonja Kristina , Peter Straker , Paul Nicholas , Melba Moore, Annabel Leventon , Elaine Paige , Paul Korda , Marsha Hunt , Floella Benjamin , Alex Harvey , Oliver Tobias , Richard O'Brien and Tim Curry . This
26352-415: The sentimental romance of operetta, adding technical expertise and the fast-paced staging and naturalistic dialogue style led by director George Abbott . The 1940s began with more hits from Porter, Irving Berlin , Rodgers and Hart, Weill and Gershwin, some with runs over 500 performances as the economy rebounded, but artistic change was in the air. Rodgers and Hammerstein 's Oklahoma! (1943) completed
26535-491: The show to Broadway producers and received many rejections. Eventually Joe Papp , who ran the New York Shakespeare Festival , decided he wanted Hair to open the new Public Theater (still under construction) in New York City's East Village . The musical was the first work by living authors that Papp produced. The director, Gerald Freedman , the theater's associate artistic director, decided that Rado, at 35,
26718-456: The show was about Native Americans , he watched the Public's production several times and joined forces with Joe Papp to reproduce the show at another New York venue after the close of its run at the Public. Papp and Butler first moved the show to The Cheetah , a discothèque at 53rd Street and Broadway. It opened there on December 22, 1967, and ran for 45 performances. There was no nudity in either
26901-420: The show's opening number changed the history of musical theatre: "After a verse like that, sung to a buoyant melody, the banalities of the old musical stage became intolerable." It was the first "blockbuster" Broadway show, running a total of 2,212 performances, and was made into a hit film. It remains one of the most frequently produced of the team's projects. William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird wrote that this
27084-407: The show, although it sometimes consists of a series of songs not directly musically related. Spoken dialogue is generally interspersed between musical numbers, although "sung dialogue" or recitative may be used, especially in so-called " sung-through " musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar , Falsettos , Les Misérables , Evita and Hamilton . Several shorter musicals on Broadway and in
27267-537: The show. ... After a disastrous final dress rehearsal, Papp wired Mr. Freedman in Washington, where he'd fled: 'Please come back.' Mr. Freedman did." Hair premiered off-Broadway at the Public on October 17, 1967, and ran for a limited engagement of six weeks. The lead roles were played by Walker Daniels as Claude, Ragni as Berger, Jill O'Hara as Sheila, Steve Dean as Woof, Arnold Wilkerson as Hud, Sally Eaton as Jeanie and Shelley Plimpton as Crissy. Set design
27450-431: The song "Donna", Berger sings, "I'm evolving through the drugs that you put down." At another point, Jeanie smokes marijuana and dismisses the critics of "pot". Generally, the tribe favors hallucinogenic or "mind expanding" drugs, such as LSD and marijuana, while disapproving of other drugs such as speed and depressants. For example, Jeanie, after revealing that she is pregnant by a " speed freak", says that " methedrine
27633-565: The stage in Los Angeles. It was rare for so many productions to run simultaneously during an initial Broadway run. Producer Michael Butler, who had declared that Hair is "the strongest anti-war statement ever written", said the reason that he opened so many productions was to influence public opinion against the Vietnam War and end it as soon as possible. Hair opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London on September 27, 1968, led by
27816-411: The stage it would be wonderful. ... We hung out with them and went to their Be-Ins [and] let our hair grow." Many cast members ( Shelley Plimpton in particular) were recruited right off the street. Rado said, "It was very important historically, and if we hadn't written it, there'd not be any examples. You could read about it and see film clips, but you'd never experience it. We thought, 'This
27999-476: The stage, most notably Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita . Others had no dialogue or were otherwise reminiscent of opera, with dramatic, emotional themes; these sometimes started as concept albums and were referred to as rock operas . Shows like Raisin , Dreamgirls , Purlie and The Wiz brought a significant African-American influence to Broadway. More varied musical genres and styles were incorporated into musicals both on and especially off-Broadway. At
28182-402: The standard for what was considered a successful show. These shows were designed for family audiences, a marked contrast from the risqué burlesques, bawdy music hall shows and French operettas that sometimes drew a crowd seeking less wholesome entertainment. Only a few 19th-century musical pieces exceeded the run of The Mikado , such as Dorothy , which opened in 1886 and set a new record with
28365-486: The story of the "tribe", a group of politically active, long-haired hippies of the " Age of Aquarius " living a bohemian life in New York City and fighting against conscription into the Vietnam War . Claude, his good friend Berger, their roommate Sheila and their friends struggle to balance their young lives, loves and the sexual revolution, with their rebellion against the war and their conservative parents and society. Ultimately, Claude must decide whether to resist
28548-515: The storytelling, particularly by the principal performers as well as the chorus. Third, musicals often use various genres of popular music or at least popular singing and musical styles. Finally, musicals usually avoid certain operatic conventions. In particular, a musical is almost always performed in the language of its audience. Musicals produced on Broadway or in the West End, for instance, are invariably sung in English, even if they were originally written in another language. While an opera singer
28731-483: The streets, people we knew and our own imaginations. We knew this group of kids in the East Village who were dropping out and dodging the draft , and there were also lots of articles in the press about how kids were being kicked out of school for growing their hair long". He recalled, "There was so much excitement in the streets and the parks and the hippie areas, and we thought if we could transmit this excitement to
28914-623: The summer of 1753, they performed ballad-operas, such as The Beggar's Opera , and ballad-farces. By the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. Other early musical theatre in America consisted of British forms, such as burletta and pantomime, but what a piece was called did not necessarily define what it was. The 1852 Broadway extravaganza The Magic Deer advertised itself as "A Serio Comico Tragico Operatical Historical Extravaganzical Burletical Tale of Enchantment." Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown from around 1850 and did not arrive in
29097-495: The three Africans sing his praises, recites an alternate version of the Gettysburg Address ("Abie Baby"). Booth shoots Lincoln, but Lincoln says to him, "Shit! I'm not dyin' for no white man". As the visions continue, four Buddhist monks enter. One monk pours a can of gasoline over another monk, who is set afire (reminiscent of the self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức ) and runs off screaming. Three Catholic nuns strangle
29280-510: The three remaining Buddhist monks. Three astronauts shoot the nuns with ray guns . Three Chinese people stab the astronauts with knives. Three Native Americans kill the Chinese with bows and tomahawks. Three green berets kill the Native Americans with machine guns and then kill each other. A Sergeant and two parents appear holding up a suit on a hanger. The parents talk to the suit as if it
29463-674: The traditions of comic opera and used elements of burlesque and of the Harrigan and Hart pieces. He replaced the bawdy women of burlesque with his "respectable" corps of Gaiety Girls to complete the musical and visual fun. The success of the first of these, In Town (1892) and A Gaiety Girl (1893) set the style for the next three decades. The plots were generally light, romantic "poor maiden loves aristocrat and wins him against all odds" shows, with music by Ivan Caryll , Sidney Jones and Lionel Monckton . These shows were immediately widely copied in America, and Edwardian musical comedy swept away
29646-435: The tribe in explaining the significance of their locks (" Hair "). The woman states that kids should "be free, no guilt" and should "do whatever you want, just so long as you don't hurt anyone." She observes that long hair is natural, like the "elegant plumage" of male birds ("My Conviction"). She opens her coat to reveal that she's a man in drag . As the couple leaves, the tribe calls her Margaret Mead . Sheila gives Berger
29829-400: The tribe's protest chants is "What do we think is really great? To bomb, lynch and segregate!" "Black Boys/White Boys" is an exuberant acknowledgement of interracial sexual attraction; the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down laws banning interracial marriage in 1967. Another of the tribe's protest chants is "Black, white, yellow, red. Copulate in a king-sized bed." "Abie Baby" is part of
30012-461: The trip, Claude says "I can't take this moment to moment living on the streets. ... I know what I want to be ... invisible". As they "look at the Moon," Sheila and the others enjoy a light moment (" Good Morning Starshine "). The tribe pays tribute to an old mattress ("The Bed"). Claude is left alone with his doubts. He leaves as the tribe enters wrapped in blankets in the midst of a snow storm. They start
30195-537: The two were developing Hair , Ragni performed in The Open Theater's production of Megan Terry 's play Viet Rock , a story about young men being deployed to the Vietnam War. In addition to the war theme, Viet Rock employed the improvisational exercises being used in the experimental theatre scene and later used in the development of Hair . Rado and Ragni brought their drafts of the show to producer Eric Blau who, through common friend Nat Shapiro , connected
30378-426: The two with Canadian composer Galt MacDermot. MacDermot won two Grammy Awards for Best Instrumental Composition and Best Original Jazz Composition in 1961 for his composition "African Waltz" (recorded by Cannonball Adderley ). The composer's lifestyle was in marked contrast to his co-creators: "I had short hair, a wife, and, at that point, four children, and I lived on Staten Island ." "I never even heard of
30561-449: The villain in Oklahoma! is a suspected murderer and psychopath; Carousel deals with spousal abuse, thievery, suicide and the afterlife; South Pacific explores miscegenation even more thoroughly than Show Boat ; the hero of The King and I dies onstage; and the backdrop of The Sound of Music is the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 . The show's creativity stimulated Rodgers and Hammerstein's contemporaries and ushered in
30744-464: The work's musical or dramatic content in defining into which art form the piece falls. Sondheim said, "I really think that when something plays Broadway it's a musical, and when it plays in an opera house it's opera. That's it. It's the terrain, the countryside, the expectations of the audience that make it one thing or another." There remains an overlap in form between lighter operatic forms and more musically complex or ambitious musicals. In practice, it
30927-420: Was A Chinese Honeymoon (1901), which ran for a record-setting 1,074 performances in London and 376 in New York. After the turn of the 20th century, Seymour Hicks joined forces with Edwardes and American producer Charles Frohman to create another decade of popular shows. Other enduring Edwardian musical comedy hits included The Arcadians (1909) and The Quaker Girl (1910). Virtually eliminated from
31110-602: Was "knocked up by some crazy speed freak". The tribe link together LBJ (President Lyndon B. Johnson ), FBI (the Federal Bureau of Investigation ), CIA (the Central Intelligence Agency ) and LSD ("Initials"). Six members of the tribe appear dressed as Claude's parents, berating him for his various transgressions – he does not have a job, and he collects "mountains of paper" clippings and notes. They say that they will not give him any more money, and "the army'll make
31293-489: Was Curry's first full-time theatrical acting role, where he met future Rocky Horror Show collaborator O'Brien. Hair ' s engagement in London surpassed the Broadway production, running for 1,997 performances until its closure was forced by the roof of the theatre collapsing in July 1973. The job of leading the foreign language productions of Hair was given to Bertrand Castelli , Butler's partner and executive producer of
31476-420: Was a "show, that, like Show Boat , became a milestone, so that later historians writing about important moments in twentieth-century theatre would begin to identify eras according to their relationship to Oklahoma! ". "After Oklahoma! , Rodgers and Hammerstein were the most important contributors to the musical-play form... The examples they set in creating vital plays, often rich with social thought, provided
31659-475: Was by Ming Cho Lee , costume design by Theoni Aldredge , and, although Anna Sokolow began rehearsals as choreographer, Freedman received choreographer credit. Although the production had a "tepid critical reception", it was popular with audiences. A cast album was released in 1967. Chicago businessman Michael Butler was planning to run for the U.S. Senate on an anti-war platform. After seeing an ad for Hair in The New York Times that led him to believe
31842-556: Was directed by Tom O'Horgan and choreographed by Julie Arenal, with set design by Robin Wagner , costume design by Nancy Potts, and lighting design by Jules Fisher . The original Broadway "tribe" (i.e., cast) included authors Rado and Ragni, who played the lead roles of Claude and Berger, respectively, Kellogg as Sheila, Washington as Hud, Eaton and Plimpton reprising their off-Broadway roles as Jeanie and Crissy, Melba Moore as Dionne, Curry as Woof, Ronnie Dyson (who sang "Aquarius" and "What
32025-468: Was dominated by musical theatre standards, such as " Fascinating Rhythm ", " Tea for Two " and " Someone to Watch Over Me ". Many shows were revues , series of sketches and songs with little or no connection between them. The best-known of these were the annual Ziegfeld Follies , spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway featuring extravagant sets, elaborate costumes and beautiful chorus girls. These spectacles also raised production values, and mounting
32208-531: Was fresher. Tolerance as an important theme in musicals has continued in recent decades. The final expression of West Side Story left a message of racial tolerance. By the end of the 1960s, musicals became racially integrated, with black and white cast members even covering each other's roles, as they did in Hair . Homosexuality has also been explored in musicals, starting with Hair , and even more overtly in La Cage aux Folles , Falsettos , Rent , Hedwig and
32391-496: Was one of six African-Americans brought to Australia to provide a racially integrated tribe. The production broke local box-office records and ran for two years, but because of some of the language in the show, the cast album was banned in Queensland and New Zealand. The production transferred to Melbourne in 1971 and then had a national tour. It marked the stage debut of Boston -born Australian vocalist Marcia Hines . In Mexico
32574-504: Was praised by critics for its innovations in music and choreography but was less commercially successful than the same year's The Music Man , written and composed by Meredith Willson , which won the Tony Award for Best Musical that year. West Side Story would get a film adaptation in 1961, which proved successful both critically and commercially. Laurents and Sondheim teamed up again for Gypsy (1959), with Jule Styne providing
32757-668: Was released in 1979. A Broadway revival opened in 2009, earning strong reviews and winning the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for Best Revival of a Musical. In 2008, Richard Zoglin wrote in Time that "Today Hair seems, if anything, more daring than ever." Hair was conceived by actors James Rado and Gerome Ragni . The two met in 1964 when they performed together in the Off-Broadway flop Hang Down Your Head and Die , and they began writing Hair together in late 1964. The main characters were autobiographical, with Rado's Claude being
32940-477: Was the French operetta The Chimes of Normandy in 1878 (705 performances). English comic opera adopted many of the successful ideas of European operetta, none more successfully than the series of more than a dozen long-running Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, including H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and The Mikado (1885). These were sensations on both sides of the Atlantic and in Australia and helped to raise
33123-464: Was the first Broadway show to have a regular ticket price of $ 50, with 12 of the seats at this price for sale to large corporations from July 1968. The top price when it opened was $ 11. The Hair team soon became embroiled in a lawsuit with the organizers of the Tony Awards . After assuring producer Michael Butler that commencing previews by April 3, 1968, would assure eligibility for consideration for
33306-553: Was the hippies' flag – their ... symbol not only of rebellion but also of new possibilities, a symbol of the rejection of discrimination and restrictive gender roles (a philosophy celebrated in the song "My Conviction"). ... Drab work clothes (jeans, work shirts, pea coats) were a rejection of materialism. Clothing from ... the Third World and native Americans represented their awareness of the global community and their rejection of U.S. imperialism and selfishness. ... [N]atural fabrics were
33489-407: Was too old to play Claude, although he agreed to cast the 32-year-old Ragni as Berger. The production did not go smoothly: "The rehearsal and casting process was confused, the material itself incomprehensible to many of the theater's staff. [Freedman] withdrew in frustration during the final week of rehearsals and offered his resignation. Papp accepted it, and the choreographer Anna Sokolow took over
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