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 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 .
204-762: Spamalot (also known as Monty Python's Spamalot: A Musical (Lovingly) Ripped Off from the Motion Picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail ) is a stage musical with score by John Du Prez and Eric Idle , with lyrics and book by Idle. Based on the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail , the musical offers a highly irreverent parody of Arthurian legend , with the title being a portmanteau of Spam and Camelot . The original 2005 Broadway production directed by Mike Nichols received 14 Tony Award nominations, winning in three categories, including Best Musical . During its initial run of 1,575 performances,
408-465: A Fiddler on the Roof parody involving a bottle dance with Grails instead of bottles. Arthur and Patsy promptly set off in search of Jews. (In countries that don't have a tradition of Jews in the theatre, the lyrics of "You Won't Succeed on Broadway" are sometimes changed to instead describe the high production standards and acting talent needed to stage a successful musical in that country. For example, in
612-457: A galley slave in Algiers also influenced Quixote . Medical theories may have also influenced Cervantes' literary process. Cervantes had familial ties to the distinguished medical community. His father, Rodrigo de Cervantes, and his great-grandfather, Juan Díaz de Torreblanca, were surgeons. Additionally, his sister, Andrea de Cervantes, was a nurse. He also befriended many individuals involved in
816-423: A February 2004 press release: I like the title Spamalot a lot. We tested it with audiences on my recent US tour and they liked it as much as I did, which is gratifying. After all, they are the ones who will be paying Broadway prices to see the show. It comes from a line in the movie which goes: "we eat ham, and jam, and Spam a lot." I'm making them money, and the ungrateful bastards never thank me. Who gave them
1020-557: 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
1224-650: A November 16 opening. Iglehart, Kritzer, Urie, Smagula, and Walker reprised their roles from the Kennedy Center, joined by Christopher Fitzgerald as Patsy and Ethan Slater as The Historian/Prince Herbert. The production opened with Taran Killam playing Lancelot; Brightman reprised his role after Killam left the production in January 2024. Urie played his final performance as Sir Robin on January 21, 2024. On January 23, Jonathan Bennett made his Broadway debut as Sir Robin. The production closed on April 7, 2024. A national tour
1428-579: 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
1632-468: A carriage. Quixote takes the friars to be enchanters who are holding the lady captive, knocks one of them from his horse, and is challenged by an armed Basque travelling with the company. The combat ends with the lady leaving her carriage and commanding those travelling with her to "surrender" to Quixote. After a friendly encounter with some goatherds and a less friendly one with some Yanguesan porters driving Galician ponies , Quixote and Sancho return to
1836-457: A cast featuring Atle Antonsen as King Arthur, Trond Espen Seim as Sir Lancelot, Anders Baasmo Christiansen as Sir Robin, Espen Beranek Holm as Sir Belvedere and Trond Fausa Aurvåg as Prince Herbert. A Serbian production at Sava Centar in Belgrade had a cast including Nikola Kojo as King Arthur, Nikola Đuričko as Sir Lancelot and Gordan Kičić as Sir Robin. A production of the show
2040-421: A castle, calls the prostitutes he meets there "ladies", and demands that the innkeeper, whom he takes to be the lord of the castle, dub him a knight. The innkeeper agrees. Quixote starts the night holding vigil at the inn's horse trough, which Quixote imagines to be a chapel. He then becomes involved in a fight with muleteers who try to remove his armor from the horse trough so that they can water their mules. In
2244-510: 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
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#17328848606792448-515: A continuation, and was not taken seriously by the book's first readers. Cervantes, in a metafictional narrative, writes that the first few chapters were taken from "the archives of La Mancha", and the rest were translated from an Arabic text by the Moorish historian Cide Hamete Benengeli . Alonso Quixano is a hidalgo nearing 50 years of age who lives in a deliberately unspecified region of La Mancha with his niece and housekeeper. While he lives
2652-483: A dead body, a barber's basin that Quixote imagines as the legendary helmet of Mambrino , and a group of galley slaves , they wander into the Sierra Morena . There they encounter the dejected and mostly mad Cardenio, who relates his story . Quixote decides to imitate Cardenio and live like a hermit. He sends Sancho to deliver a letter to Dulcinea, but instead Sancho finds the barber and priest from his village. They make
2856-459: A deathly illness, and later awakes from a dream, having fully become Alonso Quixano once more. Sancho tries to restore his faith and his interest in Dulcinea, but Quixano only renounces his previous ambition and apologizes for the harm he has caused. He dictates his will, which includes a provision that his niece will be disinherited if she marries a man who reads books of chivalry. After Quixano dies,
3060-511: 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
3264-402: 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
3468-641: 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
3672-502: A frugal life, as an avid reader of chivalric romances, he is full of fantasies about chivalry. Eventually, he goes mad and decides to become a knight errant . To that end, he dons an old suit of armor, renames himself "Don Quixote", names his old workhorse " Rocinante ", and designates Aldonza Lorenzo (a slaughterhouse worker with a famed hand for salting pork) his lady love , renaming her Dulcinea del Toboso . As he travels in search of adventure, he arrives at an inn that he believes to be
3876-700: A group of travelers at an inn, tells of a Florentine nobleman, Anselmo, who becomes obsessed with testing his wife's fidelity and talks his close friend Lothario into attempting to seduce her, with disastrous results for all. In Part Two , the author acknowledges the criticism of his digressions in Part One and promises to concentrate the narrative on the central characters (although at one point he laments that his narrative muse has been constrained in this manner). Nevertheless, "Part Two" contains several back narratives related by peripheral characters. Several abridged editions have been published which delete some or all of
4080-601: A handsome and hot-tempered man, meet as Lancelot attempts to dispose of the sickly Not Dead Fred. Although a plague victim, the man insists that he is not dead yet and he can dance and sing. He begins performing a dance number, but is soon knocked unconscious with a shovel by an impatient Lancelot ("He Is Not Dead Yet"). Lancelot and Robin agree to become Knights together; Lancelot wants to fight in battles, and Robin wants to sing and dance professionally. Not Dead Fred revives, declaring he will serve as Robin's musician, only to be promptly killed by Lancelot. While attempting to recruit
4284-512: 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
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#17328848606794488-627: A million dollars each for 'Spamalot'? Musical theatre Although music has been a part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during 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
4692-419: A miscommunication between the actors and the narrator, the actors sing an introductory song about Finland (" Fisch Schlapping Song "). The Historian returns, irritated, and tells the frolicking Finns that he was talking about England, not Finland. The scene immediately changes to a dreary, dark village with penitent monks in hooded robes chanting Latin and hitting themselves with books. King Arthur travels
4896-502: 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
5100-416: 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
5304-497: 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
5508-412: 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
5712-410: A nearby hill and revealing that the "evil rabbit" was actually a puppet controlled by a surprised puppeteer. A large stone block showing a combination of letters and numbers is also revealed. (The letters are based on the seat numbering system used by each theatre. They are changed from performance to performance to discourage audience members from intentionally booking any of the possible seats. The seat
5916-535: 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
6120-413: 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
6324-675: A number of celebrities each played the part of God for a week in aid of charity, including Professor Brian Cox , Gary Lineker , Barbara Windsor , Brian May and Michael Palin . Other notable cast members during the run of the West End revival included Stephen Tompkinson , Joe Pasquale , Les Dennis and Richard McCourt as King Arthur, Anna-Jane Casey and Carley Stenson as Lady of the Lake, Warwick Davis and Dominic Wood as Patsy, Daniel Boys as Sir Lancelot, Jon Robyns as Sir Galahad and Rob Delaney as Sir Robin. A three evening performance at
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6528-497: A peasant named Dennis Galahad, Arthur explains that he became King of England because the Lady of the Lake gave him Excalibur , the sword given only to the man fit to rule England. However, Dennis and his mother, Mrs. Galahad, are political radicals and say that any king who has not been elected by the people has no legitimate right to rule over them. To settle the issue, Arthur asks the Lady of
6732-476: A plan to trick Quixote into coming home, recruiting Dorotea, a woman they discover in the forest, to pose as the Princess Micomicona, a damsel in distress. The plan works and Quixote and the group return to the inn, though Quixote is now convinced, thanks to a lie told by Sancho when asked about the letter, that Dulcinea wants to see him. At the inn, several other plots intersect and are resolved. Meanwhile,
6936-498: A pretended ceremony, the innkeeper dubs him a knight to be rid of him and sends him on his way. Quixote encounters a servant named Andres who is tied to a tree and beaten by his master over disputed wages. Quixote orders the master to stop beating Andres and untie him and makes the master swear to treat Andres fairly. However, the beating is resumed, and redoubled, as soon as Quixote leaves. Quixote then encounters traders from Toledo . He demands that they agree that Dulcinea del Toboso
7140-513: A pun on quijada (jaw) but certainly cuixot (Catalan: thighs), a reference to a horse's rump . As a military term, the word quijote refers to cuisses , part of a full suit of plate armour protecting the thighs. The Spanish suffix -ote denotes the augmentative—for example, grande means large, but grandote means extra large, with grotesque connotations. Following this example, Quixote would suggest 'The Great Quijano', an oxymoronic play on words that makes much sense in light of
7344-475: A reference to Matteo Maria Boiardo 's Orlando innamorato . The interpolated story in chapter 33 of Part four of the First Part is a retelling of a tale from Canto 43 of Orlando , regarding a man who tests the fidelity of his wife. Another important source appears to have been Apuleius's The Golden Ass , one of the earliest known novels, a picaresque from late classical antiquity. The wineskins episode near
7548-517: 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
7752-497: 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
7956-540: 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
8160-540: 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
8364-584: A shrubbery shortly after. Sir Robin wanders the forest with his minstrels ("Brave Sir Robin"), and they encounter the Black Knight , who scares Robin away. Arthur then encounters the Black Knight and defeats him by cutting off both his arms and legs, impaling his still-alive torso on a door, and leaving to give the shrubbery to the Knights Who Say Ni. Arthur and Robin reunite. The Knights Who Say Ni accept
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8568-461: A sleepwalking Quixote does battle with some wineskins which he takes to be the giant who stole the princess Micomicona's kingdom. An officer of the Santa Hermandad arrives with a warrant for Quixote's arrest for freeing the galley slaves, but the priest begs for the officer to have mercy on account of Quixote's insanity. The officer agrees and Quixote is locked in a cage which he is made to think
8772-762: A spurious Part Two, entitled Second Volume of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha: by the Licenciado (doctorate) Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda , of Tordesillas , was published in Tarragona by an unidentified Aragonese who was an admirer of Lope de Vega , rival of Cervantes. It was translated into English by William Augustus Yardley, Esquire in two volumes in 1784. Some modern scholars suggest that Don Quixote's fictional encounter with Avellaneda's book in Chapter 59 of Part II should not be taken as
8976-757: 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
9180-405: A string of imagined adventures and practical jokes. As part of one prank, Quixote and Sancho are led to believe that the only way to release Dulcinea from her spell is for Sancho to give himself three thousand three hundred lashes. Sancho naturally resists this course of action, leading to friction with his master. Under the duke's patronage, Sancho eventually gets his promised governorship, though it
9384-402: A successful Broadway (or West End) musical requires the involvement of Jews ("You Won't Succeed on Broadway"). Robin proves his point in a wild production number filled with Ashkenazi Jewish cultural references, a list of Jewish celebrities known for their work on Broadway (including Bette Midler , Barbra Streisand , Stephen Sondheim , and as a joke in the 2023 revival, George Santos ), and
9588-426: A tearful, heartfelt speech to the king about sensitivity on Herbert's behalf. The king correctly guesses that Lancelot is homosexual , and Herbert helps Lancelot accept his sexuality in a disco number ("His Name Is Lancelot"). King Arthur begins to give up hope of ever putting on a Broadway musical and laments that he is alone, ignoring Patsy ("I'm All Alone"). The Lady of the Lake appears and tells Arthur that he and
9792-403: A time and place for Anselmo to see the seduction. Before this rendezvous, however, Lothario learns that the man was the lover of Camilla's maid. He and Camilla then contrive to deceive Anselmo further: When Anselmo watches them, she refuses Lothario, protests her love for her husband, and stabs herself lightly in the breast. Anselmo is reassured of her fidelity. The affair restarts with Anselmo none
9996-482: Is Guinevere) and Lancelot marries Herbert, who finally gets a chance to sing. Sir Robin decides to pursue a career in musical theatre . The King of Swamp Castle attempts to interrupt the finale and stop all of the "bloody singing", but Lancelot knocks him unconscious with a shovel. The company then invites the audience to partake in a sing-along of " Always Look on the Bright Side of Life ". ("Act 2 Finale / Always Look on
10200-416: Is also one of the most-translated books in the world and one of the best-selling novels of all time . The plot revolves around the adventures of a member of the lowest nobility, an hidalgo from La Mancha named Alonso Quijano , who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his mind and decides to become a knight-errant ( caballero andante ) to revive chivalry and serve his nation, under
10404-417: Is an enchantment. He has a learned conversation with a Toledo canon he encounters by chance on the road, in which the canon expresses his scorn for untruthful chivalric books, but Don Quixote defends them. The group stops to eat and lets Quixote out of the cage; he gets into a fight with a goatherd and with a group of pilgrims, who beat him into submission, before he is finally brought home. The narrator ends
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#173288486067910608-404: Is done [...] as Cervantes did it [...] by never letting the reader rest. You are never certain that you truly got it. Because as soon as you think you understand something, Cervantes introduces something that contradicts your premise. The novel's structure is episodic in form. The full title is indicative of the tale's object, as ingenioso (Spanish) means "quick with inventiveness", marking
10812-557: Is false, and he proves to be a wise and practical ruler before all ends in humiliation. Near the end, Don Quixote reluctantly sways towards sanity. Quixote battles the Knight of the White Moon (a young man from Quixote's hometown who had earlier posed as the Knight of Mirrors) on the beach in Barcelona . Defeated, Quixote submits to prearranged chivalric terms: the vanquished must obey the will of
11016-451: 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
11220-405: Is from Modern English . The Old Castilian language was also used to show the higher class that came with being a knight errant. In Don Quixote , there are basically two different types of Castilian: Old Castilian is spoken only by Don Quixote, while the rest of the roles speak a contemporary (late 16th century) version of Spanish. The Old Castilian of Don Quixote is a humoristic resource—he copies
11424-520: Is much debated among scholars. Since the 19th century, the passage has been called "the most difficult passage of Don Quixote ".) The scene of the book burning provides a list of Cervantes's likes and dislikes about literature. Cervantes makes a number of references to the Italian poem Orlando furioso . In chapter 10 of the first part of the novel, Don Quixote says he must take the magical helmet of Mambrino , an episode from Canto I of Orlando , and itself
11628-477: 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
11832-553: Is once more "Alonso Quixano the Good". Sources for Don Quixote include the Castilian novel Amadis de Gaula , which had enjoyed great popularity throughout the 16th century. Another prominent source, which Cervantes evidently admires more, is Tirant lo Blanch , which the priest describes in Chapter VI of Quixote as "the best book in the world." (However, the sense in which it was "best"
12036-654: Is planned to begin performances in the autumn of 2025. A new Australian production started in Melbourne in November 2007 at Her Majesty's Theatre , with the official premiere on 1 December. The cast featured Bille Brown as King Arthur, Ben Lewis as Sir Galahad, Stephen Hall as Sir Lancelot and Mark Conaghan as Prince Herbert The Australian production closed on 5 April 2008, due to lack of ticket sales and no tour followed. In October 2014, Harvest Rain Theatre Company under
12240-432: Is preserved in the pronunciation of the adjectival form quixotic , i.e., / k w ɪ k ˈ s ɒ t ɪ k / , defined by Merriam-Webster as the foolishly impractical pursuit of ideals, typically marked by rash and lofty romanticism. Harold Bloom says Don Quixote is the first modern novel, and that the protagonist is at war with Freud 's reality principle, which accepts the necessity of dying. Bloom says that
12444-464: 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
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#173288486067912648-494: Is reflected in languages such as Asturian , Leonese , Galician , Catalan , Italian , Portuguese , Turkish and French , where it is pronounced with a "sh" or "ch" sound; the French opera Don Quichotte is one of the best-known modern examples of this pronunciation. Today, English speakers generally attempt something close to the modern Spanish pronunciation of Quixote ( Quijote ), as / k iː ˈ h oʊ t i / , although
12852-447: Is shot by Sir Robin when she begins to sing). After the West End revival (2012-14), the production toured again from April 2015 starring Joe Pasquale , Todd Carty and Sarah Earnshaw . A second North American tour launched on 24 September 2010 from Waterbury, Connecticut , and ended 26 June 2011 in Dallas, Texas . This tour featured a non- Equity cast that included Caroline Bowman as
13056-493: Is that Quixote has multiple interpretations [...] and how do I deal with that in my translation. I'm going to answer your question by avoiding it [...] so when I first started reading the Quixote I thought it was the most tragic book in the world, and I would read it and weep [...] As I grew older [...] my skin grew thicker [...] and so when I was working on the translation I was actually sitting at my computer and laughing out loud. This
13260-414: Is the most beautiful woman in the world. One of them demands to see her picture so that he can decide for himself. Enraged, Quixote charges at them but his horse stumbles, causing him to fall. One of the traders beats up Quixote, who is left at the side of the road until a neighboring peasant brings him back home. While Quixote lies unconscious in his bed, his niece, the housekeeper, the parish curate , and
13464-487: Is typically on the aisle in one of the first few rows nearest the orchestra. In the Broadway production and on the tour it is either A101, B101, C101 or D101; i.e., Seat 101 – which is house right of the center aisle – of Rows A, B, C, or D. In the West End production a word is revealed – DONE, CONE or BONE, referring to D1, C1 and B1 respectively.) After pondering the final clue, Arthur admits that they're "a bit stumped with
13668-508: The Hollywood Bowl was undertaken in 2015, with Eric Idle appearing in the role of The Historian, and other cast members including Christian Slater , Jesse Tyler Ferguson , Craig Robinson , Merle Dandridge , Warwick Davis , Kevin Chamberlin and Rick Holmes. The script was updated and included many Los Angeles specific jokes. The Kennedy Center for Performing Arts staged Spamalot in
13872-533: The New Wimbledon Theatre on 29 May – 5 June 2010. Phill Jupitus played King Arthur in the UK tour. Todd Carty played Patsy, assistant to King Arthur for the duration of the tour. Marcus Brigstocke made his musical theatre debut as King Arthur following Jupitus' departure. Jodie Prenger , Hayley Tamaddon , Amy Nuttall and Jessica Martin shared the role of The Lady of the Lake. The UK tour also featured for
14076-632: 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
14280-628: The South Korean version, Sir Robin sings about recent successful musicals that were staged in Seoul during the previous decade. Meanwhile, members of the ensemble appear onstage dressed as various characters from those musicals. Among these characters are a cat from Cats , Kenickie from Grease , Kim from Miss Saigon , the Phantom from The Phantom of the Opera , and Velma Kelly from Chicago .) While
14484-501: The Tony Award for Best Musical and was nominated for 14 Tony Awards at the 59th Tony Awards . The show played its final performance on 11 January 2009 after 35 previews and 1,575 performances; it was seen by more than two million people and grossed over $ 175 million, recouping its initial production costs in under six months. The original Broadway cast included Tim Curry as King Arthur , Michael McGrath as Patsy and other roles (e.g.,
14688-487: 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
14892-547: 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
15096-536: 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
15300-596: The "aptly named" Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Show, a knight resembling Don Quixote who promptly apologises and leaves, they become the Knights of the Round Table ("All for One"). The five knights gather in Camelot, a deliberately anachronistic place resembling Las Vegas's Camelot-inspired Excalibur resort , complete with showgirls, oversized dice and the Lady of the Lake as a lounge singer reminiscent of Liza Minnelli ("Knights of
15504-448: The "castle" (inn), where a mix-up involving a servant girl's romantic rendezvous with another guest results in a brawl. Quixote explains to Sancho that the castle is enchanted. They decide to leave, but Quixote, following the example of the fictional knights, leaves without paying. Sancho ends up wrapped in a blanket and tossed in the air by several mischievous guests at the inn before he manages to follow. After further adventures involving
15708-569: 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
15912-504: 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
16116-491: 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
16320-412: 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
16524-810: 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
16728-545: 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
16932-666: 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
17136-425: 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
17340-402: The Bright Side of Life (Company Bow)"). Eric Idle wrote the musical's book and lyrics and collaborated with John Du Prez on the music, except for "Finland", which was written by Michael Palin for Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album ; "Knights of the Round Table" and "Brave Sir Robin", which were composed by Neil Innes for Monty Python and the Holy Grail ; and "Always Look on
17544-459: The Bright Side of Life", which was originally written by Idle for the film Monty Python's Life of Brian . **Does not appear on the original cast album . The song "You Won't Succeed on Broadway" was changed to "You Won't Succeed in Showbiz" for the London production and later replaced with the "Star Song" on the UK tour. In tribute to the film, where six actors played
17748-589: The Broadway production. They were joined by Hannah Waddingham as the Lady of the Lake, Tom Goodman-Hill as Sir Lancelot, Robert Hands as Sir Robin, David Birell as Patsy, Tony Timberlake as Sir Bedevere and Darren Southworth as Prince Herbert. The London production closed on 3 January 2009. A North American tour commenced in spring 2006, and the cast included Michael Siberry as King Arthur (replaced by Gary Beach in 2008), Jeff Dumas as Patsy, Richard Holmes as Lancelot, Bradley Dean as Galahad and Tom Deckman as The Historian. Richard Chamberlain later joined
17952-526: The Eisenhower Theater as part of their Broadway Center Stage series from May 12-23, 2023. Directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes, the production starred James Monroe Iglehart as King Arthur, Alex Brightman as Sir Lancelot, Leslie Kritzer as the Lady of the Lake, Rob McClure as The Historian/Prince Herbert, Michael Urie as Sir Robin, Nik Walker as Sir Galahad, Matthew Saldivar as Patsy, and Jimmy Smagula as Sir Bedevere. The production featured
18156-738: 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
18360-806: The French Castle, "The Cow Song", in a parody of a stereotypical film noir / cabaret style, was performed by The Cow and French Citizens. Before the two songs were cut in Chicago, the lead vocals in both songs were sung by Sara Ramirez . This gave the Lady of the Lake six songs in Act One, but no further appearances until scene five in Act Two, for "The Diva's Lament". The musical previewed on Broadway , at New York 's Shubert Theatre , beginning 14 February 2005, ahead of an official opening on 17 March. Mike Nichols directed, and Casey Nicholaw choreographed. The production won
18564-574: 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
18768-491: The King of Swamp Castle, cuts the rope that Herbert is using to climb out of the window, and Herbert falls to his apparent death. Lancelot is a bit puzzled at the king's actions, but it is revealed that Herbert was saved at the last minute by Lancelot's sidekick, Concorde. When Herbert begins to explain, in song, how he was saved, the king charges at Herbert with a spear, preparing to kill him. Lancelot steps in to save Herbert, then gives
18972-426: The Knights have been in a Broadway musical all along (in some productions she also points out Patsy's presence, to which Arthur claims that he sees Patsy as "family" and thus does not always consider him a separate person). Patsy reveals he is half Jewish, but did not previously inform Arthur because "that's not really the sort of thing you say to a heavily armed Christian ." The Lady of the Lake tells Arthur that to end
19176-428: The Lady of the Lake laments her lack of stage time ("Whatever Happened to My Part?"), Sir Lancelot receives a letter of distress from someone who is being forced into an arranged marriage . He is very surprised to find that the supposed " damsel in distress " is actually an effeminate young man named Prince Herbert ("Where Are You?" / "Here Are You"). Herbert asks Lancelot to help him escape. Herbert's music-hating father,
19380-585: The Lady of the Lake, Magy as Patsy, Yuya Matsushita as Sir Galahad and Tsuyoshi Muro as Prince Herbert. The South Korean production was presented by OD Musical Company, and CJ Entertainment's Performing Arts division (now a part of CJ E&M ); incidentally, CJ CheilJedang , the sister company of CJ Group 's entertainment business, manufactures Spam products under license since 1987. It played from 1 October to 28 December 2010, with Yesung of Super Junior and Park In-bae rotating as Sir Galahad. A Norwegian production ran from September to December 2012, with
19584-589: The Lady of the Lake. Another non-Equity North American tour was undertaken in 2013. The touring production played a limited seven-week run in the West End during the summer of 2012 at the Harold Pinter Theatre . Marcus Brigstocke shared the role of King Arthur with Jon Culshaw for those seven weeks, with Bonnie Langford playing Lady of the Lake. The production moved to the Playhouse Theatre on 14 November 2012, and ran until 12 April 2014. During 2013
19788-627: The Lake . It also included Christian Borle as Prince Herbert and other roles (e.g., the Historian and Not Dead Fred), Steve Rosen as Sir Bedevere and other roles (e.g., Concorde and Dennis's Mother) and John Cleese as the (recorded) Voice of God . A London production opened at the Palace Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in the West End , commencing 30 September 2006 (London premiere 17 October). Tim Curry and Christopher Sieber reprised their roles from
19992-414: The Lake and her Laker Girls (named after the cheerleading squad ) to appear before Dennis, which they promptly do ("Come with Me"). Cheered on by the girls ("Laker Girls Cheer"), the Lady of the Lake turns Dennis into Sir Galahad and together, they sing a generic Broadway love song ("The Song That Goes Like This"). Arthur knights Galahad, and subsequently Robin and Lancelot. Together with Sir Bedevere and
20196-569: 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
20400-648: The Malmö Nöjesteater in Malmö on 24 September 2010, with a cast including Johan Wester as King Arthur and Johan Glans as Sir Robin. The production moved to Oscarsteatern in Stockholm on 15 September 2011 where it played through 29 April 2012. Nina Söderquist , who starred as Lady of the Lake in the West End production was intended to reprise her role, but became pregnant. She joined the show when it moved to Stockholm, along with Henrik Hjelt as Sir Belvedere. In May 2011,
20604-551: 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
20808-573: The North American touring company would not perform in California , Arizona , or Nevada . Although initially contracted to run for up to ten years its final performance was on 18 July 2008. A UK tour scheduled for later in 2009 was initially postponed, the producers commenting "Due to unforeseen circumstances the UK Tour of Spamalot will not be taking place as scheduled in 2009", but eventually started at
21012-503: The Opera , Spamalot was condensed to run in ninety minutes without an intermission. Among the cuts were the song "All For One", most of the song "Run Away", the Knights of Ni receiving their shrubbery, and the "Make sure he doesn't leave" scene with Prince Herbert's guards. Actor John O'Hurley starred as King Arthur, with J Anthony Crane playing Lancelot. Due to the Las Vegas production,
21216-647: 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
21420-537: The Quixotization of Sancho", as "Sancho's spirit ascends from reality to illusion, Don Quixote's declines from illusion to reality". The book had a major influence on the literary community, as evidenced by direct references in Alexandre Dumas 's The Three Musketeers (1844), and Edmond Rostand 's Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) as well as the word quixotic . Mark Twain referred to the book as having "swept
21624-575: 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
21828-480: The Round Table" / "The Song That Goes Like This (Reprise)"). In the midst of their revelry, they are contacted by God (a recording voiced by John Cleese in the original Broadway production, Eric Idle in the version that toured the UK, and Steve Martin in the Broadway revival), who tells them to locate the Holy Grail . Urged on by the Lady of the Lake ("Find Your Grail"), the knights set off. They travel throughout
22032-459: 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
22236-491: 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
22440-470: 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
22644-430: 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
22848-507: 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
23052-454: The attempts by Lothario and asking him to return. Anselmo makes no reply and does not return. Lothario then falls in love with Camilla, who eventually reciprocates; an affair between them ensues, but is not disclosed to Anselmo, and their affair continues after Anselmo returns. One day, Lothario sees a man leaving Camilla's house and jealously presumes she has taken another lover. He tells Anselmo that, at last, he has been successful and arranges
23256-597: The author emphasizes that there are no more adventures to relate and that any further books about Don Quixote would be spurious. Don Quixote, Part One contains a number of stories which do not directly involve the two main characters, but which are narrated by some of the picaresque figures encountered by the Don and Sancho during their travels. The longest and best known of these is "El Curioso Impertinente" ( The Ill-Advised Curiosity ), found in Part One, Book Four. This story, read to
23460-558: The book. It stands in a unique position between medieval romance and the modern novel. The former consists of disconnected stories featuring the same characters and settings with little exploration of the inner life of even the main character. The latter are usually focused on the psychological evolution of their characters. In Part I, Quixote imposes himself on his environment. By Part II, people know about him through "having read his adventures", and so, he needs to do less to maintain his image. By his deathbed, he has regained his sanity, and
23664-611: The cast included Jordi Bosch as King Arthur and Marta Ribera as the Lady of the Lake. The production moved to Madrid in September 2009 A German production premiered in January 2009 at the Musical Dome in Cologne . The Hungarian production in Madach Theatre, Budapest premiered on 29 September 2009 with three casts, each actor taking up multiple roles. The Swedish production opened at
23868-564: The character's delusions of grandeur. Cervantes wrote his work in Early Modern Spanish , heavily borrowing from Old Spanish , the medieval form of the language. The language of Don Quixote , although still containing archaisms , is far more understandable to modern Spanish readers than is, for instance, the completely medieval Spanish of the Poema de mio Cid , a kind of Spanish that is as different from Cervantes' language as Middle English
24072-466: 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
24276-416: The clue thing" and asks God to "give them a hand". A large hand points to the audience and Arthur realises that the letters and numbers refer to a seat number in the audience. The grail is "found" (with some sleight of hand ) under the seat, and the person sitting in the seat is rewarded with a small trophy and a polaroid photo ("The Holy Grail"). Arthur marries the Lady of the Lake (who reveals that her name
24480-546: 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
24684-442: The conqueror. He is ordered to lay down his arms and cease his acts of chivalry for a period of one year, by which time his friends and relatives hope he will be cured. On the way back home, Quixote and Sancho "resolve" the disenchantment of Dulcinea. Upon returning to his village, Quixote announces his plan to retire to the countryside as a shepherd, but his housekeeper urges him to stay at home. Soon after, he retires to his bed with
24888-503: 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
25092-452: 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
25296-543: 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
25500-494: 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
25704-734: The decades that followed include My Fair Lady (1956), The Fantasticks (1960), Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), Les Misérables (1985), The Phantom of 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
25908-758: The direction of producer Tim O'Connor staged a production of Spamalot with a cast list including Jon English as King Arthur, Simon Gallaher as Patsy, Julie Anthony as the Lady of the Lake, Frank Woodley as Sir Robin, Chris Kellett as Sir Lancelot, Stephen Hirst as Galahad and Shaun McCallum as Sir Bedevere. The production was presented in The Concert Hall at QPAC in Brisbane . The first translated production, in Spanish , ran at Teatre Victòria , Barcelona from 9 September 2008 to 10 May 2009. Directed by Catalan Comedy Group Tricicle and choreographed by Francesc Abós,
26112-403: 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
26316-409: 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
26520-533: 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
26724-494: The end of the interpolated tale "The Curious Impertinent" in chapter 35 of the first part of Don Quixote is a clear reference to Apuleius, and recent scholarship suggests that the moral philosophy and the basic trajectory of Apuleius's novel are fundamental to Cervantes' program. Similarly, many of both Sancho's adventures in Part II and proverbs throughout are taken from popular Spanish and Italian folklore. Cervantes' experiences as
26928-409: 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
27132-578: The extra tales in order to concentrate on the central narrative. The story within a story relates that, for no particular reason, Anselmo decides to test the fidelity of his wife, Camilla, and asks his friend, Lothario, to seduce her. Thinking that to be madness, Lothario reluctantly agrees, and soon reports to Anselmo that Camilla is a faithful wife. Anselmo learns that Lothario has lied and attempted no seduction. He makes Lothario promise to try in earnest and leaves town to make this easier. Lothario tries and Camilla writes letters to her husband telling him of
27336-418: The film would not be made due to two other of his former colleagues vetoing the project. A recording encourages members of the audience to "let your cell phones and pagers ring willy-nilly," and comments that they should "be aware there are heavily armed knights on stage that may drag you on stage and impale you." This was recorded by Eric Idle . A historian narrates a brief overview of medieval England. In
27540-438: 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
27744-470: The first time a re-working of the song "You Won't Succeed on Broadway" which has been renamed "You Won't Succeed in Showbiz". The theme of the song has been changed from poking fun at the need for Jewish input into Broadway productions and instead mocks the cross over of celebrities in musicals and reality television competitions such as The X Factor . It notably pokes fun at reality TV celebrities including Simon Cowell , Cheryl Cole and Susan Boyle (who
27948-515: 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
28152-472: 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
28356-518: 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
28560-666: The individualism of his characters, Cervantes helped lead literary practice beyond the narrow convention of the chivalric romance . He spoofs the chivalric romance through a straightforward retelling of a series of acts that redound to the knightly virtues of the hero. The character of Don Quixote became so well known in its time that the word quixotic was quickly adopted by many languages. Characters such as Sancho Panza and Don Quixote's steed, Rocinante , are emblems of Western literary culture. The phrase " tilting at windmills " to describe an act of attacking imaginary enemies (or an act of extreme idealism), derives from an iconic scene in
28764-447: 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
28968-599: The land until they reach a castle, only to be viciously taunted by lewd French soldiers. Bedevere comes up with the idea to retaliate by sending them a large wooden rabbit in the style of the Trojan horse ; however, the knights realize after the fact that they forgot to hide inside the rabbit before the French soldiers took it. Defeated, they leave in a hurry when the French soldiers begin taunting them again, sending cancan dancers after them and throwing barnyard animals at them ("Run Away!"). Arthur and his followers manage to run into
29172-474: The land with his servant, Patsy, who follows him around banging two coconut shells together to make the sound of a horse's hooves as Arthur "rides" before him. Arthur aims to recruit Knights of the Round Table to join him in Camelot . Arthur and Patsy encounter a pair of sentries who begin debating the probability of finding a coconut in a non-tropical climate. Robin, a collector of plague victims, and Lancelot ,
29376-527: The language spoken in the chivalric books that made him mad; and many times when he talks nobody is able to understand him because his language is too old. This humorous effect is more difficult to see nowadays because the reader must be able to distinguish the two old versions of the language, but when the book was published it was much celebrated. (English translations can get some sense of the effect by having Don Quixote use King James Bible or Shakespearean English, or even Middle English .) In Old Castilian,
29580-548: 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
29784-559: The lazy Castle Guard and the Mayor of Finland), David Hyde Pierce as Sir Robin and other roles (e.g., Brother Maynard and the daft Castle Guard), Hank Azaria as Sir Lancelot and other roles (e.g., the French Taunter, Knight of Ni , and Tim the Enchanter), Christopher Sieber as Sir Galahad and other roles (e.g., the Black Knight and Prince Herbert's Father), and Sara Ramirez as the Lady of
29988-524: The letter x represented the sound written sh in modern English, so the name was originally pronounced [kiˈʃote] . However, as Old Castilian evolved towards modern Spanish, a sound change caused it to be pronounced with a voiceless velar fricative [ x ] sound (like the Scots or German ch ), and today the Spanish pronunciation of "Quixote" is [kiˈxote] . The original pronunciation
30192-402: 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,
30396-526: The local barber burn most of his chivalric and other books. They seal up the room which contained the library, later telling Quixote that it was done by a wizard. Don Quixote asks his neighbour, the poor farm labourer Sancho Panza , to be his squire, promising him a petty governorship. Sancho agrees and they sneak away at dawn. Their adventures together begin with Quixote's attack on some windmills which he believes to be ferocious giants. They next encounter two Benedictine friars and, nearby, an unrelated lady in
30600-500: 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
30804-531: 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 ,
31008-400: The majority of the male parts (and a few female ones), several actors play multiple roles; the only major characters not doubling are Arthur and the Lady of the Lake. In the Broadway production, the following doubling is used: Sara Ramirez doubled as a witch and a cow in the Chicago previews, but both parts were cut during the pre-Broadway run. Several pairs of characters originally played by
31212-926: The medical field, in that he knew medical author Francisco Díaz, an expert in urology, and royal doctor Antonio Ponce de Santa Cruz who served as a personal doctor to both Philip III and Philip IV of Spain. Apart from the personal relations Cervantes maintained within the medical field, Cervantes' personal life was defined by an interest in medicine. He frequently visited patients from the Hospital de Inocentes in Sevilla. Furthermore, Cervantes explored medicine in his personal library. His library contained more than 200 volumes and included books like Examen de Ingenios , by Juan Huarte and Practica y teórica de cirugía , by Dionisio Daza Chacón that defined medical literature and medical theories of his time. Researchers Isabel Sanchez Duque and Francisco Javier Escudero have found that Cervantes
31416-445: 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
31620-567: 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
31824-423: 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
32028-480: 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:
32232-407: 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 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
32436-621: The musical, he must find the Grail and marry someone. Arthur proposes to the Lady of the Lake, and she happily accepts. They plan to marry after Arthur finds the Grail ("Twice in Every Show"). The knights reunite and meet Tim the Enchanter, who warns them of the danger of a killer rabbit . When the rabbit bites a knight's head off, Arthur uses the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch against it, knocking down
32640-560: The name Don Quixote de la Mancha . He recruits as his squire a simple farm labourer, Sancho Panza , who brings a unique, earthy wit to Don Quixote's lofty rhetoric. In the first part of the book, Don Quixote does not see the world for what it is and prefers to imagine that he is living out a knightly story meant for the annals of all time. However, as Salvador de Madariaga pointed out in his Guía del lector del Quijote (1972 [1926]), referring to "the Sanchification of Don Quixote and
32844-418: 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:
33048-412: The novel has an endless range of meanings, but that a recurring theme is the human need to withstand suffering. Edith Grossman , who wrote and published a highly acclaimed English translation of the novel in 2003, says that the book is mostly meant to move people into emotion using a systematic change of course, on the verge of both tragedy and comedy at the same time. Grossman has stated: The question
33252-746: 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
33456-498: 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
33660-818: The original UK touring production played at Politeama Rossetti in Trieste . Eric Idle attended the opening night on 24 May. The Mexican premiere of the show was in July 2011 in Mexico City . The show ran for over 500 performances across the country. The Japanese production ran from 9 to 22 January 2012 at the Akasaka Blitz theater in Tokyo before playing Morinomiya Piloti Hall in Osaka from 2 February to February to 6 February. The production featured Yūsuke Santamaria as King Arthur, Aya Hirano as
33864-459: 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
34068-418: The original script with new jokes, such as a reference to then-Congressman George Santos in "You Won't Succeed on Broadway," a Fiddler on the Roof reference replacing Robin's piano playing in the same song, and DC -related ad libs. It was announced on August 2, 2023, that the Kennedy Center production would transfer to Broadway at the St. James Theatre , with previews scheduled to begin October 31 before
34272-643: 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
34476-460: The production was seen by more than two million people and grossed over $ 175 million. Tim Curry starred as King Arthur in the original Broadway and West End productions. It was one of eight UK musicals commemorated on Royal Mail stamps, issued in February 2011. A Paramount Pictures film adaptation, directed by Casey Nicholaw in his directorial debut from a script by Idle, was in pre-production as of 2021. Idle later stated on Twitter that
34680-705: 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
34884-451: 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
35088-423: The road and he quickly tells Quixote that they are Dulcinea and her ladies-in-waiting and as beautiful as ever. Since Quixote only sees the peasant girls, Sancho goes on to pretend that an enchantment of some sort is at work. A duke and duchess encounter the duo. These nobles have read Part One of the story and are themselves very fond of books of chivalry. They decide to play along for their own amusement, beginning
35292-432: The safety of the wings before the French soldiers catapult the Trojan rabbit at them. The knights are separated after the French soldiers' attack. Arthur and Patsy become lost in a "dark and very expensive forest". Arthur meets the terrifying but silly Knights Who Say Ni , who demand a shrubbery . Arthur has no idea where to find a shrubbery, but Patsy cheers him up (" Always Look on the Bright Side of Life ") and they find
35496-399: The same Monty Python member were reduced to one: the Dead Collector and Sir Robin (Idle), the Large Man with a Dead Body and Sir Lancelot (Cleese), and Dennis the Politically-Active Peasant and Sir Galahad (Michael Palin). In the 2023 production, the actor playing the Historian does not portray the French Taunter's best friend, but instead plays a mime, as well as a baby and a nun. Previews of
35700-439: The same time, Stephen Sondheim found success with some of his musicals, as mentioned above. Don Quixote Don Quixote , the full title being The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha , is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes . It was originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615. Considered a founding work of Western literature , it is often said to be the first modern novel . Don Quixote
35904-415: 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
36108-403: The show began in Chicago 's Shubert Theatre (now the CIBC Theatre ) on 21 December 2004; the show officially opened there on 9 January 2005. Two musical numbers were dropped from Act One while the production was still in Chicago. During the scene set in the "Witch Village", the torch song "Burn Her!" was originally performed by Sir Bedevere , The Witch, Sir Robin, Lancelot and Villagers. At
36312-420: 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
36516-407: 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
36720-400: The shrubbery, but then demand that Arthur put on a musical and bring it to Broadway "but not an Andrew Lloyd Webber ", with the mere mention of his name causing everyone to cover their ears and scream in pain (in the United Kingdom , this became a West End musical; on the tour, they must put on a "Broadway musical". Robin insists that it would be impossible to accomplish this next task, since
36924-476: 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
37128-402: 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
37332-412: The story by saying that he has found manuscripts of Quixote's further adventures. Although the two parts are now published as a single work, Don Quixote, Part Two was a sequel published ten years after the original novel. In an early example of metafiction , Part Two indicates that several of its characters have read the first part of the novel and are thus familiar with the history and peculiarities of
37536-436: The story, but dies of grief before he can finish. Lothario is killed in battle soon afterward and Camilla dies of grief. The novel's farcical elements make use of punning and similar verbal playfulness. Character-naming in Don Quixote makes ample figural use of contradiction, inversion, and irony, such as the names Rocinante (a reversal) and Dulcinea (an allusion to illusion), and the word quixote itself, possibly
37740-515: 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
37944-623: 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
38148-410: The tall, thin, fancy-struck and idealistic Quixote and the fat, squat, world-weary Panza is a motif echoed ever since the book's publication, and Don Quixote's imaginings are the butt of outrageous and cruel practical jokes in the novel. Even faithful and simple Sancho is forced to deceive him at certain points. The novel is considered a satire of orthodoxy , veracity and even nationalism. In exploring
38352-434: The tour as King Arthur. The tour continued through the summer 2009, and played its final performances at the Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa where it closed on 18 October 2009. A production of the musical began in Las Vegas, Nevada , previewed on 8 March 2007 and opened on 31 March 2007 at the Wynn Las Vegas in the newly renamed Grail Theater. As with other Las Vegas transfers of Broadway musicals, including The Phantom of
38556-487: The traditional English spelling-based pronunciation with the value of the letter x in modern English is still sometimes used, resulting in / ˈ k w ɪ k s ə t / or / ˈ k w ɪ k s oʊ t / . In Australian English , the preferred pronunciation amongst members of the educated classes was / ˈ k w ɪ k s ə t / until well into the 1970s, as part of a tendency for the upper class to "anglicise its borrowing ruthlessly". The traditional English rendering
38760-623: 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
38964-492: The transition of modern literature from dramatic to thematic unity. The novel takes place over a long period of time, including many adventures united by common themes of the nature of reality, reading, and dialogue in general. Although burlesque on the surface, the novel, especially in its second half, has served as an important thematic source not only in literature but also in much of art and music, inspiring works by Pablo Picasso and Richard Strauss . The contrasts between
39168-446: The two protagonists. Don Quixote and Sancho are on their way to El Toboso to meet Dulcinea, with Sancho aware that his story about Dulcinea was a complete fabrication. They reach the city at daybreak and decide to enter at nightfall. However, a bad omen frightens Quixote into retreat and they quickly leave. Sancho is instead sent out alone by Quixote to meet Dulcinea and act as a go-between. Sancho's luck brings three peasant girls along
39372-449: 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
39576-432: The wiser. Later, the maid's lover is discovered by Anselmo. Fearing that Anselmo will kill her, the maid says she will tell Anselmo a secret the next day. Anselmo tells Camilla that this is to happen, and Camilla expects that her affair is to be revealed. Lothario and Camilla flee that night. The maid flees the next day. Anselmo searches for them in vain before learning from a stranger of his wife's affair. He starts to write
39780-464: 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
39984-453: The world's admiration for the mediaeval chivalry-silliness out of existence". It has been described by some as the greatest work ever written. For Cervantes and the readers of his day, Don Quixote was a one-volume book published in 1605, divided internally into four parts, not the first part of a two-part set. The mention in the 1605 book of further adventures yet to be told was totally conventional, did not indicate any authorial plans for
40188-420: 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
40392-420: 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
40596-547: Was a friend of the family Villaseñor, which was involved in a combat with Francisco de Acuña. Both sides combated disguised as medieval knights in the road from El Toboso to Miguel Esteban in 1581. They also found a person called Rodrigo Quijada, who bought the title of nobility of "hidalgo", and created diverse conflicts with the help of a squire. It is not certain when Cervantes began writing Part Two of Don Quixote , but he had probably not proceeded much further than Chapter LIX by late July 1614. In about September, however,
40800-468: 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
41004-483: 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
41208-402: Was included in the 2023 season of the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario , Canada with a cast featuring Jonathan Goad as King Arthur, Eddie Glen as Patsy, Aaron Krohn as Sir Lancelot, Trevor Patt as Sir Robin, Liam Tobin as Sir Galahad and Jennifer Rider-Shaw as the Lady of the Lake. This production was directed by Lezlie Wade. Book-writer and lyricist Eric Idle explained the title in
41412-452: 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
41616-425: 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
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