A six-part documentary about the Broadway musical.
Stars: Julie Andrews (narrator).
Note to self: on the extra features, Play All doesn't, it only plays all for that episode. Click on More to access the interviews for the 2nd episode on the disc.
I wonder if any university has a year-long course covering this topic. That would be a course I'd like to take, _if_ they had clips for illustration as this does.
Stole the descriptions below from IMDb, mostly for the chronology and the names dropped. Kudos to the plot author Huggo, who currently has 11,663 plot summaries on IMDb.
Give My Regards to Broadway: 1893-1927: At the beginning of the twentieth century, Broadway was dominated by two names: George M. Cohan and Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.. Cohan wrote and starred in his own shows. Ziegfeld pioneered the revue show, most notably The Follies fashioned after the Follies Bergere of Paris. His shows were an amalgam of American life at the time, most notably what was happening in New York. The show also borrowed heavily from musical theater of the period, namely vaudeville and minstrel shows. From these came many of Ziegfeld's biggest acts, such as Fanny Brice and Bert Williams, who broke the color barrier. But what the Ziegfeld Follies did more than anything was glorify the American girl by featuring them in exotic and flamboyant costumes. Two major composers emerged from this era of Broadway: Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern, who were based in an area of New York called Tin Pan Alley, the center of popular music. Kern in particular, with production by Ziegfeld and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, would lead Broadway into a new era with the 1927 stage production of 'Show Boat', the first Broadway story musical. But the advent of talking movies would usher in the new era of musicals to the American public.
Syncopated City: 1919-1933: The radical cultural changes that occurred in the 1920's were reflected in the Broadway musical. Musically, jazz ruled the Broadway musical stage. There was also a sense of liberation in the style of the performances, in part as a reaction to the supposed strictness of Prohibition. What ended up on stage were primarily musical comedies, still revue style, more often than not featuring stories of the newly liberated woman, often poor, who ends up with a rich husband. These stories reflected the newly mingling classes that spent time together in the speakeasies in New York, and the American fantasy of dreams coming true. Although the classes were mixing, colors still did not. However, black musicals were also featured on Broadway, such as composers Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle's 1921 show, "Shuffle Along", which did influence the big names of the time, such as Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. and Irving Berlin. Broadway musical stars of the time included singer Al Jolson, dancer Marilyn Miller and comedians The Marx Brothers. Another influential behind the scenes figure was producer/dancer George White, whose new dances, such as The Charleston, were all the rage. Young songwriting teams were emerging, such as composer George Gershwin/lyricist Ira Gershwin, composer Richard Rodgers/lyricist Lorenz Hart, and composer Ray Henderson/lyricists Buddy G. DeSylva and Lew Brown. Media of the time helped disseminate what was happening on Broadway to the American masses, most specifically through radio commentator and newspaper columnist Walter Winchell, who coined the nickname 'The Big Apple'. But the advent of talking motion pictures coinciding with the stock market crash ended what was the golden age of Broadway.
I Got Plenty o' Nuttin': 1929-1942: The Great Depression ushered in a new era of the Broadway musical. Gone were the frothy, nonsensical shows of the 1920s. Broadway musicals were now either reflective of the harsh times (such as "Americana" which featured the unofficial anthem of the era, 'Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?'), political (such as the Gershwin's satire "Of Thee I Sing", the first musical whose book won the Pulitzer Prize) or earthy (such as the Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess"). Shows even dared to have as the leads unsavory characters, such as in "Pal Joey". When the shows were lighter in fare, they were more glamorous and sophisticated, which was evidenced in the shows of the young, urbane composer, Cole Porter. The Broadway musical was also aided by the Federal Theater, designed to mount productions so that people could work. One of the most notorious of these productions was "The Cradle Will Rock". New stars of the era included Ethel Merman with her trumpet-like voice, Ethel Waters who could not read music but who could sing a variety of musical styles, and young dancers Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. The United States' entry into World War II was also reflected on Broadway, most notably in Irving Berlin's "This Is the Army", which featured real life enlisted soldiers and Berlin himself.
Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin': 1943-1960: Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II - a newly formed songwriting team due to Lorenz Hart's ill health - ushered in a new era of the Broadway musical with the revolutionary production of "Oklahoma!", in what was called the first integrated musical where the songs, musical score and choreography were all in support of moving the story forward. For Hammerstein, stories previously thought of as taboo were now ripe for transformation into Broadway musicals. Rodgers and Hammerstein were the premier songwriters of this form. What they also pioneered was the first act conditional ballad, where the romantic leads could sing about the scenario "what if we were in love". New teams were taking up the integrated musical form, including composer Leonard Bernstein, lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green and choreographer Jerome Robbins with their show "On the Town", and Frank Loesser/Abe Burrows' show "Guys and Dolls" (with choreography by Michael Kidd), which was renowned for its use of everyday language in its songs. Established composers also took up the form. Even Irving Berlin, who initially dismissed the storybook musical, entered the fray with "Annie Get Your Gun", which was produced by Rodgers and Hammerstein and which contained what has become the unofficial anthem of musical theater: 'There's No Business Like Show Business'. The notion of the required romantic pairing in musicals changed with composer Frederick Loewe and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner's production of "My Fair Lady". One of the most acclaimed musicals of the era came to pass when actress Mary Martin asked, solely by chance, Rodgers and Hammerstein to write a single song for a play in which she was working. That play and song were eventually transformed into "The Sound of Music". This would become Rodgers and Hammerstein's last collaboration before Hammerstein's passing.
Tradition: 1957-1979: The new innovative musical on Broadway starting this era was "West Side Story", the first musical to integrate dance movement into the everyday movement of the characters. The movement was matched by Leonard Bernstein's frenetic score. It also marked the start of the renown of the choreographer/director Jerome Robbins. The era also introduced a plethora of some of what are now considered the most popular but what would have then been also considered traditional musicals, such as "Bye Bye Birdie", "Camelot", "Funny Girl", "Gypsy", "Hello, Dolly!", "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", "The Music Man" and "Fiddler on the Roof". Of these, the latter may have been the most profound in its subject matter - the breaking of tradition - as the Vietnam War and rock music had the effect of needing to rethink the presentation of the traditional musical. There were a few shows which embraced the culture of the time, most notably "Hair". But on the most part, Broadway musicals had been, and still were, geared toward the upper middle class. The parting of the cultures meant that Broadway was no longer the primary source for popular music. Shows morphed into direct or indirect commentaries of the times and that were brazen in their presentation, shows such as "Cabaret" and "Company". New behind-the-scenes names included: director/choreographer Bob Fosse, with such shows as "Pippin" and "Chicago"; composer John Kander/lyricist Fred Ebb, with such shows as "Cabaret" and "Chicago"; and composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim/director Harold Prince, with such shows as "Company", "A Little Night Music", "Pacific Overtures" and "Sweeney Todd". The latter pairing was renowned for taking unconventional stories, even deemed uncomfortable for the audience, and turning them into musicals. Undoubtedly, the most successful musical of the era and up to that time in Broadway's history was one that started out as an experimental project on the life of the dancer: Michael Bennett's "A Chorus Line".
Putting It Together: 1980-Present: It is fitting that "The Producers", an homage to the making of Broadway musicals, is one the biggest hits to end this era of Broadway musicals as the producer once again comes to the forefront. Three producers dominate the era. Nicknamed the Abominable Showman, David Merrick, who was at the tail end of his career, was known as the type of producer who would do anything needed to get what publicity he wanted for his shows. Cameron Mackintosh, the producer of four of the top six most successful musicals ever in "Cats", "The Phantom of the Opera", "Les Misérables" and "Miss Saigon", revolutionized the idea of bringing overseas productions to Broadway, which in turn brought them to the rest of the world via touring companies. And Michael Eisner brought the popular entertainment of the Disney Corporation's animated musical movies to the stage, which introduced the notion of corporate investment in Broadway itself. Other notable musicals of the era include "Sunday in the Park with George", the first collaboration between composer Stephen Sondheim and director James Lapine and whose development mirrors the story of the making of art; "La Cage aux folles", based on the movie La cage aux folles (1978), the stage production which is old fashioned in score but revolutionary in story as the first successful show featuring a gay romance at its core; and the Pulitzer Prize winning "Rent", the death of its creator, Jonathan Larson, on the day before the first preview echoing what was being presented on stage. Two events shape the era. The first is the AIDS crisis, which took the lives of many of those associated with Broadway. The second is 9/11, which had the initial effect of making Broadway a ghost town, but whose longer term effect has been the resurgence of the musical comedy and using recognizable titles for new productions, such as "Hairspray" and "Wicked", the latter which has the known connection for the public to The Wizard of Oz (1939).
Rated 8.6 (298)
distr. PBS, dir. various; 8
