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Early Musical Theatre In The Early 1900s

1065 Words5 Pages

In the 1800s to early 1900s, minstrelsy started to become prevalent in the theatre community, appealing to the people of the lower class. It unfortunately consisted of only hateful material, and racial discrimination. This lasted for nearly the entirety of 1800 and the early parts of 1900. While this was a form of light, even if hateful, entertainment, it did not compare to other shows going on during this time period. The more prominent shows that people saw in theatres contained some songs, but were not yet considered to be musicals. Some were simply regular plays, with a few songs thrown in to entertain the audience further. This eventually led to the invention of ballad operas. Ballad operas took popular tunes of the day and changed the lyrics of the songs to comedically fit their purpose in the plot. The form of early musical theatre that is closest to the musical today is the French and Viennese Operettas. These featured romantic storylines, new scores, and used characters that were considered upper class, as opposed to other operas that used characters that resembled criminals. This type of operettas resembles shows many shows that are playing in New York now. Variety shows were a form of entertainment from the late 1800’s. Most featured …show more content…

The fandom was losing interest. The crowd were the ones deciding what shows stayed on Broadway. At this point, Broadway musicals were starting to die, causing worry among the crowd. “New musicals required the backing of multi-million dollar corporations.” Shows like RENT, which were popular with the musical theatre fandom, were funded by smaller corporations. (Kenrick 28 May 2018). RENT was a rock opera. Rock operas had existed as early as the 70s, but RENT was one of the shows that really brought it to light. Rock operas usually started out as concept albums, or movies. They were designed to speak to their target audience in a way they could understand, (DK

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Summary Of Two Afro-American Contributions To Dramatic Form

555 Words | 3 Pages

Eleanor W. Traylor essay, Two Afro-American Contributions to Dramatic Form, describe how in the black theatre was, explains the styles of what Afro-American is and the effects. She also explains her arguments; which are what are the minstrel shows and slave narrative. When reading this essay it explains how during this time period oral tradition of black slaves provided a substance of how American choose the dramatic form. This is when the beginning of professional stage an Afro-American theatre was born. What is minstrel shows?

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The Vaudeville: Entertainment In The Modern Age

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The Vaudeville was a collection of skits all of which had the intent of entertaining the crowd, whether through song, dance, comedy, magic, or a combination of them all. Right off the bat they began the illusion with an old time announcer who used a the line "1913, We truly are in the modern age." Which to us is amusing they didn't have movies or TV, they didn't even have smart Phones, but doesn't everyone believe they are in the modern age? There's always going to be something new to distract us and sometimes we can forget about older distractions, I myself did not know what a Vaudeville was before I saw the show. I entered the theater expecting a play or musical, though I was instead welcomed by a pleasant surprise of something different.

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860 Words | 4 Pages

According to the textbook Experience History, The vaudeville Show is a one of the famous theater show of the early 1880s which was popular among the people of the United State and Canada. Vaudeville was an expressive, imaginative, and individual type of well-known diversion in America that spread over the turn of the twentieth century. It starts its popularity from the early 1880s and ends in early 1930s. American delighted this period as a unique development and urbanization, expanding decent variety, and upward social portability. singer, dancer, performers, artists, on-screen characters, and entertainers were welcome.

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366 Words | 2 Pages

Sweeney Todd and A Little Night Music especially, normalized the musical/opera hybrid that can be seen in many of the popular musicals that followed it. Into the Woods was a musical that all

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Astor Place Theater: The History Of Broadway

800 Words | 4 Pages

During this time, many of the actors became unemployed and so they ran off to Hollywood to pursue their acting careers in film. Because of the lack of business many theaters were forced to close their doors (“History of Theater on Broadway”). The Roaring Twenties also had a large impact on Broadway. The music in during the Roaring Twenties took the focus away from the plot of the show and moved it to the individual cast members themselves. The motion pictures also began to have sound and music during this time period so this caused a loss of interest in the Broadway productions (“The History of Broadway Theatre”).

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The Role Of Theatre In The 1920's

272 Words | 2 Pages

Homosexuality, white slavery, and prostitution were new to theatrical musicals in the 1920’s. Theatre in the 1920’s changed a lot from the traditional musicals and plays. The economy was booming so even more people could afford to go see the shows. Women were aso becoming more scandalis and wanted to show if off on the stage. 1920’s theatre had a lot of changes because the economy was booming and people had more money to put into costumes, buildings, sets, and scripts, theatre was also becoming more morally questionable.

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769 Words | 4 Pages

Vaudeville Vaudeville rose to prominence in America from the 1880’s until the 1920’s. A vaudeville show is composed of different acts or segments such as animal acts, magic acts, singing acts, and comedy acts. However, there is much more meaning behind vaudeville than the types of acts it is made up of. Vaudeville encompassed originality, creativity, and rebellion. The shows served as an avenue to introduce things that were not commonly seen by audiences.

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Because of the singers during the Baroque Era enhanced their vocal skills there became some different types of music that was created. Such as opera, similar to a play but is sung throughout and accompanied

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The Group Theatre was created, in 1931, by a group of people who had a unified desire to create a kind of theatre that would positively impact an America that was wrapped in depression. The founders, Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford, and Lee Strasberg wanted to form a permanent ensemble that was dedicated to dramatizing society as they saw it and the group ended up being a response to what they saw as old-fashioned, light entertainment that dominated theatre of the 1920s. The Group Theatre started its journey as a vision in Harold Clurman’s mind. At the time, Clurman was a play reader for the Theatre Guild in New York City.

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1541 Words | 7 Pages

When compared to the average Broadway shows, this was a change as it had more music which was extremely complex and unconventional with a wider variety of musical genres; from vaudeville and Latin rhythms to bebop fugue and quasi-operatic ensembles. West Side Story is also important with regards to making significant changes in the concept of musical theatre. Before this musical was brought out, musicals generally focussed on more pleasant, light-hearted subjects. West Side Story’s use of street slang, a dark urban landscape, and the subject of gang warfare, therefore challenged the normally accepted, and controversial musical subjects. It therefore opened the door for Musical Theatre to explore more serious topics and unpleasant subjects, and furthermore, to challenge society through the use of an entertainment medium which everyone enjoyed.

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1996 Words | 8 Pages

It was an elaborately staged “machine play” that captivated audiences with action, music, dance, movable scenery, baroque illusionistic painting, gorgeous costumes, and special effects such as trapdoor tricks, “flying” actors, and fireworks. These shows may have had a bad reputation as vulgar and a threat to the witty, “legitimate” Restoration drama, but they drew the largest audiences and left them dazzled and delighted. These spectaculars were sometimes referred to as “English opera” but the immense variety of them leads most theatre historians to declare that they have no genre at all. Not very many of the works fell under the opera category; the musical dimension was far less comparable to the visual. Companies would spend so much on their special effects that if their show was not well received, then they would suffer huge losses, while blockbusters would be comfortably in the black for a long

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