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The Secret Life Of The American Musical By Jack Viertel

929 Words4 Pages

The Secret Life of the American Musical is a wonderful book by Jack Viertel that lays out a fantastic road map of what can really help to make a musical great. I haven't read it personally, but Ive been lucky enough to have a fantastic educator give me the memorable bullet points. The gist I've gathered is that the songs in most good pieces of modern American musical theatre tend of adhere to a structured order of mood and intention. Each of these of categories of song are given elegant titles and descriptions. The goal of this paper is to argue that Disney's stage musical version of Beauty and the Beast fulfills the majority of the necessary song categories in order to qualify as what Viertel would consider a good musical. The first song in an musical is the “opening number”, this is simple because every show has to start right? These numbers usually accomplish many things simultaneously. This song firstly introduces us to the world of the show we are about to watch and rules that govern that world. it also allows us to meet many of the characters who will be on stage for the majority of the show. The opening number in Beauty and the Beast is “Belle”. This song is a strong opening number that really opens the show with a bang. It does a fantastic job of developing the rules of the world and developing the setting and larger would of show. It introduces us …show more content…

We are shown here lovely voice and her cutesy, lovely, infectious interactions with some of the friendly towns folk and we learn she loves to read. Things quickly change when the rest of the townsfolk

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