Musicals actually started with the ancient Greeks who put on plays with songs. While they weren't called musicals at the time, that is indeed what they were. The music was crude by today's standards and the stories were not very well done, again by today's standards, but this was the early beginning of what was to become the modern musical.
In the 1700s there were many stage entertainments, though again they were not called musicals. The first English language work that had any lasting value was The Beggar's Opera which was done in 1728. It was a satirical spoof of the times. This was typical of the type of entertainment one would find up until the 1800's.
Musicals, as we know them today, started in the 1800s with the French and Viennese Operettas. The works of Offenbach and Strauss were the first musicals to achieve international popularity.
The contemporary Broadway musical, as we know it today, took its form from these operettas and was done in what we call Minstrel Shows. These eventually gave way to a new form of musical known as Vaudeville.
It wasn't until 1860 with the success of The Black Crook that the American musical really began to take off. During this time we were treated to the great works of Gilbert and Sullivan from 1871 to 1896.
During the early 1900s, composers like George M. Cohan and Victor Herbert gave musicals a new sound and style that is still popular to this very day. This style was then updated by composers such as Jerome Kern, Guy Boulton and P.G. Wodehouse.
By the 1930s the American musical had reached popularity the like of which it had never seen before, with composers such as Rogers and Hart and Cole Porter dominating the era.
By the 40s and 50s we were treated to some of the greatest musicals in what was called the modern era. These musicals included such classics as Oklahoma, Annie Get Your Gun, Kiss Me Kate, The King and I, My Fair Lady, and the list goes on for miles.
In the 1960s we saw such great musicals like Hello Dolly, Fiddler On The Roof, and Hair, which was the first musical in the United States to feature nude actors.
By the 1970s musical theater had become pretty extravagant with the advances in technology and design. The 70s brought us such great shows as A Little Night Music, A Chorus Line, No No Nanette, Sweeney Todd and Evita.
But the hits kept coming and would continue to come, many from Britain. In the 80s we saw such great shows like Cats, Les Miserables and Phantom Of The Opera.
In the 25 years since, literally hundreds of musicals have hit the stage. Some great, some not so great. But what was once a humble beginning is now one of the major forms of entertainment, not only in the United States but all across the world.
The Black CrookThe Black Crook is considered to be the first piece of musical theatre that conforms to the modern notion of a "book musical". The book is by Charles M. Barras (1826-1873), an American playwright. The music is mostly adaptations, but some new songs were composed for the play, notably "March of the Amazons" by Giuseppe Operti, and "You Naughty, Naughty Men",
with music by George Bickwell and lyrics by Theodore Kennick.
It opened on September 12, 1866 at the 3,200-seat Niblo's Garden on Broadway, New York City and ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. It then toured for decades and revived on Broadway in 1870-71, 1871-72 and many more times after that. It was originally produced by the theatre's manager, William Wheatley, who also directed. The cast also included Annie Kemp Bowler, Charles Morton, Marie Bonfanti, J.W. Blaisdell, E.B. Holmes, Millie Cavendish and George Boniface.
The Black Crook gave America claim to having originated the musical. It is considered a prototype of the modern musical in that its popular songs and dances are interspersed throughout a unifying play and performed by the actors.
Vaudeville and George M. Cohan
Some would claim that the history of Broadway Musicals all began with the songwriter George M. Cohan. Born on the fourth of July in 1878 to an Irish family of traveling stage entertainers – the Four Cohans, “America’s Favorite Family” – Cohan made his way in
Vaudeville. He acted, danced, sang , wrote and composed, directed and produced. At the age of 13 he broke out on his own by landing a lead role in Peck’s Bad Boy in which he was a hit. Cohan’s real fame came with the 1904 hit Little Johnny Jones in which we can hear the classic song Give My Regards to Broadway for which the audience went wild.
Cohan inspired a whole new generation of American stage composers that add to the rich history of Broadway musicals. Among them was Jerome Kern, (Very Good Eddie), Harry Tierney (Irene) and others.
Many of these new composers hailed from the “Tin Pan Alley” group of songwriters that incorporated a lot of what was called “ragtime” music that added more toe tapping and finger snapping numbers rather than the sentimental sappy songs from the European operettas of the past. Ragtime music would help usher in the jazz age that was just ahead.
George Balanchine was probably the first person to incorporate balletic choreography into Broadway musicals. This started in 1936, when he choreographed for the Ziegfeld Follies and the show 'On Your Toes.' The newer shows on Broadway show a return to vibrant choreography that has been a part of the history of Broadway musicals.
The Golden Age - Rodgers and Hammerstein
Probably two of the most popular names in the History of Broadway Musicals that most people associate with “the musical” are, Rogers and Hammerstein or Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Together, they created a string of immensely popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s during what is considered the golden age of the musical. Their partnership began as students at Columbia University, where they met working on the Varsity Show. Five of their shows, Oklahoma!(their first post-collegiate collaboration), Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and the ever popular The Sound of Music, were outstanding successes. In all, among the many accolades their shows (and their film versions) garnered were thirty-four Tony Awards,[1] fifteen Academy Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, and two Grammys. If you'd like to have a great collection of some of their best, I recommend : The Golden Songs of Rodgers & Hammerstein, 1943-1959
