Last 50 Years of Uk Musical Theatre

Last 50 Years of Uk Musical Theatre

Introduction

The Musical theatre within its existence developed variety of forms and genres, becoming as a result an important segment of performing arts industry.

The aim of the following report is to underline key historical movements, and significant events that occurred within last 50 years of its history. It will also be analyzing the environmental forces impacting the sector within a fifty-year timeline.

Further, the paper will demonstrate examples of how musical theatre can impact surrounding environment and main ethical concerns occurring within the industry.

A brief overview on working in the musical theatre will be presented along with appropriate examples of career opportunities.

Finally, following the analysis, the report will outline some trends and challenges which are likely to occur within musical theatre in years to come.

History and Development of Musical Theatre.

When defining Musical genre, one may say, that it is a stage or TV production, comprising of music, songs, dance and optional dialogue. Some of the musical plays, fully integrated into well-made story, which evoke a variety of emotions, are called Book Musicals.

Shorter and focused mainly on laughter are Revues, known as student entertainment. These, combine music, dance and sketches and its role is to display current matters, politics and public people in the most humorous way.

By the 18th century two forms of musical theatre were growing popular in Britain: Ballad Opera and Comic Opera. The main difference between the two is that Ballad Opera involved a love story, when Comic Opera involved just comic nature topic, usually with a happy ending.

When talking about development of musicals, ''H.M.S Pinafore'' (1878) has to be referred as well. Among its other influences on popular culture, Pinafore had perhaps its most profound influence on the development of musical theatre.

According to theatre historian John Kenrick, show demonstrated ability to address contemporary social and political issues without sacrificing entertainment value and created perfectly technically integrated musicals, where books, lyrics and music were combined for the first time to form an integral whole.

Focusing on the last 50-60 years of the musicals development, the play ''Oklahoma'', composed by Rogers and Hammerstein in 1943 should be mentioned.

Although it was produced in Broadway, ''Oklahoma'' was an important milestone in the history of musicals, as a genre. Most importantly, it was one of the first musicals to use music to not only comment on the plot but also add to its development. Secondly, the sensational choreography by Agnes DeMille made it the first true triple-threat musical where the quality of all three musical components, singing, acting and dancing was outstanding.

Clearly, musical theatre was at this time growing in popularity and improving its image, however, certain boundaries were still successfully controlling its potential.

Within those boundaries conceived is the next famous UK musical ''Salad Days''-1954. ''A light, entertaining show, at the heart of which is a nostalgic innocence conjuring up a friendly picture of British stereotypes…'' ('' The Cambridge companion to the musical'', p 114-126)

''Salad Days'' went into the London's Vaudeville in 1954 and was played there until 1960. It is important to say that the title is taken from William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra: "My salad days, When I was green in judgment, cold in blood, To say as I said then!", and the phrase is now used to refer to one's days of youthful inexperience.

In 1960, following the success of ''Salad Days'' come the debut of ''Oliver Twist'', one of the most famous musicals worldwide. ''Oliver!'' was the first musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' work, to become a stage hit, and it is one of the reasons why it attracted attention. Moreover for the first time, a rotating stage set was used, an innovation designed by Sean Kenny.

This, one may say, was one of the most dramatized of Dickens works, set in the Victorian-era in England, at a time when there was little public aid for the poor. It shows life of a young orphan, who has to go through cruelty and poverty created by a grown up world.

As the Hippie culture evolved in 1960's on stage appeared another successful musical, ''Hair''. This is a US production, hugely controversial at the time of its debut, including rock music for the first time in musical history. The show opened in London in 1968 and