American Musical - A very, very,very short history!!!!!!

Forerunners:

            Ballad Opera (England) - 1st ballad opera “Flora” in 1735

            Burlesque:  parodies of famous plays, performers or dancers using song, dance pantomime and dialogue Foreign importations - were extravaganzas and spectacles

A particularly sensational burlesque was “The Black Crook” in 1866.  It introduced some of the ritual in Musical comedy - chorus girls, ornate production numbers, elaborate costumes, large dance numbers etc.  It was American written but still an imitation of European extravaganzas. 

Operettas:  After the middle 1860’s American was flooded with European operettas - Gilbert & Sullivan, Offenbach, Strauss II etc.  1st successful American operetta - Spencer’s, The Little Tycoon 1886 (It was successful because the Mikado had been so successful.)   Then Victor Herbert,  Friml and Romberg wrote American operettas.

Minstrel Show:  around 1843 exploitation of the humor, dance and song of the African/American.  Grew to be a slight plot with the humor, speech patterns, songs and dances of particular ethnic groups i.e. Irish, Germans, Blacks, Jews etc.

George M. Cohan first to (turn of the 20th century - librettist, lyricist, composer) make an American sounding product - brash, energetic & chauvinistic.  Established procedures in musical comedy:  

-           Any plot no matter how far-fetched was ok as long as it could be a framework for music and dance and comedy. 

-           Written for a star or group of stars under contract not because of a story. 

-           The important thing was the business given to the stars not the story. 

-           Big production numbers at the end of each act. 

-           Chorus lines. 

-           Boy captures girl

-           Villain gets his or her due.

Jerome Kern - Witty dialogue sophistication

Rodgers & Hart - taboo material:  dream psychology, history, literature - lifted it to another level. Then Gershwin  and others.