Music and Pop Culture: A Closer Look at the American Musical

Early History

Musicals are a type of theatrical performance that largely incorporates singing and dance in place of typical spoken dialogue. Musicals were very popular in Europe and immigrants settling in America brought their love of this performance art with them. The first ever recorded musical performed on American soil was Flora, a British ballad opera. In 1752, Lewis Hallam and his brother, William, started the first prominent theater in the American Colonies, in Virginia and later moved to continue in New York. Their company was known as The Hallam Company and the name was later changed to The American Company. When Lewis Hallam died, his wife remarried and her new husband, David Douglass, continued to run the company, then renamed as the Douglass-Hallam Theater. Around this time, burlesque was beginning to attract attention as another form of entertainment that combined musicality and theater, although much more risqué than the traditional musical. The mid-1800s also brought about minstrel shows that largely centered on stereotyping and ridiculing African slaves who were commonly employed in households and farms at the time. These minstrel shows did include music with theatrical dance but they were loosely structured in terms of plot or specific characters.

In 1834, Phineas Taylor Barnum arrived in New York City and began an act called Barnum’s Grand Scientific and Musical Theater. His act included freak shows and musical entertainment. In the early 1900s, vaudeville became a defining feature of American pop culture at the time, combining variety shows with music and theater. As the economy strengthened, the glitz and glam of the Roaring Twenties were translated to Broadway and attending musicals became a thing of luxury and entertaining extravagance. Even in its early days, Broadway theater was becoming more renowned, and New York was making a name for itself in association with large and lavish musical productions. In the 1950s, the off-Broadway movement started as a way to introduce theater and musical performances which were unrelated to the enormity of Broadway. A decade later, the off-off-Broadway movement was introduced as an escape from both Broadway and off-Broadway. It essentially shunned the commercial aspects of musical theater and provided a place for beginner actors to start out.

Famous Musicals

There is no doubt that Broadway has consistently produced some of the most famous American musicals over the years. In the early 1890s, the comedic musical, A Trip to Chinatown, which had been performed 657 times, made history as the most performed act until then at Broadway. African-Americans were also making their mark in musicals following much stereotyping and racial adversity. One of the best known and longest running performances is The Rocky Horror Picture Show which premiered in the seventies and has since gained a cult following. Other popular and long-running musicals include Hairspray, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Fiddler on the Roof. Successful and famous musicals aren’t only limited to modern versions.

Modern Day Musicals

Modern American musicals tend to incorporate a good deal of pop culture as well current music to make the performance relative to today’s audiences. Musicals such as Rent, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Jersey Boys not only incorporated cultural themes from recent decades but they also used contemporary rock for the musical aspect. Occasionally some musicals like the long-running Wicked! have broken numerous performance records and gone on to win several prestigious awards. Whereas in the past, musicals were normally mostly for an adult crowd, modern musicals also cater to children as seen in performances like Shrek, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Annie and several others (notably many based on Disney films).

With the introduction of television and major Hollywood budgets, many well-known musicals are often adapted as film versions today. Over the last few years, television producers have taken the concept of the traditional musical one step further. TV shows like Glee, High School Musical and Hannah Montana use the concept of musicals as the key focus of the show and have been rated as highly successful shows among adults and children alike.