theatre mod 6

Book musicals

Shows (also called musical plays) generally based on a literary source with a clear beginning, middle, and end, privileging a traditional, serious, forward-moving narrative.

Minstrelsy

An 18th- and 19th-century entertainment tradition involving white (and later Black) performers coloring their skin with burnt cork to imitate Black Americans in variety comic skits and songs.

In Dahomey (1903)

An early musical comedy by Will Marion Cook and Paul Dunbar drawing on minstrelsy traditions, featuring performer Bert Williams and depicting African Americans traveling to Dahomey.

Pantomime

Theatrical presentations that used gestures performed in silence, accompanied by instrumental underscoring to create a specific mood.

Underscoring

Instrumental music occurring during theatrical gestures or underlying spoken dialogue to heighten emotional effect and set a mood.

Spectacles

Theatrical productions featuring dance, elaborate scenery, sets, costumes, and sophisticated stage machinery.

Extravaganzas

Theatrical shows incorporating dance, elaborate scenery, costumes, and stage machinery alongside elements of melodrama and fantasy.

The Black Crook (1866)

A 5.5-hour blockbuster extravaganza featuring popular song interpolations, elaborate spectacle, and a 100-plus dancer chorus line, widely cited as the first precursor to the 20th-century musical.

Burlesque

A theatrical genre emphasizing broad comedy and sexual content, filled with puns, innuendos, topical references, and spoofs of contemporary society.

Melodrama

A late 19th-century British theatrical form using short musical passages alternating with or underlying spoken dialogue to heighten dramatic affect.

Revue

An 1890s–1930s style of entertainment combining extravaganza elements, vaudeville skits, tableaux vivants, and beautiful chorus girls loosely tied by an overarching theme.

Tableaux vivants

Still bodies (often scantily clad or partially nude) arranged in attractive formations to impart a sensuous tone to theatrical revues.

Impresario

A producer, director, or theatre manager who determines and maintains a consistent artistic vision for recurring productions, such as Florenz Ziegfeld.

Variety

An 1850s form of entertainment featuring skits, gags, and specialized acts performed primarily in male-only concert saloons.

Vaudeville

Alcohol-free variety theatre adapted during the 1880s–1910s to clean up the form, focus on individual acts without a plot, and attract family audiences.

Tin Pan Alley

Nickname for the 28th Street area in Manhattan where sheet music publishers operated from the 1880s to the 1950s, as well as the popular songs published there.

Song pluggers

Musicians hired by sheet music publishers to play songs on store pianos to persuade customers to buy sheet music.

Song form

A 32-measure musical structure following an AABA pattern, consisting of a repeated section, a contrasting section, and a return to the initial material.

Operetta

Light opera featuring comic stories, lyrical waltzes, and a continuous narrative structure that heavily influenced the development of the book musical.

Show Boat (1927)

A landmark book musical by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II based on Edna Ferber's novel, featuring integrated songs and tackling serious issues of race, class, and miscegenation.

Dream ballet

An extended dance sequence originated by Agnes de Mille in Oklahoma! (1943) where dancers act out a character's inner dream.

Symphonic musicals

Book musicals of the 1940s and 1950s that were symphonic in conception and execution, requiring full classical pit orchestras.

Concept musical

A non-linear 1970s theatrical style that focuses on meditations and explorations of specific themes rather than traditional linear storytelling.

Megamusicals

Large-scale productions (also called poperas) emphasizing massive visual spectacle and pop-influenced, continuously sung music with no spoken dialogue.

Rock musical

A musical theatre genre incorporating rock music as its primary musical language or as a central stylistic element.

Jukebox musical

A musical (also called a compilation show) constructed around pre-existing popular songs from a single artist, group, or era.