The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey
eBook - ePub

The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey

About this book

To see a Broadway musical is to experience how a drama, using melody, harmony, and rhythm, evokes the emotion needed to perpetuate a story line. Without music, many of these plays would not succeed, failing to convey the intended message. This new edition of Swain's classic text, winner of the 1991 ASCAP Deems Taylor Award, reveals how a musical drama achieves plot movement, character development and conflict through strategic placement of song and music in 20 musical plays. Unlike critical literature that has simply explored theatrical style and production histories, this survey focuses mainly on the power of music. Illustrated with more than 150 musical excerpts and essays, Swain includes the latest research and viewpoints of contemporary critics, offering insight into dramatic expression and how renowned composers including Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Jerry Bock, Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber influenced the Broadway musical.

This provides insights into the many impressive musicals to hit the stage between the years of 1927 and 1987, illuminating how specific revisions to productions such as Showboat and, Oklahoma! forever changed their popularity. Learn how music is used as a symbol for psychological or emotional action from Shakespearean drama's such as Kiss Me, Kate and West Side Story, to more current dramas including Godspell, A Chorus Line, and Jesus Christ Superstar.

Replete with a never seen before essay on Les Misérables, this edition also includes an expanded epilogue highlighting the phenomena behind Miss Saigon and Phantom of the Opera, "megamusicals" that changed the direction of the Broadway tradition.

For professors of dramatic arts and people interested in Broadway musicals, theater, popular music and opera.

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Yes, you can access The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey by Joseph P. Swain in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Media & Performing Arts & Music. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Year
2002
eBook ISBN
9781461664079
Edition
2
Subtopic
Music

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Preface to the First Edition
  7. Preface to the Second Edition
  8. 1 Introduction
  9. 2 First Maturity
  10. 3 America’s Folk Opera
  11. 4 Second Maturity
  12. 5 Morality Play as Musical
  13. 6 Shakespeare as Musical
  14. 7 The Pure Love Story
  15. 8 Myth as Musical
  16. 9 Tragedy as Musical
  17. 10 The Ethnic Musical
  18. 11 Religious Experience as Musical
  19. 12 History as Musical
  20. 13 Frame Story as Musical
  21. 14 Thriller as Musical
  22. 15 Epic as Musical
  23. 16 Epilogue
  24. Endnotes
  25. Index
  26. About the Author