The Musical as Drama
eBook - ePub

The Musical as Drama

  1. 256 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Musical as Drama

About this book

Derived from the colorful traditions of vaudeville, burlesque, revue, and operetta, the musical has blossomed into America's most popular form of theater. Scott McMillin has developed a fresh aesthetic theory of this underrated art form, exploring the musical as a type of drama deserving the kind of critical and theoretical regard given to Chekhov or opera. Until recently, the musical has been considered either an "integrated" form of theater or an inferior sibling of opera. McMillin demonstrates that neither of these views is accurate, and that the musical holds true to the disjunctive and irreverent forms of popular entertainment from which it arose a century ago.


Critics and composers have long held the musical to the standards applied to opera, asserting that each piece should work together to create a seamless drama. But McMillin argues that the musical is a different form of theater, requiring the suspension of the plot for song. The musical's success lies not in the smoothness of unity, but in the crackle of difference. While disparate, the dancing, music, dialogue, and songs combine to explore different aspects of the action and the characters.


Discussing composers and writers such as Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Kander and Ebb, Leonard Bernstein, and Jerome Kern, The Musical as Drama describes the continuity of this distinctively American dramatic genre, from the shows of the 1920s and 1930s to the musicals of today.

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Information

Publisher
Princeton University Press
Year
2014
Print ISBN
9780691164625
9780691127309
eBook ISBN
9781400865406
Topic
Media & Performing Arts
Subtopic
Music

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Contents
  5. List of Illustrations
  6. Preface
  7. Chapter One: Integration and Difference
  8. Chapter Two: The Book and the Numbers
  9. Chapter Three: Character and the Voice of the Musical
  10. Chapter Four: The Ensemble Effect
  11. Chapter Five: The Drama of Numbers
  12. Chapter Six: The Orchestra
  13. Chapter Seven: Narration and Technology: Systems of Omniscience
  14. Chapter Eight: What Kind of Drama Is This?
  15. Bibliography
  16. Index

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Yes, you can access The Musical as Drama by H. Scott McMillin in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Media & Performing Arts & Music. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.