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Musical Theatre Renaissance The antecedents of musical theatre in Europe can be traced back to the theatre of ancient Greece, where dance and music were included in stage comedies and tragedies during the 5th century BCC. The 3rd-century BCC Roman comedies of Plateaus included song and dance routines performed with orchestrations. The Romans also introduced technical innovations. For example, to make dance steps more audible in large open air theatres, Roman actors attached metal chips called Isabella their stage footwear, creating the first tap shoes. Middle Ages
By the Middle Ages, theatre in Europe consisted mostly of traveling minstrels and small performing troupes of performers singing and offering slapstick comedy. 1830 – Minstrel Shows This form of Musical Theatre was entertainment in America, these types of performances contained comical sketches, variety acts, dancing and music. This was performed mainly by white people with ‘black face’ (black painted face) The Minstrel show first began in the sass but did not become popular until the sass. It was still a form of entertainment until 1910, performances from amateurs lasted until the sass.
As black people began to become victorious against racism, the popularity began to decrease. Musicals as we know them today have their roots in opera. An opera is a dramatic presentation in which the story is told through music, similar to modern musicals. Opera got its start in Italy, around the turn of the 17th century. In opera, there is generally no spoken dialogue; sung passages and dramatic arias move the plot along. This is similar to popular sung-through musicals of today, such as Vita, Less Miserable and Phantom Of The Opera. 50 This type of musical theatre was popular between 1850 and 1960 and it was known as Musical Hall. It entailed a mixture of popular song, comedy and specialty acts. British music hall was quite similar to American Vaudeville, in which in contained comedy acts and rousing songs. 1860 Burlesque is a form of entertainment that is an extravagant parody of drama, musical or a piece of literacy. Burlesque is later used as a term for performances of variety acts, this type of Burlesque was extremely popular from the sass to the sass.
This was often performed as past of cabarets acts and at clubs, it was even performed theatres too. These featured bold comedy, and female striates acts. The popularity of Burlesque lessened however, recently it has become more popular once again. The first musical was the Black Crook by Charles M. Barres and Giuseppe Proper in 1866, which ran for a record breaking 474 performances. History of musical theatre By racked Vaudeville is another form of entertainment from America. This form of entertainment was like a variety act.
The beginning of Vaudeville began in the sass and the popularity declined in the sass. A vaudeville performance was made up of many different scenes and acts that were grouped together. Many vaudeville acts consisted of magic, singers dancers scenes from plays, acrobatics movies and minstrels. Vaudeville was known as ‘The heart of the American show business’ for many decades. Vaudeville was the most popular type of entertainment in America at that time. 1904 In 1904, Musical comedy started, which is a type of musical or movie or play which it as a simple yet funny and emotional plot, and musical numbers.
Musical theatre contained things from every single genre, packed with colorful sets and bright costumes. 1923 Film musicals are musicals that are in Hollywood films. This is where characters of the film will sing songs to advance the plot line. Most of these musicals involved a submerge of musical comedy, which combined music, comedy and dancing. The first film musical was in 1923. 1961 Rock Musicals This form of musical is one where all the songs are of one genre or band. Some rock casuals follow a story through song.
The first rock musical was in the sass. Some examples of rock musicals are: Hair, Grease, Rent, Spring Awakening and Next To Normal. 1975 Musicals that contain popular songs with a connection with an era or band, are known as Jukebox musicals. The songs are sung in certain parts of the musical to fit the plot. Usually if the musical numbers are from a band or musician, the plot will be a biographical story. For example Buddy was about the life of Buddy Holly and Mamma Aim was about the music of ABA. The first Jukebox musical was in 1975.