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Daniel Hartley

Mohammad Shahisaman

English 111

8 November 2018

Musical Theater

Elphaba, the misunderstood wicked witch of the west in Wicked, firmly stated that “I’m

through accepting limits ‘Cause someone says they’re so. Some things I cannot change but ‘til I

try, I’ll never know” (Wicked). Musical theater is a genre of drama that combines storytelling with

dance, singing, and acting. It started in ancient Greece with the Greek chorus; then it transitioned

into the Renaissance where clowns improvised their way through popular stories set to music. The

first musical was The Black Crook by Charles M. Barrs and Giuseppe Operti in 1866. The show

ran for 474 performances. It was not until 1920 that the American comedy spread across the world.

1943 to 1968 was known as The Golden Age of Broadway musicals. It generally started with the

Oklahoma, a musical about a love triangle between farm girl Laurey William, and her two rival

suitors Curly McLain and sinister farmhand Jud Fry, and ended Hair, the musical about hippies

who celebrate peace and love in the shadow of the Vietnam War. Starting in the 2000s, some

Broadway companies started doing risky shows like Urinetown, Avenue Q, and the 25th Annual

Putnam County Spelling Bee. These show do things that normally would not show on stage, such

as breaking the fourth wall, cursing, and making political comments. Musical theater also took

popular movies and turned into musicals such as Lion King, The Lighting Thief and Aladdin.

Musical theater reflects the modernization of the theater culture in the sense of updating the way

they see the world.

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Musical theater helps show the way theater culture views society issues today compared to

the past. Back when musicals started, they did not talk about big issues like suicide and aids as a

society, so it was not a topic of interest used as inspiration. Shows were usually written about love

triangles, like Oklahoma, the political event that were happening, like Hair, or aids, like Rent. Due

to the rise in suicide rates, writers today think shows like Dear Evan Hansen would help address

the issue in the theater world. Dear Evan Hansen is a show about Evan, a boy with social anxiety,

who longs to make friends. After one of his classmates commits suicide, he fabricates a story about

their friendship to get closer to the boy’s family. Jeffery Brown, an American journalist, who is a

senior correspondent for the PBS News Hour, said “Dear Evan Hansen,” a surprise hit musical, is

the story of an ordinary teen who all his life has felt invisible. But when a classmate commits

suicide, Hansen is mistakenly seen as his one friend and becomes the center of attention. (…)

draws awareness to the loneliness and pain of teen life and how isolation can be intensified in

today’s social media world” (Brown par.1). Musical theater uses Dear Evan Hansen to shine a

light on suicide and social anxiety. Society today often puts people in a box or brushes them off to

the side, which, does nothing for their self-esteem. Dear Evan Hansen has started to spread the

message that everyone needs to be heard. Dear Evan Hansen has brought up an issue that society

has tried for years to bury and turned it into a way to help those who a struggling with that situation.

In the song, You Will Be Found, there is a moment of uncomfortable tension between each “you

are not alone”. The way it is song and understood is ironical because Evan and Connor both felt

alone and it is physically heard in the song.

Musical theater helps unite multiple genres of music together to reach different people in

the theater culture. In the past, when a musical was written, it was written with a certain

demographic in mind, whether that be that Latino culture, hip hop culture, or the old school culture.
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In today’s culture, musicians mix it up. Just targeting one demographic at a time was not spreading

the creators musical fast enough but then, they got the idea to target multiple demographics in one

show. The started to mix different genres of music in with the idea of the show. Example of this is

In the Heights, Hamilton, and Aladdin. The most popular of the three is Hamilton. Lin-Manuel

Miranda is the writer and was the star actor in Hamilton. While growing up, Lin was exposed to

hip hop, R&B, and musical theater at an early age. When he wrote Hamilton, he incorporated those

different genres into Hamilton. When he combined those genres, he brought many cultures

together in the theater. The way he makes the songs with a lot of action hip hop/rap songs like The

Battle of Yorktown, and the more emotional songs more R&B and musical theater like It’s Quiet

Uptown, this help shows the drastic change of each scene. Kylie Umehira, a rising sophomore at

Boston University studying advertising in the College of Communication and political science in

the College of Arts and Sciences, wrote “Hamilton: An American Musical, the Broadway sensation

that chronicles the life of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton (…) both the show itself and the

cast of Hamilton evolved into a political statement of equality, unity, and an alleged indicator of a

post-racial society” (Umehira 103). Hamilton has broken so many barriers not only politically, it

changed the way we think about the past. In our history books, little is actually written about

Hamilton. The musical teaches us that not everything is black and white, or good and evil is not

always clear.

Popular cinema culture, due to its family-oriented nature, had a significant impact on

musical theater and the way it changed certain aspects of theater. Movies such as Aladdin, The

Little Mermaid, Lion King, etc. were taken to the stage. Seeing that musical theater was no longer

just for adults, people started getting their children out from in front of the TV and into the

audience. The most popular running musical is The Lion King, a story of Simba finding his way
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after his father’s death. The colorful costumes and the move in your seat songs are perfect for

families. Gordon Cox, writer, editor, podcaster. Host of Stagecraft, Variety's theater podcast

proclaimed that “The Lion King” was an integral part of the transformation of Times Square from

red-light district to family-friendly destination, laying the groundwork for the blockbuster era that

defines the New York theater industry today. This month isn’t just the 20th anniversary of “The

Lion King”; it also marks two decades of the New Broadway” (Cox par.1). Even with the simplistic

set, The Lion King still changed Broadway. The complexity of the songs, the strong African beats,

and amazing costumes help add to the story telling. In The Lon King the combine six different

African languages such as Swahili, Zulu, Sotho, Tswana, Congolese and Xhosa which gives it that

tribal song everyone has come to love. The Lion King may be a beloved family movie brought to

the stage, but it is also a representation of unity the African culture.

To conclude, Musical Theater helps theater people update the way they see the world

through modernization. The social issue brought up was not the norm in the pass, the different

genres represent the unity of the different cultures in musical theater, and the cinema culture has a

big impact on the musical theater world. The world of musical theater is amazing and it helps

outcast find a place where they belong. Musical theater is a genre that gets so stuck in someone’s

head that you start applying the meaning to your life. The stories told have a bigger impact on

people then what is presented in the articles. Musical theater is the place where someone can say

that they are through accepting limits, such as social peer pressure and conformity, cause someone

says there so. somethings I cannot change, such the way someone believe certain things, the way

people feel toward each other, but until I try I’ll never know. Musical theater has already changed

so many lives, and it definitely changed my life for the better.

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Worksite

Cox, Gordon. “How 'The Lion King' Ushered in the Era of the Blockbuster on Broadway.”

Variety, Variety, 14 Nov. 2017, variety.com/2017/voices/columns/lion-king-musical-

broadway-1202613785/.

News Hour, PBS. “Broadway Hit 'Dear Evan Hansen' Strikes an Emotional Chord with Its

Fans.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 6 June 2017,

www.pbs.org/newshour/show/broadway-hit-dear-evan-hanson-strikes-emotional-chord-

fans.

Schwarts, Stephen. “Wicked Quotes by Stephen Schwartz.” Goodreads, Goodreads,

www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/12807927-wicked-the-complete-book-and-lyrics-of-the-

broadway-musical.

Umehira, Kylie. “ALL HAMMED UP: HOW HAMILTON: AN AMERICAN MUSICAL

ADDRESSES POST-RACIAL BELIEFS.” BU Writting Program, Jessica Bozek,

www.bu.edu/writingprogram/files/2017/08/Issue-9.pdf.