1. History of
Musical Theatre
1960s-Present

2. The Big 3

3. Harold Prince

4. Harold Prince Director and producer
served his theatrical apprenticeship in the late ’40s and early ’50s with the esteemed author, director, and producer George Abbott
In 1954, he produced his first musical, “The Pajama Game”
Served as producer on such productions as “Fiddler on the Roof” and “West Side Story”

5. Harold Prince
Stephen Sondheim collaborated with Prince on six musicals between 1970 and 1981, beginning with the innovative “concept musical” in 1970

6. Jerome Robbins

7. Jerome Robbins An important director, choreographer, and dancer
studied at the New Dance League, learning ballet.
In 1940, he turned from theater to ballet, joining Ballet Theatre (later known as American Ballet Theatre). From 1941 through 1944, Robbins was a soloist with the company and subsequently appeared as a dancer on Broadway
In 1944, he and composer Leonard Bernstein conceived a short ballet, “Fancy Free,” which, with the participation of Betty Comden and Adolph Green, evolved into the musical “On the Town” which he also choreographed, launching his Broadway career.

8. Jerome Robbins
served as the director on a series of notable productions:
“West Side Story” (1957; Tony Award), “Gypsy” (1959), “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” (1962), “Funny Girl” (1964), “Fiddler on the Roof” (1964)
Through the 1960s Robbins was still highly sought after as a show doctor. He took over the direction of two troubled productions during this period and helped turn them into successes

9. Jerome Robbins
Known as a strict and demanding task master, earning him the nick name “Atila the Hitler”
He was reportedly so unpopular by this point, that the company of this show watched silently as he backed up to the orchestra pit — and fell in

10. Stephen Sondheim

11. Stephen Sondheim
composer and lyricist who redefined the Broadway musical form with his innovative and award winning productions
Worked as the personal assistant and later protégée to Oscar Hammerstein.
While attending Williams College he performed duties in the preparation and rehearsals of the Rogers and Hammerstein productions, where he first met Harold Prince
The first musical for which Sondheim wrote both the music and lyrics was “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”

12. Stephen Sondheim
Sondheim sought productions where he could stretch his musical abilities. Part of what makes him revolutionary is that no two musicals are exactly the same, in content, subject matter or in musical stylings
Sondheim’s talent derived from his ability to cross genres of music and theater to offer Broadway audiences works of remarkable craft on unexpected subjects that challenged and tested the form of the American musical.

13. West Side Story

14. West Side Story a modern update of “Romeo and Juliet”
Directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins
music by Leonard Bernstein
lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Produced by Hal Prince
a modern update of “Romeo and Juliet”
Following Shakespeare’s model, story of star-crossed lovers caught between rival gangs — this time Puerto Ricans (Sharks) and white ethnics (Jets) on New York City’s Upper West Side.

15. West Side Story
more dancing in West Side Story than in any previous Broadway show
Robbins kept the cast members playing the Sharks and the Jets separate in order to discourage them from socializing with each other and reminded everyone of the reality of gang violence by posting news stories on the bulletin board backstage. He also, according to dancer Linda Talcott Lee, "played psychological games" with the cast: “And he would plant rumors among one gang about the other, so they really hated each other.”

16. West Side Story
Reviews for “West Side Story” were generally positive, but the show’s tragic demeanor — two deaths at the end of the first act, one at the end of the show — was off-putting to some.
It ran for 732 performances before going on tour. That year, the show lost all of the major Tony Awards to the far more traditional “The Music Man.”

17. “Gypsy”

18. “Gypsy” directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins
music by Jule Styne
lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
loosely based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee and focuses on her mother, Rose, whose name has become synonymous with "the ultimate show business mother”
It follows the dreams and efforts of Rose to raise two daughters to perform onstage and casts an affectionate eye on the hardships of show business life.

19. “Gypsy”
It is frequently considered one of the crowning achievements of the mid-20th century's conventional musical theatre art form.
Starred Ethel Merman as Rose
The original Broadway production opened on May 21, 1959 and closed on March 25, 1961 after 702 performances
Songs:
Rose’s Turn
Everything’s Coming up Roses

20. “Bye Bye Birdie”

21. “Bye Bye Birdie” book by Michael Stewart lyrics by Lee Adams
music by Charles Strouse
Originally titled Let's Go Steady, the satire on American society is set in The story was inspired by the phenomenon of popular singer Elvis Presley Elvis and his draft notice into the Army in 1957
Story focus on a rock-and-roll singer going off to the army and its effect on a group of teenagers in a small town in Ohio.

22. Songs: “the Telephone Hour” “Put on a Happy Face” “Kids”
“Bye Bye Birdie”
Notable for being the first time Rock & Roll appeared in a Broadway musical, and for it dealing with somewhat modern references (for the time) such as the Ed Sullivan Show.
Songs:
“the Telephone Hour”
“Put on a Happy Face”
“Kids”

23. “Fiddler on the Roof”

24. “Fiddler on the Roof” music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick
book by Joseph Stein
directed by Jerome Robbins.
Produced by Hal Prince
based on Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Dairyman) and other tales by Sholem Aleichem that he wrote in Yiddish between 1894 and 1914.
Investors and some in the media worried that the show might be considered "too Jewish" to attract mainstream audiences.

25. “Fiddler on the Roof”
Harold Prince replaced the original producer Fred Coe and brought in director/choreographer Jerome Robbins
Fiddler held the record for the longest-running Broadway musical for almost 10 years until Grease surpassed its run. It remains Broadway’s sixteenth longest-running show in history.
The first “openly Jewish” musical

26. “Fiddler on the Roof”
Notable for being one of the first musicals in introduce audiences to a completely foreign setting and culture, while at the same time highlighting the aspects of life that all cultures seemed to share.
Songs:
“Tradition”
“Matchmaker”
“If I Were a Rich Man”
“Sunrise, Sunset”

27. Hello Dolly!

28. lyrics and music by Jerry Herman
Hello Dolly!
lyrics and music by Jerry Herman
The plot, of a meddlesome widow who strives to bring romance to several couples and herself in a big city restaurant,
role of Dolly Levi in the musical was originally written for Ethel Merman, but Merman turned it down, as did Mary Martin. would eventually go to Carol Channing, and it would become her signature role.
Songs:
“Hello Dolly”

29. Hello Dolly!
winning a record 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, a record held for 35 years
The show album Hello, Dolly! An Original Cast Recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002
The album reached number one on the Billboard album chart on June 6, 1964 and was replaced the next week by Louis Armstrong’s album "Hello, Dolly!" His version reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 ending the Beatles streak of three number-one hits in a row over 14 consecutive weeks

30. “Cabaret”

31. “Cabaret” produced by Harold Prince
Music by: John Kander Lyrics by Fred Ebb
produced by Harold Prince
the show, Set in 1931 Berlin as the Nazis are rising to power, it is based in nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub, and revolves around the 19-year-old English cabaret performer
Sally Bowels and her relationship with the young American writer Cliff Bradshaw. A sub-plot involves the doomed romance between German boarding house owner Fräulein Schneider and her elderly suitor Herr Schultz, a Jewish fruit vendor. Overseeing the action is the Master of Ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub. The club serves as a metaphor for ominous political developments in late Weimer Germany.

32. “Cabaret”
The musical ultimately expressed two stories in one: the first a revue centered on the decadence of the seedy Kit Kat Klub; the second a story set in the society of the club
Prince's staging was unusual for the time. As the audience filled the theater, the curtain was already up, revealing a stage containing nothing but a large mirror reflecting the auditorium. There was no overture; instead, a drum roll and cymbal crash led into the opening number. The juxtaposition of dialogue scenes with songs used as exposition and separate cabaret numbers providing social commentary was a novel concept that initially startled the audience, but as they gradually came to understand the difference between the two, they were able to accept the reasoning behind them

33. “Cabaret” Songs: “If You Could See Her Though My Eyes”
“Maybe This Time”

34. “Hair”

35. “Hair” Music by Gerome Ragni and James Rado Lyrics by Galt MacDermot
Hair tells the story of the "tribe", a group of politically active, long-haired hippies of the "Age of Aquarius" living a bohemian life in New York City and fighting against conscription into the Vietnam War. Claude, his good friend Berger, their roommate Sheila and their friends struggle to balance their young lives, loves and the sexual revolution with their rebellion against the war and their conservative parents and society. Ultimately, Claude must decide whether to resist the draft as his friends have done, or to succumb to the pressures of his parents (and conservative America) to serve in Vietnam, compromising his pacifistic principles and risking his life.

36. “Hair” “Age of Aquarius” “Hair” “Let the Sun Shine In” Songs:
Hair” had no real plot, it was simply a revue, showing practically every aspect of the counterculture in a variety of musical styles, dance, and stage effects. Its encyclopedic psychedelia included mind-altering drugs, pollution, the Vietnam War, civil rights, astronauts, astrology, hairstyles, Shakespeare, and the Waverly movie theater on Sixth Avenue. And sex.
First Broadway musical to go from Off-Broadway to Broadway
Songs:
“Age of Aquarius”
“Hair”
“Let the Sun Shine In”

37. “Company”

38. “Company” Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
produced by Harold Prince
its plot revolves around Bobby (a single man unable to commit fully to a steady relationship, let alone marriage), the five married couples who are his best friends, and his three girlfriends. Unlike most book musicals, which follow a clearly delineated plot, Company is the first concept musical composed of short vignettes, presented in no particular chronological order, linked by a celebration for Bobby's 35th birthday

39. “Company”
The score would be written almost perpendicularly to the collection of George Furth plays on which it was based, with characters reflecting on scenes they weren’t in, or stepping outside of the situation to comment on themselves, on love, on marriage, on commitment
The upper-middle class problems that the audience “came to a musical to avoid are suddenly facing them on the stage”

40. Concept musical
emphasis is placed upon style, message, and thematic metaphor rather than on the plot itself
show's structure is rarely cohesive or linear

41. “A Chorus Line”

42. “A Chorus Line” Directed and Choreographed by Michael Bennett
“A Chorus Line” had the slimmest plot; 25 dancers desperately auditioning for eight jobs on the chorus line of a new musical.
The musical was formed from several taped workshop sessions with Broadway dancers, known as "gypsies," including eight who eventually appeared in the original cast.

43. “A Chorus Line”
It had no scenery beyond some mirrors, no real costumes save leotards and a few spangles for the finale; it had no setting other than a nondescript theater, no intermission, and no star.
won every prize the theater could offer, including the Pulitzer and nine Tony's, two of which went to Bennett
Songs:
“One”
“I Really Hope I Get It”

44. Bob Fosse

45. Bob Fosse Director-choreographer
His dances were sexual, physically demanding of even the most highly trained dancers, full of joyous humor as well as bleak cynicism — works that addressed the full range of human emotions.
first fully choreographed show was 1954′s “The Pajama Game.”

46. Bob Fosse
trademark choreographic style: sexually suggestive forward hip-thrusts; the vaudeville humor of hunched shoulders and turned-in feet; the amazing, mime-like articulation of hands. He often dressed his dancers in black and put them in white gloves and derbies, recalling the image of Charlie Chaplin. He incorporated all the tricks of vaudeville that he had learned — pratfalls, slights-of-hand, double takes
Notable distinctions of Fosse's style included the use of turned-in knees, the famous "Fosse Amoeba," sideways shuffling, rolled shoulders, and jazz hands.
used props such as bowler hats, canes and chairs. His trademark use of hats was influenced by his own self-consciousness over his going bald. He used gloves in his performances because he did not like his hands.

47. Bob Fosse
Fosse utilized the idea of subtext and gave his dancers something to think about during their numbers. He also began the trend of allowing lighting to influence his work and direct the audience's attention to certain things
Only Director in history to win an Oscar, a Tony and an Emmy all in the
same year

48. “Chicago”

49. “Chicago” Chorography by Bob Fosse
Set in Prohibition-era Chicago the musical is based on a 1926 play of the same name by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins who was assigned to cover the 1924 trials of accused murderers Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner for the Chicago Tribune The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal."

50. “Chicago”
In the early 1920s, Chicago's press and public became riveted by the subject of homicides committed by women. Several high-profile cases arose, which generally involved women killing their lovers or husbands. These cases were tried against a backdrop of changing views of women in the Jazz age, and a long string of acquittals by Cook County juries of women murderesses. A lore arose that, in Chicago, feminine or attractive women could not be convicted.

51. “Sweeney Todd”

52. “Sweeney Todd” Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Directed by Hal Prince
melodramatic story of the demon barber of Fleet Street who conspired with the neighborhood baker to supply her with sufficient barbershop victims for her meat
Sondheim's score is one of his most complex, Relying heavily on counterpoint and rich, angular harmonies Sondheim also utilizes the ancient Dies Irae in the eponymous ballad that runs throughout the score, later heard in a musical inversion and in the accompaniment to "Epiphany".

53. 1980s

54. Andrew Lloyd Webber

55. Andrew Lloyd Webber
One of the most finically successful song writers of all time
In the 1980s, three out of the ten longest running Broadway shows where his.
Today he holds two spots in the top ten
Phantom of the Opera (Number 1 – 12,558 performances)
Cats (Number 4 – 7,485 performances)
Known for presenting pop music in classical operatic form
Shows knowns for commercial successes, appealing to the largest number of people from,
helping to revitalized Broadway in the 80s making it a must see tourist spot.

56. “Cats”

57. “Cats” Notable Songs: “Memory” composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber
based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot
Very thin plot, only used to move from one “I am” song to the next.
The London production ran for 21 years and the Broadway production ran for 18 years, both setting new records
Notable Songs:
“Memory”

58. “Phantom of the Opera”

59. “Phantom of the Opera” music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe
Based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux, its central plot revolves around a beautiful soprano, Christine Daaé, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious, disfigured musical genius living in the subterranean labyrinth beneath the Opera House.
It is the longest running show in Broadway history by a wide margin, and celebrated its 10,000th Broadway performance on 11 February 2012
Songs:
Music of Night

60. “Evita”

61. “Evita” music by Andrew Lloyd Webber lyrics by Tim Rice
concentrates on the life of Argentine political leader Eva Perón, the second wife of Argentine president Juan Perón. The story follows Evita's early life, rise to power, charity work, and eventual death.
The musical began as a rock opera concept album released in 1976.
first British musical to receive the Tony Award for Best Musical.
Songs:
“Don’t Cry For Me Argentine”

62. “Les Misérables”

63. “Les Misérables”
music by Claude-Michel Schönberg
original French-language lyrics by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel
English-language lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer.
based on the novel Les Misérables by French poet and novelist Victor Hugo.
Set in early 19th-century France, it is the story of Jean Valjean, a French peasant, and his quest for redemption after serving nineteen years in jail for having stolen a loaf of bread for his sister's starving child. Valjean decides to break his parole and start his life anew after a kindly bishop inspires him by a tremendous act of mercy, but he is relentlessly tracked down by a police inspector named Javert. Along the way, Valjean and a slew of characters are swept into a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists make their last stand at a street barricade.

64. “Les Misérables” Songs: “I Dreamed a Dream”
It is the fifth longest-running Broadway show in history and was the second-longest at the time.
The show was nominated for 12 Tony Awards and won eight, including Best Musical and Best Original Score.
Songs:
“I Dreamed a Dream”