Download or read book British Musical Theatre Since 1950 written by Robert Gordon and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-09-08 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This critical introduction to British musical theatre since 1950 is the first book to discuss its post-war developments from the perspective of British – as opposed to American – popular culture. The genre is situated within the historical context of post-war British society in order to explore the range of forms through which significant sociocultural moments are represented. Introductory chapters analyse the way British musicals have responded to social change, the forms of popular theatre and music from which they have developed and their originality in elaborating new narrative strategies since the seventies. A key feature of the book is its close readings of twelve key works, from Salad Days (1954) and Oliver! (1960) to global smash hits such as Les Misérables (1985) and The Phantom of the Opera (1986) and beyond, including the latest critical and box-office success Matilda (2011). Also analysed are British favourites (Blood Brothers, 1983), cult shows (The Rocky Horror Show, 1975) and musicals with a pre-existing fan-base, such as Mamma Mia! (1999).
Download or read book British Musical Theatre since 1950 written by Robert Gordon and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-09-08 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This critical introduction to British musical theatre since 1950 is the first book to discuss its post-war developments from the perspective of British – as opposed to American – popular culture. The genre is situated within the historical context of post-war British society in order to explore the range of forms through which significant sociocultural moments are represented. Introductory chapters analyse the way British musicals have responded to social change, the forms of popular theatre and music from which they have developed and their originality in elaborating new narrative strategies since the seventies. A key feature of the book is its close readings of twelve key works, from Salad Days (1954) and Oliver! (1960) to global smash hits such as Les Misérables (1985) and The Phantom of the Opera (1986) and beyond, including the latest critical and box-office success Matilda (2011). Also analysed are British favourites (Blood Brothers, 1983), cult shows (The Rocky Horror Show, 1975) and musicals with a pre-existing fan-base, such as Mamma Mia! (1999).
Download or read book An Inconvenient Black History of British Musical Theatre written by Sean Mayes and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-08-26 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A radically urgent intervention, An Inconvenient Black History of British Musical Theatre: 1900 - 1950 uncovers the hidden Black history of this most influential of artforms. Drawing on lost archive material and digitised newspapers from the turn of the century onwards, this exciting story has been re-traced and restored to its rightful place. A vital and significant part of British cultural history between 1900 and 1950, Black performance practice was fundamental to resisting and challenging racism in the UK. Join Mayes (a Broadway- and Toronto-based Music Director) and Whitfield (a musical theatre historian and researcher) as they take readers on a journey through a historically-inconvenient and brilliant reality that has long been overlooked. Get to know the Black theatre community in London's Roaring 20s, and hear about the secret Florence Mills memorial concert they held in 1928. Acquaint yourself with Buddy Bradley, Black tap and ballet choreographer, who reshaped dance in British musicals - often to be found at Noël Coward's apartment for late-night rehearsals, such was Bradley's importance. Meet Jack Johnson, the first African American Heavyweight Boxing Champion, who toured Britain's theatres during World War 1 and brought the sounds of Chicago to places like war-weary Dundee. Discover the most prolific Black theatre practitioner you've never heard of, William Garland, who worked for 40 years across multiple continents and championed Black British performers. Marvel at performers like cabaret star Mabel Mercer, born in Stafford in 1900, who sang and conducted theatre orchestras across the UK, as well as Black Birmingham comedian Eddie Emerson, who was Garland's partner for decades. Many of their names and works have never been included in histories of the British musical - until now.
Download or read book An Inconvenient Black History of British Musical Theatre written by Sarah K. Whitfield and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A radically urgent intervention, An Inconvenient Black History of British Musical Theatre: 1900 - 1950 uncovers the hidden Black history of this most influential of artforms. Drawing on lost archive material and digitised newspapers from the turn of the century onwards, this exciting story has been re-traced and restored to its rightful place. A vital and significant part of British cultural history between 1900 and 1950, Black performance practice was fundamental to resisting and challenging racism in the UK. Join Mayes (a Broadway- and Toronto-based Music Director) and Whitfield (a musical theatre historian and researcher) as they take readers on a journey through a historically-inconvenient and brilliant reality that has long been overlooked. Get to know the Black theatre community in London's Roaring 20s, and hear about the secret Florence Mills memorial concert they held in 1928. Acquaint yourself with Buddy Bradley, Black tap and ballet choreographer, who reshaped dance in British musicals - often to be found at Nol︠ Coward's apartment for late-night rehearsals, such was Bradley's importance. Meet Jack Johnson, the first African American Heavyweight Boxing Champion, who toured Britain's theatres during World War 1 and brought the sounds of Chicago to places like war-weary Dundee. Discover the most prolific Black theatre practitioner you've never heard of, William Garland, who worked for 40 years across multiple continents and championed Black British performers. Marvel at performers like cabaret star Mabel Mercer, born in Stafford in 1900, who sang and conducted theatre orchestras across the UK, as well as Black Birmingham comedian Eddie Emerson, who was Garland's partner for decades. Many of their names and works have never been included in histories of the British musical - until now."--
Download or read book British Theatre Since the War written by Dominic Shellard and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: British theatre of the past fifty years has been brilliant, varied, and controversial, encompassing invigorating indigenous drama, politically didactic writing, the formation of such institutions as the National Theatre, the exporting of musicals worldwide from the West End, and much more. This entertaining and authoritative book is the first comprehensive account of British theatre in this period. Dominic Shellard moves chronologically through the half-century, discussing important plays, performers, directors, playwrights, critics, censors, and agents as well as the social, political, and financial developments that influenced the theatre world. Drawing on previously unseen material (such as the Kenneth Tynan archives), first-hand testimony, and detailed research, Shellard tackles several long-held assumptions about drama of the period. He questions the dominance of Look Back in Anger in the 1950s, arguing that much of the theatre of the ten years prior to its premiere in 1956 was vibrant and worthwhile. He suggests that theatre criticism, theatre producers, and such institutions as the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company have played key roles in the evolution of recent drama. And he takes a fresh look at the work of Terence Rattigan, Harold Pinter, Joe Orton, Alan Ayckbourn, Timberlake Wertenbaker, and other significant playwrights of the modern era. The book will be a valuable resource not only for students of theatre history but also for any theatre enthusiast.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical written by Robert Gordon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 777 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive academic survey of British musical theatre from its origins, The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical offers both a historical account of musical theatre from 1728 and a range of in-depth critical analyses of key works and productions that illustrate its aesthetic values and sociocultural meanings.
Download or read book Pick a Pocket Or Two written by Ethan Mordden and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Anecdotal and evincing a strong point of view, [this] book covers not only the shows and their authors but the personalities as well--W.S. Gilbert trying out his stagings on a toy theatre, Ivor Novello going to jail for abusing wartime gas rationing during World War II, fabled producer C.B. Cochran coming to a most shocking demise for a man whose very name meant 'classy, carefree entertainment.' ... Mordden is the preeminent historian of the form, and his book will be required reading for readers of all walks, from the most casual of musical theater goers to musical theater buffs to students and scholars of the form"--
Download or read book West End Broadway written by Adrian Wright and published by Boydell Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "West End Broadway discusses every American musical seen in London between 1945 and 1972."--Jacket.
Download or read book Paris and the Musical written by Olaf Jubin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-18 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paris and the Musical explores how the famous city has been portrayed on stage and screen, investigates why the city has been of such importance to the genre and tracks how it has developed as a trope over the 20th and 21st centuries. From global hits An American in Paris, Gigi, Les Misérables, Moulin Rouge! and The Phantom of the Opera to the less widely-known Bless the Bride, Can-Can, Irma la Douce and Marguerite, the French capital is a central character in an astounding number of Broadway, Hollywood and West End musicals. This collection of 18 essays combines cultural studies, sociology, musicology, art and adaptation theory, and gender studies to examine the envisioning and dramatisation of Paris, and its depiction as a place of romance, hedonism and libertinism or as ‘the capital of the arts’. The interdisciplinary nature of this collection renders it as a fascinating resource for a wide range of courses; it will be especially valuable for students and scholars of Musical Theatre and those interested in Theatre and Film History more generally.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to the Musical written by William A. Everett and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-21 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expanded and updated edition of this acclaimed, wide-ranging survey of musical theatre in New York, London, and elsewhere.
Download or read book Music Theatre in Britain written by Michael Hall and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 2015 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author, a former BBC radio producer, conducted interviews with many leading British composers of the day, and his account provides for a unique insight into this often overlooked genre. Based on Michael Hall's many interviews with leading British composers of the genre, this book looks at the heyday of the British Music Theatre in the 1960s and 70s, a period when the author as a BBC radio producer was actively involved with the contemporary music scene. Music Theatre - a composite of music, singing, dancing and speaking distinct from traditional opera and ballet - has its roots in works by Monteverdi, Schoenberg, Satie, Stravinsky, Weill, Hindemith and Eisler, but flourished anew in the 1960s, in America, Britain and Europe. Hall's book presents an account of the context for the activity of Birtwistle, Goehr and Maxwell Davies; it uncovers details of little-known early works by other major figures such as Cardew and Tavener; and it recognises the highly distinctive contributions of composers whose works are less well known. Music Theatre in Britain also throws new light upon the reaction of British composers to the economic and social upheavals of 'the Sixties', offering a distinct and valuable contribution to our understanding of the relationship of the post-war musical avant-garde to social movementsand ideology. Music Theatre in Britain will be of interest to all those working in the field of late twentieth-century British music, to students of composition, and to composers, performers and producers of Music Theatre. MICHAEL HALL, who died in August 2012, had a long career as a conductor, founder of Royal Northern Sinfonia, BBC producer and broadcaster, university lecturer and writer on music.
Download or read book Wicked written by Winnie Holzman and published by Applause Theatre & Cinema. This book was released on 2010-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each title in The Applause Libretto Library Series presents a Broadway musical with fresh packaging in a 6 x 9 trade paperback format. Each Complete Book and Lyrics is approved by the writers and attractively designed with color photo inserts from the Broadway production. All titles include introduction and foreword by renowned Broadway musical experts. Long before Dorothy dropped in, two other girls meet in the Land of Oz. One, born with emerald green skin, is smart, fiery, and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious, and very popular. The story of how these two unlikely friends end up as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch makes for the most spellbinding new musical in years.
Download or read book Must Close Saturday written by Adrian Wright and published by Boydell Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to deal exclusively with British musical flops, Must Close Saturday presents a rolling panorama of the good, the bad and the ugly, reassessing their place in theatrical history.
Download or read book Musical Theatre written by John Kenrick and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-07-27 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Musical Theatre: A History is a new revised edition of a proven core text for college and secondary school students – and an insightful and accessible celebration of twenty-five centuries of great theatrical entertainment. As an educator with extensive experience in professional theatre production, author John Kenrick approaches the subject with a unique appreciation of musicals as both an art form and a business. Using anecdotes, biographical profiles, clear definitions, sample scenes and select illustrations, Kenrick focuses on landmark musicals, and on the extraordinary talents and business innovators who have helped musical theatre evolve from its roots in the dramas of ancient Athens all the way to the latest hits on Broadway and London's West End. Key improvements to the second edition: · A new foreword by Oscar Hammerstein III, a critically acclaimed historian and member of a family with deep ties to the musical theatre, is included · The 28 chapters are reformatted for the typical 14 week, 28 session academic course, as well as for a two semester, once-weekly format, making it easy for educators to plan a syllabus and reading assignments. · To make the book more interactive, each chapter includes suggested listening and reading lists, designed to help readers step beyond the printed page to experience great musicals and performers for themselves. A comprehensive guide to musical theatre as an international phenomenon, Musical Theatre: A History is an ideal textbook for university and secondary school students.
Download or read book Theatre Music and Sound at the RSC written by Millie Taylor and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-10-13 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses an exciting laboratory that has been developing the practice of theatre music composition and sound design since 1961: the Royal Shakespeare Company. Musical practices have evolved as composers and musical directors inherited from the past and innovated with new technology; different interpretations of single plays in multiple iterations have provided a picture of developing styles, genres, working practices, technologies and contexts; actor musicianship has been practiced quietly and without fuss; and the role of the sound designer has appeared and transformed the theatrical soundscape. This book moves to musical theatre to evidence a continuum between its rich interdisciplinary textures and the musicodramatic world of Shakespeare’s plays, positioning the RSC as an innovative company that continually expands the creative and collaborative possibilities of the theatre.
Download or read book The British Musical Theatre 1865 1914 written by Kurt Gänzl and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book British Musical Theatre written by Kurt Gänzl and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
