Portal:Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining music, songs, spoken dialogue and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole.
Musical theatre works, usually referred to as "musicals", are performed around the world. They may be presented in large venues, such as big budget West End and Broadway theatre productions in London and New York City, or in smaller Off-Broadway or regional productions, on tour, or by amateur groups in schools, theatres and other performance spaces. In addition to Britain and the U.S., there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in Germany, Austria, Philippines, France, Canada, Japan, Eastern Europe, Australia, and other countries. Template:/box-footer
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Box-header/colours' not found. Godspell is a 1970 play by John-Michael Tebelak. Following closely on the heels of the similarly-themed Jesus Christ Superstar, it opened off-Broadway on May 17, 1971 and has played in various touring companies and revivals many times since. Several cast albums have been released over the years and one of its songs, Day By Day from the original cast album, reached #13 on the Billboard pop singles chart in the summer of 1972.
The show originated in 1970 as Tebelak's master's thesis project, under the direction of Lawrence Carra, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Most of the score's lyrics were from the Episcopal Hymnal, set to music by the cast members. Tebelak then directed it, with much of the student cast, for a two-week, ten-performance run at New York's La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, opening February 24, 1971. It was brought to the attention of producers Edgar Lansbury (brother of Angela Lansbury) and Joseph Beruh by Carnegie alumnus Charles Haid (associate producer), who wanted to open it off-Broadway.
The producers hired Stephen Schwartz, another alumnus of Carnegie Mellon's theater department, to write a new song score (although By My Side was retained from the original score). Schwartz's songs included a variety of musical styles, from pop to folk rock, gospel, and vaudeville. As with the original score, most of the non-Schwartz lyrics were from the Episcopal Hymnal. See also Godspell (1971 Off-Broadway Cast).
Godspell moved from the Cherry Lane Theatre to the larger Promenade Theatre on August 10, 1971, where it became one of the longest-running off-Broadway musicals, before moving to Broadway in June 1976, where it ended its run in September 1977 after an additional 527 performances, for a total of more than 2,600.
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Box-header/colours' not found.
Anthony Dean Rapp (b. October 26, 1971, Chicago) is an American stage and film actor best known for originating the role of Mark Cohen in the Broadway production of Rent in 1996 and later for reprising the same role in the film version. He also performed the role of Charlie Brown in the 1999 Broadway revival of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown.
He first performed on Broadway in 1981, at the age of ten, in The Little Prince and the Aviator, a musical based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novel The Little Prince that closed during previews. He also appeared as a teenager in the 1987 movie Adventures in Babysitting, which was directed by Chris Columbus. Columbus would later direct Rapp in the film version of Rent.
Rapp has gone on to appear in several movies and Broadway shows. His notable work includes films Dazed and Confused where he played one third of a teenaged intellectual triumvirate, A Beautiful Mind as one of John Nash's colleagues, Road Trip as the villainous Greek philosophy TA, Jacob, the stage and film versions of Six Degrees of Separation, as Van Dyke Parks in "An American Family", and You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Also in this production was Kristin Chenoweth as Sally Brown.
Rapp is probably best known for playing Mark Cohen in the Off-Broadway and original Broadway casts of Jonathan Larson's musical Rent. He reprised that role in the film version of Rent, which was released on November 23, 2005. Fans of Rent closely associate Rapp with that show, in part because his character is semi-autobiographical of the deceased composer and playwright Jonathan Larson. Rapp has embraced his role as an unofficial spokesperson for the musical and has given numerous television and print interviews regarding the show and its development. Some of Rapp's photographs from rehearsals of Rent have been published.
|
- ...that actor Loren Dean won a Theatre World Award in 1989 for his Off Broadway debut in the play Amulets Against the Dragon Forces?
- ...that English actor, singer and playwright Arthur Williams, best remembered for his comic operas, Edwardian musical comedies and musical burlesques, played over 1,000 roles in his career?
- ..that Heroes actor David Anders was recognized with a Back Stage West Garland Award along with the ensemble cast of The Diary of Anne Frank, for their 2001 production?
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Box-header/colours' not found. The show is explicitly an homage to the PBS children's television program Sesame Street. Both Marx and puppet designer/original cast member, Rick Lyon have previously worked for Sesame Street, as have the other puppeteers in the original cast. However, unlike Sesame Street, Avenue Q openly addresses adult topics such as racism, infidelity, and masturbation; in fact, because of its adult language and content and "full puppet nudity" (including simulated sex between puppets), the show specifically disclaims any connection to the Children's Television Workshop or The Jim Henson Company. In an interview with Britain's The Times, addressing the question of potential conflicts with Henson, Marx claimed, “During early previews in the States we invited Jim Henson's widow and children and they could see that what we were doing was a homage and love letter to 'Sesame Street.'”
- Musicals Musical films, Broadway musicals, West End musicals, Off-Broadway musicals, Musicals by year, Jukebox musicals, Rock musicals, Edwardian Musical Comedy, Victorian burlesque, Music hall, Vaudeville
- Composers and Lyricists Lynn Ahrens, Neil Bartram, Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Jerry Bock, Mel Brooks, Jason Robert Brown, Ivan Caryll, George M. Cohan, Cy Coleman, William Finn, Stephen Flaherty, George Gershwin, Carol Hall, Oscar Hammerstein, Sheldon Harnick, Sidney Jones, Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, John Kander, Jonathan Larson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Alan Menken, Lionel Monckton, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Adrian Ross Stephen Schwartz, Richard Sherman, Robert Sherman, Stephen Sondheim, Kurt Weill
- Awards Drama Desk Award, Drama League Award, Evening Standard Awards, Laurence Olivier Awards, Outer Critics Circle Award, Tony Award
Nominate
| Selected articles | Selected biographies | Selected pictures |
Collaborate
More tasks
| Open tasks from WikiProject Musical Theatre | |
|---|---|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
| Arts | Film | Music | Opera | Gilbert and Sullivan | Theatre |
- What are portals?
- List of portals
- Featured portals
