musi final

• Bob Fosse Dance style


  • Angular and turned in
  • Sexually suggestive hip thrusts
  • Vaudeville humor – hunched shoulders, double takes and falls, canes and props
  • Body isolations
  • Mime-like hand articulation
  • Loved white gloves, hats & cigarettes
• Gwen Verdon


  • First triple threat – sing, dance, act
  • Superstar with only 7 musicals
  • 4 time Tony Winner
  • Married Bob Fosse in 1960
• The Pajama Game


  • Story: Workers in a pajama factory demand a 7 ½ cent raise
  • "Steam Heat"
  • 1954 –Original Production – won Best Musical and Best Choreo (Bob Fosse)
• Damn Yankees


  • Fosse choreographer/Verdon "Lola"
  • Film: Starred Broadway principals (except Joe Hardy) & Bob Fosse performs with Verdon
• Ann Reinking


  • Became his muse and romantic partner
  • Keeper of fosses legacy and dances
• Sweet Charity


  • Bob Fosse- director and choreographer
  • She knows there's a better life out there
  • Show ends when he pushes her in lake – crawling out she asked audience "Did you ever have one of those days?"
  • Film: Fosse's first film director gig and reviews said not as good as the stage musical
• Pippin


  • Played for 5 years
  • Bob Fosse- director and choreographer
  • First Broadway musical to air TV commercial- Changed Broadway marketing forever
  • Began as student project when Stephen Schwartz was in college
  • He wanted a circus theme
  • Fosse refused
  • 41 years later - Schwartz got his way
• Chicago


  • Gwen Verdon (her final role) roxie
  • "Make love to the audience"
  • Took 13 years to get rights
  • Kander and Ebb (Cabaret)
  • Musical attacks American fascination with celebrity culture
  • REVIVAL–26 years- more successful than og- current longest running show on Broadway
  • Defies odds of revivals – Uses revolving door of "B" stars
• Jerry Orbach


  • More Broadway appearances than any other actor in history
  • Named a "Living Landmark" by NY Landmark Conservancy
• Chicago film


  • first movie musical to win Best Picture since Oliver! in 1968
  • Responsible for re-emergence of movie musical in 21st century
• Cabaret


  • Ominous hidden significance in the seedy club's name –The Kit Kat Klub
  • Post-film revivals darker, more decadent & brutally disturbing
  • "Kaput" = "Mein Herr"
• Carrie


  • $8 million FLOP
  • From Stephen King novel
  • Starred TCU Alum – Betty Buckley
• The Wild Party


  • Two versions of The Wild Party – LaChuisa and Lippa
  • Both based on same 1928 poem
  • One was on Broadway (LaChuisa) and one was Off-Broadway (Lippa)
• Spring Awakening


  • Coming of age / coping w/ adulthood
  • Characters pick up microphones – when the songs go inside their thoughts and fantasies
  • 2015 Revival: Had both hearing and deaf actors onstage and first show with performer in a wheelchair
• "Doorway to Where"


  "Corner of the Sky" – Pippin
• A chorus line


  • Success helps save Broadway!
  • Pros at an audition – Bare Stage
  • Won Pulitzer – Artistic struggle & drive
  • Director/choreographer – Michael Bennett
  • Stories of REAL dancers lives
  • "The Dancers' Project" was guarded secret
  • First Broadway musical to tour internationally
• Company


  • New Format on Broadway
  • Truth of life, relationships and sex in 1970s New York City
  • "Deconstructed" script –non-linear vignettes
  • No plot – only a concept
  • Characters' stories more important than plot
  • In Sondheim's world – you lose things
  • Life is ambivalent / You are alienated
  • Often no allowance for applause
  • Music is dense & restless, Music too difficult, Worldview too cynical, Relationships never last, Lyrics too intellectual, Characters too unpleasant
  • No resolved ending – life just keeps going on
  • Revival- Most characters are gender-swapped
• Rent


  • Based on Puccini Opera La Boheme (Miss Saigon also based on Puccini opera)
  • Book, Music & Lyrics by Jonathan Larson
  • Pulitzer Prize – Posthumously
  • AIDS – Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
  • Significance: First since Hair to deal with concerns of younger generation and many older audiences, including critics, didn't get it
  • Best known song – "Seasons of Love"
  • Ticket lottery system established- idea still used today
• Tick Tick Boom


  Semi-autobiographical musical by Jonathan Larson
• Billy Elliot


  • 10 Tonys– Best Musical – First time shared Tony Award
  • Music – Elton John
  • Children had different schedule than "normal" kids
  • Professional Children's School or online school, tutors on tour
• Theatre Parents

  Broadway schedule = 8 shows/week

  Usually have Mondays as DARK days
• EGOT


  • Emmy, Grammy, Oscor, Tony
  • Robert (Bobby) Lopez – DOUBLE EGOT
  • the youngest
• PEGOT


  • Pulitzer, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony
  • Richard Rodgers
  • Marvin Hamlisch
• Avenue Q


  • Subversive puppets – actors in plain sight
  • Themes – racism, pornography and homosexuality
  • Puppets creator worked on TV show "Sesame Street"
• Book of Mormon


  • From creators of "South Park"
  • R-rated dialogue, politically incorrect storylines
  • Follows 2 Mormon missionaries who go to minister in Uganda
  • Music and lyrics also by Robert Lopez
• Country Music

  NOT successful on Broadway – but there are exceptions
• Shanandoah


  Anti-war theme – Civil War
• The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas


  • Creators- 4 texans
  • A success w/ country music score
• Waitress


  • Broadway's very first ALL female creative team
  • Music & Lyrics by Sara Bareilles
  • Filmed and released in 2023 with Bareilles as Jenna
• Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812


  • Based on 70 pages of War and Peace
  • Director: Rachel Chavkin
• Hadestown


  • Based on Greek myth- Orpheus and Eurydice
  • Director: Rachel Chavkin
• The notebook


  Ex of color blind casting
• "Rich Man's Frug"


  Fosse + Hip Hop – "Get Me Bodied"
• Bye Bye Birdie


  • Earliest musical about rock 'n roll phenomenon
  • And to address youth culture
  • But – the clean cut side of 1960s
  • Sequels NEVER work in musical theatre
• Godspell


  • Series of biblical parables from Gospel of St. Matthew
  • Began as Grad School thesis in 1970 – at the beginning of the Jesus Movement in America
  • Stephen Schwartz took over the project after Off-Off-Broadway
• Grease


  Original very raw and raunchy
• Disney

  Restoration of New Amsterdam Theatre sends an important message to corporate America…Invest in Broadway!
• Beauty and the Beast


  • Importance: 1st successful Disney show on Broadway
  • 9 Tony Nominations
• The Lion King

  Highest grossing show on Broadway
• Spiderman Turn off the Dark

  Biggest flop