Musicals 1980-20xx

MUSICALS 1980

The public ruled heavily in favor of the mega-musicals, so the 1980s brought a succession of long-running “Brit hits” to Broadway – Cats, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon were light on intellectual content and heavy on special effects and marketing.

1980 Lullaby of Broadway. The first musical super-hit of the 1980s was a musical comedy based on a classic Busby Berkeley film. 42nd Street (1980 – 3,486 performances) re-united producer David Merrick and director Gower Champion. Both had suffered a few failures and very much needed a hit to restore their reputations. The backstage plot about a chorus girl who takes over for the lead actress on opening night (“You’re going out there a nobody, but you’ve got to come back a star!”) was left in place, while the film score was augmented with other vintage songs by composer Harry Warren and lyricist Al Dubin.
1981 Woman of the Year (1981 – 770 performances) boasted a fine John Kander- Fred Ebb score and Lauren Bacall in the title role. However, the most memorable thing in this sophisticated musical comedy was Marilyn Cooper, whose mousy housewife character stole the comic duet “The Grass is Always Greener” from the glamorous Bacall.
1982 Nine (1982 – 732 performances) – Composer/lyricist Maury Yeston won acclaim with this adaptation of Fellini’s semi-autobiographical film 8 1/2. Tommy Tune’s innovative production cast Raul Julia as an eccentric Italian director trying to make a film while facing his mid-life crisis. Nine won all the major Tonys, including one for Liliane Montevecchi, who stopped the show with a seductive (though barely relevant) paen to the “Folies Bergere.”
1982 Little Shop of Horrors (1982 – 2,209 performances) was a hilarious Off-Broadway sci-fi spoof by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman. Based on Roger Corman’s low-budget 1960 film about a man-eating plant from outer space, its fresh score and witty script made the show an immediate hit. It toured the country for years and became a standard part of the musical theatre repertory. The serio-comic ballad “Suddenly Seymour” remained a favorite in piano bars for years to come.
1982 Cats. Andrew Lloyd Webber and director Trevor Nunn reshaped the theatrical landscape with Cats (1982 – 7,485 performances), a musical based on T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. They emphasized aerobic dance, high-tech effects and heavy-duty marketing tactics. Cats premiered in London, then came to New York – where it forced 42nd Street out of the Winter Garden and over to the Majestic Theatre. Lloyd Webber was so certain of the show’s success that he co-produced it with Cameron Macintosh, a move which made both men millionaires. More a revue than a book musical, Cats depicted a gathering of felines in a garbage-strewn alley where one cat will be allowed to ascend (on an oversized hydraulic tire) “the heavy-side layer” – i.e., kitty heaven. The first and last fifteen minutes were so dazzling (thanks to heavy-duty lighting effects and prancing pussies) that few complained about the two tedious hours that yawned in-between. Cats cleaned up at the Tonys, with Best Book going to the long-dead Eliot, and Best Featured Actress going to Betty Buckley as the bedraggled feline Grizzabella.
1983 My One and Only (1983 – 767 performances) set vintage songs by George and Ira Gershwin in a new plot about a 1920s romance between an aviator and an aquacade star. The show almost sank in Boston, but star Tommy Tune took over the direction with an assist from A Chorus Line alumni Thommie Walsh. After exhaustive revisions and some rocky New York previews, My One And Only opened to surprise raves. Audiences cheered as Tune and Twiggy splashed through a watery barefoot version of “S’Wonderful,” and legendary tap star Charles “Honi” Coles won a Tony as the whimsical “Mr Magix.” After almost two years on Broadway, it proved even more popular on national tour. número conjunt, Honi Coles
1983 La Cage Aux Folles, Jerry Herman was a defiantly old-fashioned book musical that broke new ground by focusing on a gay couple dealing with their son’s marriage into a bigoted politician’s family. Playwright Harvey Fierstein provided a hilarious book, and Arthur Laurents helmed one of the most entertaining musicals Broadway had seen in years. Numerous Tony awards (including Best Musical and Best Score) ended years of creative frustration for Herman, the composer of Hello Dolly and Mame. George Hearn won a well-deserved Tony for his performance as the loveable drag queen Albin, and won cheers with his renditions of “I Am What I Am” and “The Best of Times is Now.”
1984 Sunday In the Park With George, Stephen Sondheim’s took an innovative look at the commercial and emotional challenges of being an artist, starring Many Patinkin as pointillist painter Georges Seurat and Bernadette Peters as his lover Dot. The action then switched to modern times, with Seurat’s grandson facing the same issues while an aging Dot looks on. Audiences cheered for a breathtaking first act finale that recreated Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grand Jatte” while the cast sang the ravishing chorale “Sunday.”

The other “Brit hits” of this decade were all brand new. Relying on pop rhythms, stage hydraulics and high-tech special effects, these shows came to be known as mega-musicals. In these behemoths, substance took a backseat to spectacle, and occasional hints of humor were buried in oceans of soap opera sentiment. Although these tech-heavy presentations came with a high price tag, the best mega-musicals ran for decades, selling tickets to millions of people — particularly tourists who had long since fallen out of the habit of going to the theatre.

1984 Starlight Express, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s was a tremendous hit in London (1984 – 3000+ performances), with hydraulic ramps that allowed roller-skating actors to careen through the Apollo Victoria Theatre. It fared less well on Broadway (1987 – 761 performances), where critics dismissed it as a minor children’s show blown out of proportion. No one really cared who was in the cast. For the first time since the Hippodrome shows of the early 1900s, it was all about the spectacle. But Starlight Express did well on tour, enjoyed a long run in Las Vegas, and was revived with tremendous success in London.
1985 Les miserablesThe French team of Claude-Michel Schonberg & Alain Boubil first offered their musical version of Victor Hugo s epic novel Les Miserables as a recording, then as a Parisian stage spectacle, with a sung-through score that sounded like a pop version of grand opera. British producer Cameron Mackintosh became involved, teaming with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Cats director Trevor Nunn to revamp it into an international sensation. Mackintosh brought Les Miserables to the West End (1985 – London), Broadway (1987 NY – 6,680 performances), and most of the other cities in the civilized world. The English translation was no work of art, but the strong plot and hydraulic sets wowed most theatergoers. The logo, with little, bedraggled Cosette set against the French tri-color, became familiar on every imaginable sort of souvenir – including pricey re-prints of Hugo’s novel.
1988 The Phantom o fthe Opera. The following season brought Andrew Lloyd Webber s The Phantom of the Opera (1988 – 11,000+ performances, still running), with the composer and Cameron Mackintosh co-producing. The lush score featured uninspired, babbling lyrics set to lush pop-operetta melodies, and an ending that departed completely from Gaston Leroux’s classic novel. Harold Prince’s lavish production made the show another triumph of form over function. Broadway audiences did not mind paying a record-setting $45 a ticket when they could see the money on stage in scene after lavish scene. Stellar performances by Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman helped.

Pressed for new ideas, but as the 1980s ended, two Broadway musicals broke through to popular success:

1989 Grand Hotel (1989 – 1,077 performances) was a resurrected George Forrest & Robert Wright project that had closed on the road in 1958. Based on the classic novel, play and MGM film, it told of the intertwined fates of guests at a posh Berlin hotel in the early 1930s. To the dismay of the original composers, director Tommy Tune called in Nine’s Maury Yeston to replace about half of the score. The revised show got mixed reviews, but a combination of limited competition, good word of mouth and strong marketing kept the show running for several years. Big-name cast replacements – including screen dance legend Cyd Charisse – helped make Grand Hotel the first American musical since La Cage Aux Folles to top 1,000 performances on Broadway.
1989 City of Angels (1989 – 878 performances) won the 1989 Tony for Best Musical thanks to an occasionally hilarious Larry Gelbart libretto about a screenwriter interacting with the fictional characters in his latest script. The Cy Coleman-David Zippel score was pleasant, but some of the songs echoed numbers from previous Coleman shows — and the tech-heavy production (including computer animation sequences) left little room for profit.

FILM 1980

Several big-budget screen musicals lost millions in the early 1980s, leaving behind a litany of titles that still cause heads to shake in Hollywood. Some were hopelessly bad ideas, but two were stage hits demolished by acclaimed directors who simply had no idea how to film a musical: Can’t Stop the Music (1980) featured the Village People, a posse of non-singing celebrities, a disco score and a production that repeatedly overstepped the line between camp and sheer idiocy. Pink Floyd – The Wall (1982) was a hit with a limited audience, but this series of rock songs was more a precursor of music videos than a musical. Legendary dramatic director John Huston decided to try his hand at musicals, turning the international stage smash Annie (1982) into a costly embarrassment. He had beloved comedienne Carol Burnett play Miss Hannigan as a hateful, humorless villain, just one of several serious misjudgments. Sir Richard Attenborough’s adaptation of A Chorus Line (1985) drained every ounce of inspiration from one of the most dynamic Broadway musicals of its time.

1980 Jim Henson’s Muppets had been entertaining Americans on television since the 1950s, winning their greatest acclaim on Sesame Street and The Muppet Show (1976-81). By 1980, the Muppets could claim an audience of 235 million viewers in over 100 countries. Henson took things a step further and brought the Muppets to the big screen, with the most successful new screen couple since Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. That the couple in question was a frog and a pig only added to their appeal.
The Muppet Movie (1979) featured the loveable frog Kermit and the irrepressible Miss Piggy as the romantic leads. It was an international success and the song “Rainbow Connection” became a standard. Two more Muppet musicals followed. The Great Muppet Caper (1981) and The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) did well, appealing to both kids and adults with a stylish blend of comedy, melody and sentiment. Henson focused his energies on non-musical fantasy films until his untimely death in 1990. His son Brian directed a new series of successful musicals including The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) and The Muppet Treasure Island (1996).
1982 Victor/Victoria (1982) was the best original screen musical since Gigi. It told the story of “a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman” in the nightclubs of Paris in the 1930s. That the film dealt with the touchy issue of sexual identity made its success all the more remarkable. Director Blake Edwards (best remembered for his Pink Panther films) provided a witty screenplay and memorable visual gags. Even without songs, Victor/Victoria would have been a first-rate comedy, but a wonderful score by composer Henry Mancini and lyricist Leslie Bricusse made the film all the grander. Julie Andrews (Edwards’ wife) provided the star power, giving one of the funniest performances of her career. From the uproarious “Le Jazz Hot” to the introspective “Crazy World,” she was in top form. When Robert Preston joined Andrews for “You and Me” or took center screen for an uproarious drag finale, the result was pure magic. This marked the final musical screen roles for both stars, It was also the last great live-action musical film of the 20th Century.
1989 The Little Mermaid (1989) was the finest animated musical in decades. The classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale was given a Disney twist with singing sea creatures, a spunky title heroine and a humanoid octopus as the evil witch. Ashman and Menken’s score had a lush, traditional Broadway sound, and seasoned stage performers were brought in to make the most of every number. The ballad “Part of Your World” was worthy of any stage hit, and “Under the Sea” was the bounciest old-school “showstopper” in a generation. Disney’s Little Mermaid became the surprise hit of the year, grossing over 100 million dollars — and several times that figure when it hit home video. It received Oscars for Best Song (“Under the Sea”) and Best Original Score, won Grammys for its best-selling soundtrack CD, and inspired a successful animated TV series. Ashman and Menken were given the go ahead for more projects. Their efforts would make animated musicals one of the most profitable genres in the decade ahead.

MUSICALS 1990

En general res remarcable, per un cop el món al revés i The Lion King procedent del cinema va triomfar.

By the 1990s, new mega-musicals were no longer winning the public, and costs were so high that even long-running hits (Crazy for You, Sunset Boulevard) were unable to turn a profit on Broadway. New stage musicals now required the backing of multi-million dollar corporations to develop and succeed – a trend proven by Disney’s Lion King, and Livent’s Ragtime. Even Rent and Titanic were fostered by smaller, Broadway-based corporate entities.

1996 Rent is a rock musical with music, lyrics, and book by Jonathan Larson,[1] loosely based on Giacomo Puccini’s 1896 opera La Bohème. It tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists struggling to survive and create a life in Lower Manhattan’s East Village in the thriving days of bohemian Alphabet City, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. The musical was first seen in a workshop production at New York Theatre Workshop in 1993. This same off-Broadway theatre was also the musical’s initial home following its official 1996 opening. The show’s creator, Jonathan Larson, died suddenly of an aortic dissection, believed to have been caused by undiagnosed Marfan syndrome, the night before the off-Broadway premiere. The musical moved to Broadway’s larger Nederlander Theatre on April 29, 1996. On Broadway, Rent gained critical acclaim and won several awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Musical. The Broadway production closed on September 7, 2008, after 12 years, making it one of the longest-running shows on Broadway.

Revivals de Chicago, Kiss me Kate i Cabaret

1996 Bring in Da’ Noise, Bring in Da’ Funk, The most successful black musical of the decade used a series of contemporary tap numbers to look dramatize and reflect on the history of Africans in America. The score was new, but the key issue was the dancing, which expressed every emotion from despair to rage to triumph. Savion Glover headed a spitfire cast and received a Tony for his groundbreaking choreography.
1997 Titanic. The best musicals of the late 1990s came from corporate producers that aimed for artistic integrity as well as profit. Composer/lyricist Maury Yeston (Nine, Grand Hotel) and librettist Peter Stone (1776), had built their reputations on making unlikely projects sing. When their Titanic (1997 – 804 performances) sailed off with five Tonys, including Best Musical, the theatrical community was shocked. The best new American musical in over a decade, it put creative aspects ahead of the marketing concerns. Over a dozen key characters were defined through songs which invoked various period or ethnic styles: the hopeful immigrants dreaming of life “In America,” the arrogance of the rich exclaiming “What a Remarkable Age This Is,” and the elderly Isador & Ida Strauss reaffirming that they “Still” love each other as they face death. A stronger director or solo producer might have sharpened the dramatic focus, but corporate thinking let matters lie. Whatever its imperfections, Titanic deserved its success.
1998 Ragtime (1998 – 861 performances) was another example of the corporate musical at its best, thanks to a spectacular score by American composers Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. The epic story told of a crumbling white middle class family, a black musician seeking justice, and a Jewish immigrant fulfilling the American dream for himself an his child. As with Titanic, a huge cast of characters was brought into focus by a score that invoked musical styles from the early 20th century and a book that wove disparate lives into a common pattern – the concept musical blown up to epic proportions. Ragtime was not afraid to use satire (“Crime of the Century”) or raunchy humor (“What A Game”) along with soaring chorales, ballads and rags. When Brian Stokes Mitchell (as musician Coalhouse Walker) and Audra McDonald (as his beloved Sarah) sang of how they would ride into the future “On the Wheels of a Dream,” it was pure, potent musical theatre. Though overproduced and under-directed, Ragtime was a musical with brains, heart, and a touch of courage.

FILMS 1990

Poca cosa, a part d’Evita (1996)amb Madonna i Antonio Banderas (que cantava força bé), i un refregit de clàssics de Tin Pan Alley per Woody Allen, Everyone Says I Love You.(1996).
The long-delayed screen version of Evita (1996), stylishly directed by Alan Parker, starred Madonna (who proved to be no actress) but was stolen by the surprisingly good singing of Antonio Banderas.

Els musicals seran de dibuixos de Disney:

1991 Beauty and the Beast was one of the best musical films ever made. The screenplay by Linda Woolverton made Belle a gutsy heroine, and the Beast became more touching than in any previous version of the classic tale. The Howard Ashman and Alan Menken score was worthy of Broadway, performed by a cast of voices that included Angela Lansbury as a teapot and Jerry Orbach as a Chevalier-esque candelabra. Standout numbers included the hilarious spoof of masculinity “Gaston,” the Busby Berkley-style “Be Our Guest” and the endearing title tune. When the unfinished Beauty and the Beast was previewed at the New York Film Festival, the audience responded with a wild standing ovation. Many (including this author) were overwhelmed to see musical film looking as big and lovable as ever, and heartbroken that lyricist Howard Ashman had not lived to see it happen. His death from AIDS a few weeks before had silenced a genius just reaching his creative peak. If anyone could have guaranteed that musicals would thrive into the 21st Century, it was Ashman. Beauty and the Beast won the musical Oscars (Best Song went to the title tune), and was even nominated for Best Picture. It earned hundreds of millions of dollars in worldwide box office sales, a figure that further skyrocketed when the film became available on home video. It became the first Disney film adapted into a smash hit Broadway show, running well into the next century and recreating its success in productions all over the world. At a time when stage musicals were in a serious decline, Beauty and the Beast proved that the musical could live on profitably in animated films.
1992 Aladdin Ashman had partially completed one more project with Menken. Lyricist Tim Rice helped to finish Aladdin (1992), which was even more of a box office sensation than Beauty. Robin Williams gave an inspired performance as the voice of the Genie, singing the Ashman & Menken showstoppers “Friend Like Me” and “Prince Ali.” In what was becoming a tradition, the Rice/Menken ballad “A Whole New World” received the Academy Award for Best Song.
1994 The Lion King with a pop-style score by Tim Rice and Elton John and a story that mixed Hamlet with a generous dash of Bambi. Broadway clowns Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella sang the lighthearted “Hakuna Matata,” and many loved the soaring chorale “Circle of Life,” but the Oscar-winning score was otherwise mediocre. Even so, The Lion King became the highest grossing musical film ever, and its 1997 Broadway adaptation became one of the biggest stage hits of all time.
1995 Pocahontas, Alan Menken teamed up with veteran Broadway lyricist Stephen Schwartz. It won Academy Awards for Best Original Score and Best song (“Colors of the Wind”), but many felt that the film took itself too seriously.
1996 The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Menken & Schwartz did not receive any Oscars but damn well should have. “Out There” and “God Help the Outcasts” were first rate songs, and the opening sequence was a masterpiece of musical narrative. Although the dark Victor Hugo story seemed a surprising choice for an animated musical, Hunchback was the most mature animated musical yet. Parents who thought nothing of letting their children see blood-drenched action films complained that Hunchback was “too intense.” (Go figure!) Despite limited domestic attendance in the US, Hunchback brought in over a hundred million dollars in worldwide box office and video sales – proving that America is not always the most perceptive audience for great animated musicals.
1999 South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (1999) – an independent animated feature that would have left Walt Disney’s ghost quivering in disbelief. Based on a popular cable television series, this foul-mouthed, artistically primitive and altogether brilliant satire spoofed obscene pop lyrics, overprotective parents, and the widespread obsession with blaming others for one’s problems. When American children start spewing profanities, their parents “Blame Canada” and the United States goes to war with its northern neighbor. Some of the songs were so explicit that several cannot be quoted (or even named) on this family-friendly site, but the score was one of the funniest ever used in a feature film. A few viewers found the film offensive, but it proved that screen musicals could still entertain. It also proved that animated musicals are not just for tots.

MUSICALS 00

As the 20th century ended, the musical theatre was in an uncertain state, relying on rehashed numbers (Fosse) and stage versions of old movies (Footloose, Saturday Night Fever), as well as the still-running mega-musicals of the previous decade. But starting in the year 2000, a new resurgence of American musical comedies took Broadway by surprise. The Producers, Urinetown, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hairspray — funny, melodic and inventively staged, these hit shows offered new hope for the genre.

[ Altres Witches Eastwick d’Andrew Lloyd Weber, Hairspray, Wicked, Jersey Boys sobre Franki VAlli, Woman in white

2001 The Producers is a musical adapted by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan from Brooks’s 1967 film of the same name, with lyrics written by Brooks and music composed by Brooks and arranged by Glen Kelly and Doug Besterman. As in the film, the story concerns two theatrical producers who scheme to get rich by fraudulently overselling interests in a Broadway flop. Complications arise when the show unexpectedly turns out to be successful. The humor of the show draws on ridiculous accents, caricatures of homosexuals and Nazis, and many show business in-jokes. After 33 previews, the original Broadway production opened at the St. James Theatre on April 19, 2001, starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, and ran for 2,502 performances, winning a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards. It spawned a successful West End production running for just over two years, national tours in the US and UK, many productions worldwide and a 2005 film version.
2003 Never Gonna Dance, revival de Swing Time
2003 Taboo (originalment a Londres, música de Boy George)
2010 Adams Family
2011 Book of the Mormon
2015 An American in Paris
2015 Hamilton, incorpora el rap a una història sobre un dels fundadors dels Estats Units.

FILMS 2000

2001 Moulin Rouge. Rent (2005) and The Producers (2005) made their way to the big screen with most of their original Broadway cast members on hand, but the results were missing most of the magic of the original stage versions. Rent cost a modest $40 million and grossed $31 million — the more lavish Producers cost $45 million and grossed a pathetic $19 million.

What lies ahead in the future? It’s hard to say, but there will most assuredly be new musicals. The musical may go places some of its fans will not want to follow, but the form will live on so long as people like a story told with songs.