This course examines the history and evolution of Broadway musical theater, one of America’s great performance art forms. This course gives students the opportunity to evaluate and compare a variety of musicals from the nineteenth century to present-day Broadway Musicals including Vaudeville, Operetta, Musical Comedy, Opera on Broadway, Jukebox Musicals, and Rock Opera. Major figures discussed will include composers, lyricists, producers, directors, choreographers, performers, and conductors. Topics discussed in this course:

What is musical theater?
How is it different than Opera?
Where did it come from?
How has it evolved across time?
How has theater been connected to and affected by historic events?
What were the most popular shows in each time period over the last  one hundred years?

We will look at composers in musical theater history including: George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Alan Menken, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein, Jule Styne, Frank Loesser, Stephen Schwartz, and Stephen Sondheim. Students will learn about the background each composer and listen a variety of music excerpts from their works. This course will be fun, engaging, and interesting. I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in learning more about musicals across the last century. 

Class 1 -  Week of January 1: Types of Musical Theater Characters, Types of Musicals
Class 2 -  Week of January 8: Entr’acte and Curtain Up!
Class 3 - Week of January 15: Out of the Nineteenth and into the Twentieth Century
Class 4 - Week of January 22: The Broadway Songbook to the Golden Age
Class 5 - Week of January 29: The Golden Age of the Broadway Musical I
Class 6 - Week of February 5: The Golden Age of the Broadway Musical II
Class 7 - Week of February 12: Recreating Traditions in Musical Theater
Class 8 - Week of February 19: Contemporary Trends I
Class 9 - Week of February 26: Contemporary Trends II
Class 10 - Week of March 4: Where Are We Now?