3.4: The Golden Age of American Musical Theatre

A landmark musical from the late 1920s by Hammerstein and Kern, Show Boat, challenged the art form again with regard to race. The musical follows the lives of the performers, stagehands and dock workers on the Cotton Blossom, a Mississippi River show boat, over 40 years from 1887 to 1927. Its themes include racial prejudice and tragic, enduring love. A mixed cast, which included African-American performers in fully-developed characters, it was ground-breaking in several ways, including storyline and musical form. For the first time, a musical show was completely driven by the story, and the songs within the concept were all assembled and tightly woven together to further that story. “Show Boat took the best from the musicals that had gone before it - the pacing, the girls, the laughs, the song forms, the comic second couple, the American settings and characters, the slangy dialogue…blend[ing] the best of American drama with the best of musical comedy and creat[ing] a new animal: the American musical drama, the kind of show that would eventually just be called ‘a musical’” (Miller, 2007, p. 24).

Figure 3.11. Show Boat (2024, February 9).

Wikipedia. https://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Show_B...:Show_Boat.jpg

The premiere of Showboat in 1927 marked the beginning of musical theatre as we know it today. Ziegfeld produced this significant work that for the first time, fully integrated a plot and music into a single, cohesive show. Ethan Mordden (1976) a notable English fiction and non-fiction author, wrote of Showboat, “…a single-minded piece with no spare parts, conceived to grow out of itself rather than gather in bits from outside” (p. 106). Showboat was not entertainment for all audiences like Cohan’s productions. Sensitive issues such as gambling, racial tensions and marital problems were discussed. Jerome Kern, a composer of popular songs of the era wrote the music, and Oscar Hammerstein II, later known for his prolific works with Richard Rodgers, wrote the lyrics for Showboat. As America was rebounding after the heart wrenching war, a new era in entertainment, the musical comedy, was born, and the country was ready to embrace it.

At least forty musical shows a year were produced in the 1920s. It should be noted that while there was a large quantity of shows, the quality shows were few and far between (Cobb, 1978). One thing that is clear is that America was taken with the theatre in the twenties.

After the rush of patriotism and victory in World War I, the country turned inward. After nearly a decade of excess, the stock market crash of 1929 caused a downward spiral that brought on the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrial world. By 1933, nearly half the country’s banks had failed and somewhere near 15 million Americans were unemployed. People turned to entertainment to forget about their terrible situation in life. Broadway still turned out musicals, as did Hollywood. “One of the most original and groundbreaking visual stylists of his era, [Busby] Berkeley could pack more inspired ideas and indelible images into a seven-minute dance routine than most directors managed in a full-length feature” (Huddleston, 2019). In 1933, 42nd Street was released, and it modernized the sound musical. Full of backstage drama, this trailblazing musical offered revolutionary dance sequences that highlighted dozens of female chorus dancers in stunning unison. Always smiling, always happy in these brilliantly filmed sequences, Berkeley focused on the heart and love stories in his films, a way of escape from the unemployment lines and starvation that met our population every day. A young actress named Ruby Keeler starred in 42nd Street and her star status was born, just like Peggy Sawyer, the leading young heroine she portrayed.

Figure 3.12. Earl Christy. (1937). Screen Album 1937-Summer. Internet Archive.

https://archive.org/details/ScreenAlbum1937Summer

Other performers of the era to note include Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Astaire was a notably gifted and graceful dancer, known first for his vaudeville act with his sister and then later, his musical comedies and on stage partnership with Ginger Rogers. Often remembered in his top hat and tails, he and his screen dance partner, Ginger Rogers crafted beautiful and elegant song and dance routines. Their iconic and graceful dance partnership set the standard of comparison for future dancers.

Figure 3.13. Cole Porter and Jean Howard

Cole Porter. (2024, February 13). Wikipedia. https://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Cole_Porter#/media/File:Cole-Porter-and-Jean-Howard.jpg

In contrast, the dawn of the motion picture industry in the 1930s sent many actors and songwriters to Hollywood as the Depression took hold of the country and closed many of the New York theatres. Noted songwriters turned their musicals into screenplays for the silver screen (Cobb, 1978). Musicals that garnered particular interest because of their response to the Depression included Gay Divorce (1932), a hit for Fred Astaire and Cole Porter’s Anything Goes (1934), a rollicking musical set on a cruise ship with gambling, flirting, and all-around good times. Cole Porter’s attitude with musicals written in the 1930s most often centered on forgetting troubles and having a good time.

Figure 3.14. George Gershwin

[Portrait of George Gershwin]. (n.d.). Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved March 7, 2024, from https://www.loc.gov/resource/van.5a52010/

Figure 3.15. Federal Theatre Project, U. S. (1936) A sparkling musical revue "Gaieties of ". Los Angeles California, 1936.

[California: Federal Art Project] [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/98516980/

Most of the musicals of the thirties did not further the development of the musical comedy as they adhered to the general format that audiences preferred at the time and that would be financially successful during the years of the Depression and beyond. The only few of note include Gershwin’s On Your Toes (1936), choreographed by the famous dance maker George Balanchine, that successfully included ballet as a story-telling device, and Pal Joey (1940), written by Rodgers and Hart, which sacrificed the popular showstopping numbers of the era in favor of seamless transitions between dialogue. It became the first musical of its kind to present a presumably villain-type, a gangster, as the hero of the show. Walsh & Platt (2003) wrote Pal Joey shows how musical comedy could develop as music drama through this with its story of another darker underbelly to American life, but one woven out of some of the same materials as the optimistic version (the individual pursuit of freedom, success, and wealth). (p. 93)

Pal Joey artfully moved musical theatre into the forties, a decade of prolific works. “…art isn’t life, it’s form” (Mordden, 1976, p. 192). And the form we know as musical theatre today came to true shape in Oklahoma! (1943). Rodgers and Hammerstein’s first collaboration, of which there would be many, was based upon a 1930s play by Lynn Riggs, entitled Green Grow the Lilacs, and like Showboat, fully integrated the music with the plot. The story was told seamlessly through drama, music, and dance. Walsh & Platt referred to Oklahoma! as “the ideal of the community” (2003, p. 97) and the creation of the book musical in general as generating “a particular kind of optimism central to the American Dream and stemming, again, from Enlightenment ideals and the progressive vision of liberal individualism extended to fund the good of this ‘good’ society” (p. 97). As Americans moved farther away from the Depression, both in time and in attitude, society longed for that ideal marriage of heart and home. A new era in musical theatre, the book musical, answered the call of the times. The team of Rodgers and Hammerstein perfected the book musical and continued to produce hit shows into the 1960s, including Carousel, South Pacific, King & I, and The Sound of Music. Though each of these musicals was set during significant periods in relation to American history, South Pacific is set during World War II in the South Pacific, while The Sound of Music is set in Vienna during the rise of the Nazi regime, the stories transcend time and remain popular with American audiences today.

In the 1940s on Broadway, something special was brewing that would forever change the trajectory of American Musical Theatre. While plot lines and songs and dance had already been integrated into the productions, they had not yet found that magical formula that incorporated everything into a beautiful seamless experience from start to finish. That is, until Rodgers and Hammerstein’s first official offering as a team: Oklahoma!. Used to the music being written first, as musicians in famed Tin Pan Alley had done for decades, they decided to revert to a classic style another famed pair named Gilbert and Sullivan utilized; write the words the first and the music will follow (Kenrick, 2017, p. 247). The two discussed the plot of Green Grow the Lilacs and where the high emotional points were, they discussed the style of music for each song within the show. The two went their separate ways to write lyrics and music.

Figure 3.16. Oklahoma! author, U. authorUnknown. (1943). [Untitled].

Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oklahoma_8e07920v.jpg

Rodgers and Hammerstein chose ballet choreographer Agnes DeMille for the project, after she had just crafted a brilliant and successful ballet, Rodeo, filled with cowboys, young ladies, love, and the wide open prairie and utilizing American composer, Aaron Copeland’s heroic and vast expanse of a score. DeMille commanded many different dance genres for the musical, including ballet, modern, jazz, clogging, square dance, and some ballroom, and mixed them together into a new dance form: Broadway dance. It was truly a “fully formed narrative language, just like the words and music, instead of merely..a plot device (Miller, 2007, pg. 49). The dances from Oklahoma! were historically rooted and culturally reflective... reflecting the vast freedom of the American landscape and the relationship between spatiality and identity.

After several previews and a few revisions, including the title from Away We Go to the final and most beloved version, Oklahoma! Rodgers and Hammerstein, released the production that became an instant audience and box office success. It seems the creative team had found the perfect blend of integration of dialogue, song, and dance, each element furthering the story in just the right way. The Golden Age of Musicals had been ushered in. Rodgers and Hammerstein would go on to produce four more Broadway shows, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music, that were box office and artistic powerhouses, as was the television broadcast of Cinderella (1957). Four other productions, including Flower Drum Song were also relatively successful. Accolades for the dynamic team and their shows include Tony Awards, Academy Awards, Pulitzer Prizes for Oklahoma! (1944, and South Pacific, 1950), and two Grammy Awards. De Mille would go on to choreograph Carousel (1945), Brigadoon (1947), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949), Paint Your Wagon (1951), The Girl in Pink Tights (1954), and 110 in the Shade (1963). She also arranged dances for the films Romeo and Juliet (1936) and Oklahoma! (1955), directed plays, and choreographed television programs. In her later years, she was at the helm of many dance projects for American Ballet Theatre. Agnes De Mille was a true American dance pioneer.

Another celebrated musical theatre female icon is Gwen Verdon. Verdon received a total of 4 Tony awards over the course of her long dance career and is the tie that binds two prolific jazz and musical theatre choreographers, Matt Mattox and Bob Fosse. Both Verdon and Mattox were trained by the Father of Theatrical Jazz Dance himself, Jack Cole (studied in Chapter 3 Jazz Dance). Gwen Verdon was known as a triple-threat, being equally skilled in singing, dancing, and acting, “a gem of light-hearted but consecrated show business”, as quoted in the Playbill article announcing her death (Broadway Musical Legend Gwen Verdon Is Dead at 75, 2024). Her study of the classical dance forms created an elegant line and shape to her body and an ability to move in any and all directions with grace and style. Bob Fosse found it fascinating and Verdon became a partner of Fosse’s both on and off the stage. Of her most famous role, the taxi dancer Charity Hope Valentine: "I like the character of Charity because she's so hopeful. She's never bitter, and plenty of things happen to her that could make her bitter. She always thinks tomorrow's going to be beautiful. And someday it will be” (Broadway Musical Legend Gwen Verdon Is Dead at 75, 2024)

Figure 3.17. Photo from the "I Feel Pretty" musical number from West Side Story.

File:I Feel Pretty from West Side Story 1957.JPG - Wikimedia Commons. (2022). Wikimedia.org. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F..._1957.JPG#file