There are many famous American playwrights from Tennessee Williams to Arthur Miller. Yet, America’s most talked about contribution to the theatre has been in the category of musical theatre.
One of America’s most acclaimed musicals is Guys and Dolls. However, it is interesting to note that many of the hit songs from Guys and Dolls, such as “Luck Be A Lady,” are rarely still thought of as freestanding pieces of music to be listened to outside of their performance context.
Broadway Musicals of Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, and Jerome Kern
The American musical theatre of the 1920s and 1930s, was littered with music by composers such as Cole Porter, The Gershwin Brothers, and Jerome Kern. At the time, musical theatre provided the popular music of its day, and many of the songs from this period have remained beloved favourites long after the shows for which they were written have been forgotten. For example, hit tunes such as “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Tea for Two,” and “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” still reach a wide audience today, while the musicals like Oh, Kay, that featured songs such as these are almost entirely forgotten.
Hollywood Preserves the Music
A lucky few musicals of this era such as Show Boat and Anything Goes survive both through hit songs and revived performances of the script. But many of the musicals from this period are remembered only in history books, while the songs of this era play on. This may be because the songs from this time were usually considered far more important than the actual dialogue, which is exhibited by the fact that many songs, especially if they were popular with audiences, were used in multiple plays, and often eventually recycled into a new plot for Hollywood stars such as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
Broadway Musicals of the 1940s and 1950s
The plots of the American musicals of the 1940s and 1950s seem to be much more remembered. Yet, the individual songs of such musicals from this period, such as Guys and Dolls, Hello, Dolly, Mame and My Fair Lady, still had a place in popular music. These musicals are unique in that their songs experienced their own fame in their day, and the musical script itself has been revived many times on both Broadway and the West End. The interesting thing is that in the modern day, most of the songs from these musicals have become only known as part of the stage production.
Broadway of the 1990s
While Broadway musicals often featured serious situations, most emphasized optimism. In more recent years Broadway has featured less comic and more dramatic new Musicals, such as The Scarlet Pimpernel. And some new musicals, such as The Life have favoured a more operatic approach to the musical score. However, the modern Broadway musicals and their songs seem to exist mainly as a whole, with neither the songs or the script being more greatly remembered.
Music, Music, Music…
It is fascinating to note that few Broadway musicals have achieved long lasting fame for both the songs and the plot. By their very nature of needing to be performed due to the required presence of music and often dance, Musicals have less survival ability than even straight plays, and the majority of Broadway musicals that remain well known is through their adaptation to film, as in the cases of The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady. It would seem that in the case of the stage musical there is no guarantee that "time won’t erase" their names.
