Blog Filter By Theatre History

Dear Theatre Critics,

July has been a dark month for you. It seems you can say nothing right! After years of artists cowering in fear of what you might say about them, artists are standing up for themselves (and for each other) to call you out on the way you abuse the hand that feeds you. 

“Who lives? Who dies? Who tells your story?” These questions challenge the audiences of the blockbuster musical sensation Hamilton every day. Anticipation and excitement for Hamilton has dogged the musical since its inception. One of the taglines on the production’s publicity materials is “An American Musical,” noting the show’s content as well as its country […]

The post From Opera To Musical Theater: Old Stories in A New Millennium appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

Jennifer Ashley Tepper is a Musical Theatre Historian and curator/author of the books The Untold Stories of Broadway Volumes 1 and 2. She’s also the co-creator and writer of the Bistro Award-winning concert series "If It Only Even Runs A Minute," which celebrates underappreciated musicals, and the Director of Programming at Feinstein’s/54 Below, where she […]

The post Drinks with Jen: My Conversation with Jennifer Ashley Tepper appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

The last few years have been an interesting time for dance in contemporary musical theatre. Are ballet and the dance-focused musical coming back in style? Christopher Wheeldon’s An American In Paris comes to mind most immediately for its Best Choreography Tony this past season, but does it point towards a bigger trend? Sure, musical theatre […]

The post C’est Le Ballet: Dance in Contemporary Musical Theatre appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

A month ago I was able to have the extremely fortunate experience of sitting next to my partner in the Richard Rodgers Theater while watching the first President of the United States sing only to be followed by hearing the current President of the United States speak. Of course, George Washington wasn’t really on stage. […]

The post The Harmony of Politics and Musical Theatre appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

A month ago I was able to have the extremely fortunate experience of sitting next to my partner in the Richard Rodgers Theater while watching the first President of the United States sing only to be followed by hearing the current President of the United States speak. Of course, George Washington wasn’t really on stage. […]

The post The Harmony of Politics and Musical Theatre appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

Remember when showtunes were on the radio? When listening to musicals was considered “cool”? Yeah, me neither. Yet that used to be the norm during the Golden Age of Broadway musicals. For years and years, Broadway songs filled the pop charts and were heard on the airwaves across America. Then, slowly but surely, other styles of music […]

The post Broadway on the Billboard Charts appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

“I’m sorry theater only exists in one place at a time but that is also its magic. A bootleg cannot capture it.” -Lin-Manuel Miranda Due to geography, cost, or the desire to re-live an amazing live experience, fans of theatre want live-recorded videos of Broadway musicals. Producers and creatives have been resistant to allow filmed live […]

The post Kicking the Bootlegs: The Case for Legally Filmed Musicals appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

The best theatre is live theatre. No matter what genre the performance is, there’s something special about breathing the same air as the performers who are making something that can only be fully enjoyed in that moment. The one downside to that is that there’s no way to be at every show in history, even […]

The post 8 Performances That Make Me Wish Time Travel Was Possible appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

I recently returned from a trip to New York City where, among other things, I was lucky enough to see An American In Paris. I absolutely loved the show, and among other positive things, the word “classic” kept floating around the theatre in relation to the show. This got me thinking – what exactly constitutes […]

The post The Mark of a Classic appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

Contemporary theatre is exciting and something to celebrate, but I also like to take the time to appreciate the glory days of Broadway. It’s because of the Golden Age that I fell in love with theater. While I feel like I’m in the minority of those that prefer more “dated” musicals, I love them for […]

The post A Love Letter to the Golden Age of Broadway: Why I Always Appreciate the Musicals of the Past appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

If you’re like me, you started writing your first musical when you should have been paying attention in math class. You slaved over your “serious” adaptation of whatever short story your English class was reading. You thought it was brilliant, but three years later, you threw the completed first draft away, fearing someone might actually […]

The post Advice From The Greats to People Like Us appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

While spending my afternoon surfing the Internet, as we all do, I ran across an interesting piece by Ben Brantley from 2010 (yes, ages and ages ago). This article basically asked the question: when did political figures become inappropriate for American musicals, and will we see a resurgence of them soon? This was written just […]

The post Why the “Great White Way” Needs the White House: Political Musicals on Broadway appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

My first month of graduate school I was faced with the task of creating a two-hour presentation on the amazing and important musical theatre composer Jerome Kern. Besides being terrified of my first attempt to teach my fellow students some musical theatre history, I was more nervous that I didn’t know much about the subject […]

The post Lessons from Jerome Kern appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

Last semester I was required to write a very long research paper for my Research and Bibliography class- something I was not looking forward to, but hey, that’s part of graduate school. Little did I know, I would be completely inspired by my topic and grow to write more on the subject than I even […]

The post Why I Care About Rap Musicals appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

If I have learned anything from my time studying Theatre, it’s that musical theatre rarely receives the amount of respect from academia that it deserves. Usually, musicals are blindly labeled “spectacles” and Broadway is given the sort of wide berth that Mufasa orders Simba to give the Shadowlands. Or at least that is what I […]

The post Challenging “All That’s Known”: The Brechtian Elements of Spring Awakening appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.