While musicals have been a staple in the golden age of Hollywood, live musical theatre (MT) performances and their respective genres have truly ‘jetéd’ into the 21st century; enchanting audiences from all walks of life.
Musical classics from Rogers and Hammerstein like The King and I, The Sound of Music and Cinderella are beloved masterpieces, but they have a stereotypical aging time stamp printed on their playbills, and they don’t engage as well with today’s youth.
After Rogers and Hammerstein, the next big MT wavemaker was Andrew Lloyd Webber who gifted the musical world some of its biggest hits including Cats, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar and The Phantom of the Opera. All of these have been given the silver screen treatment.
However the musical world failed to generate new composers to match Lloyd Webber’s work and so it started to churn out jukebox musicals. Jukebox musicals are shows that feature already well established songs or an artist’s entire life work. They are then squished into a storyline and shoved on a stage, some clever and some lazy. Mamma Mia is a very successful example of a jukebox musical. Although some ABBA fans may not have been MT heads, the fact that Mamma Mia hosts a library of ABBA’s greatest hits unites audiences for the love of music and theatrics.
Love them or hate them, jukebox musicals are incredibly popular because audiences like being comfortable with material they’re familiar with, just look at all those Disney reboots. But the MT world needed something fresh and someone new, then Lin Manuel Miranda stumbled into that spotlight.
Miranda is an American composer, lyricist, actor and playwright who catapulted MT into an unknown Broadway music genre: rap. Miranda’s smash hits In the Heights and Hamilton are fusions of MT and contemporary rap music set against racial and social landscapes that are applicable to the modern political climate, and they are also super catchy.
Miranda’s hybrid musicals engaged with audiences from all walks of life and even educated us on the life of one of America’s founding fathers. But along with this, shows like Dear Evan Hansen, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie and Waitress detail pretty normal lives that audiences are more likely to relate to, and not just spandex cats.
This inclusion of being an average human and not an aspiring opera singer haunted by a murderous scarred phantom has allowed MT to transfigure itself into the audience’s lives as fantasy just isn’t for everyone, although it is really fun. Even though there has been this development in the MT world, arts programs and funding in schools are constantly being cut.
Participating in MT while in school or as a pastime can be as rewarding as it is emotionally difficult as confidence is something MT can build and shatter instantly. But in saying this, whether your experience on the stage has been positive or negative, it’s bound to have a lasting impact.
Although movies and cinema are shiny and beautifully packaged, sometimes nothing can compare to the raw talent that is needed for live theatre. You are only as good as your last performance. You need courage, a strong work ethic, passion and a decent pair of tights. Because with theatre, there’s no take two.