The Pocket Guide to Musicals

By Kieran Hughes and Richard Jordan

Everything you need to know about musical theater in one handy guide by leading expert Maureen Hughes who has herself created 8 musicals and teaches musical theater. The Pocket Guide to Musicals covers everything from the composers and lyricists to a comprehensive A-Z listing of musicals from around the world. Accessibility is a key selling point with fact boxes highlighting key or curious facts about the subject.

The Pocket Guide to Musicals is compulsory reading for anyone studying musical theater and its size makes it a perfect gift for anyone intending to go to the theater at or who wants to discover as much about the topic as possible – in a handy, pocket-sized guide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Release date: Apr 21, 2009
• ISBN: 9781844687244

Kieran Hughes

Kieran, son of Maureen, was born in Liverpool, spent his childhood in Shrewsbury, then spent the first part of his life in London, as a journalist and newsreader on BBC and commercial radio. By his late thirties he had started university to study for two degrees and teacher training. His Mum had persuaded him that he would make a good teacher! Kieran now teaches history full-time at a school in High Wycombe. He has four sons, seven grandchildren and lives with his wife Bridget near the town centre.

Book preview

Chapter One

Welcome to the World of Musical Theatre

Introduction

FOR THOSE who truly love the stage and all that goes with it, musicals are quite simply an important and invaluable member of the thespian family. Sadly, however, there are those who succumb to a form of aesthetic snobbery and believe that musicals are at best trite or, at worst, a cultural desert where the only oasis in sight is the end of the show; for them, the musical is the black sheep of the thespian family, the wayward aunt, the out-spoken cousin, the rebellious brother, the one who should never be let into the inner sanctum of this family fold.

Whatever your personal view, interest in musical theatre has never been greater both on this side of the pond and the other. The West End is alive with the ‘sound of music’ and TV constantly entertains us with reality shows as they search for the next performer with the X Factor, the next leading lady in a musical, the next winner of a dance fevered programme; on and on it goes.

My own love affair with the musical began many years ago. In fact, with hindsight and the wisdom of age, I can actually pinpoint that my pull into the theatre began long before I was even five years old.

My parents were house hunting and I can vividly remember trying to persuade them to buy various houses simply because they had a bay window. You see, I thought that a bay window with curtains straight across instead of around the bay would make a wonderful stage. I’m not sure where I thought my obviously ‘very tiny’ actors and actresses were going to make their entrances and exits, but I didn’t care, all I saw was a stage. Eventually, and to my great disappointment, my parents settled on a house without my inbuilt stage, but I adapted and created an outdoor theatre on a square piece of concrete in front of a garden shed. Even better, because now I not only had a stage but a backstage area too – in the form of the shed which also served as a dressing room and which came with a ready supply of first night flowers, usually in plant pots, but I didn’t care!

I created so many productions on that piece of concrete that I think my parents often regretted not buying a house with a bay window, because not even the weather was allowed to stop my next blockbuster. So that was my starting point, although I obviously didn’t know this at the time because, whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would always tell them that I wanted to be a fashion designer! It remains a great mystery to me why I would say such a thing as my drawing skills were and are very limited and my fashion sense is non-existent, and remains so today, as my friends will vouch! However, my parents said nothing; they neither pushed nor encouraged me in either direction, but just let me get on with creating theatre for them, an assortment of dolls and a few of my reluctant friends who, incidentally, thought my obsession with shows to be decidedly odd.

Time marched on and my passion for the theatre – and, in particular, musical theatre – never abated, but instead became my life and my career as I have written eight musicals and teach musical theatre in a vocational school; a career which has now spanned almost 40 years (and yes I was teaching this ‘subject’ long before it became fashionable!).

During this time I have read innumerable books on teaching and even more on musicals, and what has always struck me is that so many of them, I am sad to say, have little about what the reader actually wants to know, so much so that I didn’t even finish many of them! In a rather convoluted way, they seemed to take so long to get to the point that by the time they actually did, I had lost interest. I want this book to be different; I want it to be accessible and an easy read for everyone who enjoys watching a musical. If you want to know from which musical a song originated, then it is simple to look up, as is the decade in which a musical made its first appearance; you might want to know whether a particular musical was a film or a stage musical first – another easy search. There is also a straightforward timeline for some of the more well-known creators of musicals and some interesting, little known facts about various aspects of this wonderful art form. It’s all here and it’s all easy to find and easy to read. In fact, I want the reader to feel that they know me as someone they feel they can actually hear. I am told by my family that they know when I am enjoying a book because I start talking to the page and arguing with the words – so I’ll be listening out for you!

When the reader closes my book after the final page I want them to think, ‘Wow! I never realised that’, then go out, buy a ticket for a musical and watch it through different eyes; through more knowledgeable eyes.

Maureen Hughes

So let the show begin

A Recipe for Success

There is a plan, a strategy – a recipe – behind every success story and contrary to that time old saying, success does not come to he who waits; it comes to he who works. But as with all good recipes there must be some basic ingredients.

Take a Large Helping of Music

The style can vary; it can be rock, pop, opera, folk, jazz, contemporary – any style at all; it can be original, it can be ‘borrowed’, as it was in the Eighteenth Century. There are no rules; you just need music.

Add Some Colourful Words

You have the melody, so now add some words; words to tell a story, to portray an emotion; to tell everyone what has just happened, or is going to happen; powerful words to drive the plot forward. You now have a song.

Mix in a Dance Routine

Most musicals have dance as a part of their recipe; a dance routine can give us a visual feel for the underlying emotion of the piece.

Stir Vigorously and add to an Outstanding and Gripping Storyline

Take all of the above and mix it into the story, commonly called the plot and generally recognised as the most important ingredient of all. A strong storyline will keep the audience enthralled and receptive to the incomparable art form of:

Musical Theatre

Poor Man’s Theatre?

So exactly what is musical theatre? Well, what the theatrical snobs amongst us will try to convince you of is that it is ‘not real theatre’, that it is, in fact, a ‘poor man’s theatre’, theatre for the intellectually inferior. So what do I think to that? I think there is nothing ‘poor’ about Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber, or about Sir Cameron Mackintosh; not in any sense of the word. I think that they are both artistically rich… and of course financially not too badly off either! They are both men for whom I have the greatest of respect, and both are Masters in the art of musical theatre.

My advice to you then is that when someone laughs at you for enjoying a musical – and trust me they will – point out that they are obviously in the minority, for without the support of the theatre-going majority, neither of these two gentlemen would be so successful, nor would musical theatre be so successful. In fact, theatre itself would be so much the poorer. Tell them to take a look at the West End and Broadway where so often musicals dominate.

Watching a musical is also quite simply a wonderful way to spend an evening, be it as a producer, a performer, a member of the creative team or as a member of the audience. In my view, there is nothing to rival this, one of the greatest and oldest of art forms, which we can trace as far back as the Ancient Greeks.

To create a musical, masters in this specific form of art are required, including composers; lyricists/librettists; producers; choreographers; casting directors; directors; musical directors; musical arrangers; set designers; lighting designers; sound designers; musicians; costume designers. Take a look at the programme from any musical and you will soon see just how extensive the list of the creative team involved can be.

Once we have the experts in place, who are at the very core and form the foundation of musical theatre, then, and only then, can the search begin for the performers who will breathe life into the piece. And finding performers to do this is not an easy task when casting a musical, for generally speaking the search will be on for a ‘triple threat artist’. That is, an artist who can sing, dance and act to an incredibly high standard, for the art of musical theatre is the marriage of three disciplines, singing, dancing and acting. Being able to do just one of these is amazing in itself, but to be accomplished in all three is in fact amazing – and essential.

So, is musical theatre really a ‘poor man’s theatre’? I think not. I think it is quite the opposite; it is an artistically rich member of the theatrical world.

The Trio of Grand Masters

As stated earlier, and for reasons that I have never fully understood, musical theatre is often ridiculed and maligned by those who consider it to be for the less intelligent of theatre goers. To those people, I would like