Broadway
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Broadway denotes the large professional theatres of New York's Theater District and the commercial musical tradition they define, the industry standard for scale, star casting, and craft. Musically it favors full pit orchestras, big showstopping numbers, belt-forward and legit voices, and arrangements built for houses of a thousand-plus seats. The Broadway sound is polished and extroverted, engineered for the eleven-o'clock number and the standing ovation, though it absorbs every idiom from swing to rock. The mood is glamour and spectacle balanced with dramatic weight — the aspirational summit of American commercial theatre.
History
The Theater District coalesced around Times Square in the early 1900s as the home of the Ziegfeld Follies, operetta, and the interwar songbook shows of Berlin, Kern, Porter, and the Gershwins. The Rodgers and Hammerstein era (from Oklahoma!, 1943) and the age of Loesser, Bernstein, and Jerry Herman made mid-century Broadway a cultural engine, later reshaped by Sondheim's concept musicals and A Chorus Line (1975). British megamusicals and, later, Disney and jukebox tourists filled its houses; through booms and busts, Broadway — governed by the Tony Awards and its unions — remained the benchmark against which musical theatre worldwide is measured.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Hello, Dolly!(1964) — Carol ChanningSpotifyYouTube
- Everything's Coming Up Roses(1959) — Ethel MermanSpotifyYouTube
- Cabaret(1966) — Jill HaworthSpotifyYouTube
- The Impossible Dream(1965) — Richard KileySpotifyYouTube
- Popular(2003) — Kristin ChenowethSpotifyYouTube
- Comedy Tonight(1962) — Zero MostelSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- Larry Stempel, Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theater (2010)
- Ken Bloom, Broadway: An Encyclopedia
- Playbill and Internet Broadway Database production records