Musical Theatre: The Black Crook Essay

Introduction

Musical theatre is a general type of theatrical performance or art of production that bring together songs, dances, acting, and spoken dialogue (Russell 47). The emotional content and the entire story of the musical -pathos, love, waves of anger and humor are all communicated through verbal and non-verbal cues. These cues are words, movement, music and the technical aspects of the entire function as a whole integrated body. Although theatrical music interacts with other dramatic forms in the field of dance and opera, it may be differentiated by the same importance attached to the music as seen in the movements, dialogue and indeed other elements. Since the 20th century, the Musical theatre works have been termed generally as the Musicals (Szanto 97).

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Musicals are found to being performed all around the entire world in many countries. They are presented in large functions. These functions include the well-known Broadways or the West end in New York City and even London. The musical is also found to be performed in smaller venues like Off- Broadway, fringe theatre, regional theatre, community theatre or Off-Off-Broadway productions and on tour. The musical is presented by school groups in churches and also the amateur in other functions.

Broadway is a theatrical performance that is presented in well-known forty-one professional theatres. These theatres have 500 or more seats each and are located in Theatre District. The Broadway is mainly considered to host the highest level of theatrical performances in the entire English-speaking world. The district is a well-known tourist site in New York. The attendance in the 2017-2018 season was 13,792,614, and the show had US$ 1,697,458,795 in total. Majority of the Broadway functions are musicals.

Black Pool as First America Musicals

The black crook was done in 1866 broadly. The piece contained 474 performances. Parisian ballet forces joined hand s with other groups for the entire production. A few songs were composed for the show. A significant number of songs were from the earlier sources. The content of output run for one and a half hour, and its libretto is 62 pages which demand at most two hours reading.

Female costumes were much criticized since they exposed the arms and the legs. However, modest compared to what is worn today. The black pool contained more European Gothic and less of American content. The writer of the black crook, Charles.M. Barras was influenced by having a view of the Germans romantic opera performance.

In 18666 Henry C Jaret and Henry Palmer collaborated with the intention to familiarize the European art of novelty to the Americans. They used some of the European dancers to learn their skills even after their earlier venue burning down during summer; they returned all the requirements including the dancers and costumes.

The musical is any content or film that is humorous and relates to music. A musical has dialogue and a unifying plot. Many people in the world enjoyed musicals and performed at different venues. Costumes are essential in musicals since they assist in bringing the reality of a particular character. Musical instruments help in enhancing the rhythms. Once devices are played, they attract the attention of the audience and therefore they can receive the intended information.

The musical has elements like pitch and rhythm and even the various dynamics. Sometimes the music is written in the books and published targeting the audience. Acts include plays, films, and even operas. Actions are gaining popularity in tv shows. An act begins with an introduction of setting the audience highly aware of the content and the different characters involved. The exposition stage includes setting the scene. The rising action stage follows it. The step consists in building tension which is done by conflicts among the protagonist and antagonists.

The characters then usher in another stage known falling action. Here the evil characters are seen to suffer and mostly reaches the losing ends. The resolution stage end s the lay where a resolution is reached. The story mostly ends with the active support of the good characters and morals in the society.

Book Libretto

The libretto is the word meaning a text intended for or extended musical work. The vocal work extended are the operetta, opera, cantata, masque, oratorio musical. The term libretto sometimes is used to give the meaning of major liturgical works. The liturgical action here means mass: sacred cantata, requiem or even the line story of ballet. This text (libretto) is distinct from a scenario or the synopsis of the plot (Sutherland 79). This is because the libretto contains all the stage directions and the words in a musical while the synopsis includes the summary of the plot in the musical.

The writer of the libretto is called the Librettist. The Libretto is sometimes written before the music and sometimes not. Some Librettist such as Alexander Serov, Puccini, and others wrote proses of music with no text and what followed is another librettist adding some words to the vocal melody lines (Paulton 86).

Musical Theatre Dance

This is a type of theatrical performance which readily which bring together the spoken dialogue, words, songs dance and acting. The art of designing the dance is termed as Choreography. Self. It is sometimes defined as utilizing dance notion or the design itself. The person who creates dances is called the Choreographer, and the choreography is also called of d the dance composition (Koenig 67).

The main idea in the dance choreography is the dimensional use of the organic unit system, rhythmic and non- the rhythmic form of articulation, repetition, theme, and variation. The whole process of choreography involves improvisation for the physical development of innovative movement ideas. Generally, the choreographic process is used to plot the dances that are purposed to be performed in concert dance (Bowley 16). The process involves the identification of individual movement and steps concerning space, time, shape and energy

Technical Aspects

The process of the technical aspect will be of help to the entire function of theatrical music as it involves the aspect of stage setting, lighting and the sound effects in the theatre. The technical aspects will always attract the audience in terms of how the stage is planned (Barras 28). The planning of the stage will mainly involve the physical things read from the script like doors, stairs and even the windows. The situations that involve scenes that are designed for outdoors activities, the set designer will dig deep to look for the reference to environmental physical materials like trees and stones.

Conclusion

The musical theatre involves a lot of steps. The steps may require different people to lay down the structures and the necessities for the whole performance (Gronenberg 36).

Music is sound accompanied by instrumental sounds whose sole aim is to produce harmony, a form of beauty and even idea expression. Lyrics are the written words of a music. Musical theatre entails songs, spoken words, acting and also dancing. Sometimes the lyrists are highly involved in songs musician part. They have the hardest time since they take up two roles. The most popular lyrists have composed the common secular songs available in the social domain.

Lyrics basically composes of verses and even choruses at times. The black crook contains one of the most admired lyrics. Though a combination of many songs it captures many aspects of the European culture in writing which creates a significant impact to the audience. Knowledge written is more permanent and gains public acceptance at a faster rate.

Costumes in any play are differential codes of dressing which reflects different roles in dramas and plays. In the black crook the costumes used were gender specific. Female wore costumes which were highly criticized to be of indecent category while men had their different costumes.

Works cited

Barras, C. M. (1879). Niblos Garden Theatre Commencing Wednesday, March 5, 79 ... Kiralfy Bros. grand spectacular production of the Black Crook. N.Y.: Metropolitan Job Print., 28 Ann Street.

Bowley, C. A. (1975). The Black Crook: The history of success.

Gronenberg, C. (n.d.). Musicals. Mulheim a.d. Ruhr: Verlag an der Ruhr.

Koenig, J. (2012). Libretto. Auckland: Thos Holdsworth & Sons.

Musicals: The definitive illustrated story. (2015). NY, NY: DK Publishing.

Paulton, J., Paulton, H., Jacobi, G., & Clay, F. (1873). The black crook: An operatic drama in four acts ..London: Printed by Elliot.

Russell, J. (2013). Libretto. Place of publication not identified: Book On Demand.

Sutherland, S. (1998). About musicals. Lincolnwood (Chicago), IL: NTC Pub. Group.

Sutherland, S. (1998). About musicals. Lincolnwood (Chicago), IL: NTC Pub. Group.

Szanto, G. H., & Barras, C. M. (1981). The new black crook: An adaptation. Toronto: Playwrights Canada.