MA Musical Theatre

The Case Study module is made up of two parts:

Case Study 1

The case study course will employ a combination of workshops, lectures and seminars including some guest lectures by specialists from the industry (choreographer, conductor, producer, director, critics) that will equip students to comprehend methodological problems pertinent to artistic collaboration. Students develop a critical approach to the production process, which aims to enable them to act as agents of change within the industry. Weekly case studies of representative examples of the genre will highlight the following topics:

• the libretto – forms and subjects
• the art of lyric-writing
• musical structure as dramaturgy
• alternative choreographic approaches
• staging, scenography and the impact of contemporary technology
• approaches to artistic collaboration
• the role of the producer in creating new musicals
• production and marketing – the aesthetics of the popular
• case study of a musical production

Students will develop their own ability to analyse the structure of musical theatre texts by way of small group discussion and argument led by experts in the field.

Case Study 2

The aim of this class is to gain a socio-historical understanding of individual musicals in their cultural context and to learn how to analyse musicals critically as popular cultural texts. In a succession of case studies representative of larger sociocultural issues, we will read a selection of mainly 20th century works from the canon of popular musical theatre as manifestations of their time. By comparing musical texts to each other and by relating them to theoretical approaches, the musicals emerge in their sociocultural and socio-political relevance as expressions of their cultural climate.

The class is taught chronologically alongside hallmark musicals from the beginnings of a European operetta tradition through early American musicals and Hollywood films to contemporary subversions, parodies and revivals of the genre. The historical component of this class is enriched by the introduction of a select number of cultural theory approaches surrounding the categories of race, class and gender, as well as more recent approaches indebted to spatial theory (e.g. Ecocriticism) and to constructions of the other (e. g. Orientalism). Thus, an overview of the social and cultural history of the musical is enriched with the practice of applied theoretical analysis of the musicals from a cultural studies perspective. We will also look at live performances of musical for this class. Two or three theatre excursions will be planned for this module.

Regular producers’ classes in Autumn and Spring terms will develop a student’s understanding of the social, economic, industrial and institutional factors involved in artistic production. By means of a combination of seminars and workshops, students acquire knowledge of the interrelationship of various kinds of production technique and scenographic technology insofar as these affect the dramaturgy of a musical.

Producing students will undertake a placement in the Easter vacation or the Summer term, which will be the subject of a short critical reflection. From the beginning of Spring term, each student will work as a producer on a 15-minute musical, being responsible for collaborating with a writer/composer in order to present a semi-staged production for a workshop presentation in Week 7 of the Spring term. In Summer term, the producers will begin planning the preparation of the 45-minute workshop presentations for production in mid-September. Late in June each student will arrange experimental workshops to test draft material from a musical they are producing, which will then be presented to module tutors in producing and writing/composition. The producers will jointly have responsibility for organising a showcase ‘festival’ of new musicals and for supervising the budgeting, casting, design and direction of the showcase productions.

This module outlines the aesthetic development of the American musical as genre from Show Boat (1927) to Sweeney Todd (1979), and of the global proliferation of musicals from Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) to the present day. Specific topics include:

• The influence of nineteenth-century American entertainment forms, such as minstrelsy, burlesque and vaudeville
• English musical comedy, the ‘Princess theatre’ shows (Kern, Wodehouse and Bolton) and the Gershwins
• The rise of the integrated musical: from Show Boat to Oklahoma!
• Musical comedy as integrated show: Pal Joey, Kiss Me Kate; Guys and Dolls
• Experiment on Broadway: 1930s and 1940s (Strike Up the Band; Of Thee I Sing; Porgy and Bess; Lady in the Dark; On the Town)
• The director-choreographer as auteur: Robbins, Fosse, Michael Bennett (The Pajama Game; West Side Story; Sweet Charity)
• The non-linear musical: Cabaret; Company; Follies
• Brechtian aesthetics and backstage musicals: The Threepenny Opera; Chicago, A Chorus Line
• The through-sung musical: Jesus Christ Superstar and after
• Pop music and the ‘global’ British musical: Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables
• The Disney musical on screen and stage
• Sondheim’s later work: Sunday in the Park with George; Assassins
• French, German and Scandinavian musicals: Notre Dame de Paris; Linea Eins; Kristina fran Duwemala
• Current musical theatre and stage to screen adaptations

This module runs for 20 weeks. It begins in autumn with an historical survey of the development of the American musical. It continues in the spring term with a look at new forms of musical theatre that have resulted from the fragmentation of the classic tradition of ‘book’ musicals, with the innovation of the ‘concept’ musical, the impact of rock musicals, the ‘invasion’ of Broadway by the British ‘megamusical’, and the subsequent globalisation of the market by Cameron Macintosh and Disney.

The Case Study module is made up of two parts:

Case Study 1
The case study course will employ a combination of workshops, lectures and seminars including some guest lectures by specialists from the industry (choreographer, conductor, producer, director, critics) that will equip students to comprehend methodological problems pertinent to artistic collaboration. Students develop a critical approach to the production process, which aims to enable them to act as agents of change within the industry. Weekly case studies of representative examples of the genre will highlight the following topics:

• the libretto – forms and subjects
• the art of lyric-writing
• musical structure as dramaturgy
• alternative choreographic approaches
• staging, scenography and the impact of contemporary technology
• approaches to artistic collaboration
• the role of the producer in creating new musicals
• production and marketing – the aesthetics of the popular
• case study of a musical production

Students will develop their own ability to analyse the structure of musical theatre texts by way of small group discussion and argument led by experts in the field.

Case Study 2
The aim of this class is to gain a socio-historical understanding of individual musicals in their cultural context and to learn how to analyse musicals critically as popular cultural texts. In a succession of case studies representative of larger sociocultural issues, we will read a selection of mainly 20th century works from the canon of popular musical theatre as manifestations of their time. By comparing musical texts to each other and by relating them to theoretical approaches, the musicals emerge in their sociocultural and socio-political relevance as expressions of their cultural climate.

The class is taught chronologically alongside hallmark musicals from the beginnings of a European operetta tradition through early American musicals and Hollywood films to contemporary subversions, parodies and revivals of the genre. The historical component of this class is enriched by the introduction of a select number of cultural theory approaches surrounding the categories of race, class and gender, as well as more recent approaches indebted to spatial theory (e.g. Ecocriticism) and to constructions of the other (e. g. Orientalism). Thus, an overview of the social and cultural history of the musical is enriched with the practice of applied theoretical analysis of the musicals from a cultural studies perspective. We will also look at live performances of musical for this class. Two or three theatre excursions will be planned for this module.

Regular producers’ classes in Autumn and Spring terms will develop a student’s understanding of the social, economic, industrial and institutional factors involved in artistic production. By means of a combination of seminars and workshops, students acquire knowledge of the interrelationship of various kinds of production technique and scenographic technology insofar as these affect the dramaturgy of a musical.

Producing students will undertake a placement in the Easter vacation or the Summer term, which will be the subject of a short critical reflection. From the beginning of Spring term, each student will work as a producer on a 15-minute musical, being responsible for collaborating with a writer/composer in order to present a semi-staged production for a workshop presentation in Week 7 of the Spring term. In Summer term, the producers will begin planning the preparation of the 45-minute workshop presentations for production in mid-September. Late in June each student will arrange experimental workshops to test draft material from a musical they are producing, which will then be presented to module tutors in producing and writing/composition. The producers will jointly have responsibility for organising a showcase ‘festival’ of new musicals and for supervising the budgeting, casting, design and direction of the showcase productions.

This module outlines the aesthetic development of the American musical as genre from Show Boat (1927) to Sweeney Todd (1979), and of the global proliferation of musicals from Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) to the present day. Specific topics include:

• The influence of nineteenth-century American entertainment forms, such as minstrelsy, burlesque and vaudeville
• English musical comedy, the ‘Princess theatre’ shows (Kern, Wodehouse and Bolton) and the Gershwins
• The rise of the integrated musical: from Show Boat to Oklahoma!
• Musical comedy as integrated show: Pal Joey, Kiss Me Kate; Guys and Dolls
• Experiment on Broadway: 1930s and 1940s (Strike Up the Band; Of Thee I Sing; Porgy and Bess; Lady in the Dark; On the Town)
• The director-choreographer as auteur: Robbins, Fosse, Michael Bennett (The Pajama Game; West Side Story; Sweet Charity)
• The non-linear musical: Cabaret; Company; Follies
• Brechtian aesthetics and backstage musicals: The Threepenny Opera; Chicago, A Chorus Line
• The through-sung musical: Jesus Christ Superstar and after
• Pop music and the ‘global’ British musical: Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables
• The Disney musical on screen and stage
• Sondheim’s later work: Sunday in the Park with George; Assassins
• French, German and Scandinavian musicals: Notre Dame de Paris; Linea Eins; Kristina fran Duwemala
• Current musical theatre and stage to screen adaptations

This module runs for 20 weeks. It begins in autumn with an historical survey of the development of the American musical. It continues in the spring term with a look at new forms of musical theatre that have resulted from the fragmentation of the classic tradition of ‘book’ musicals, with the innovation of the ‘concept’ musical, the impact of rock musicals, the ‘invasion’ of Broadway by the British ‘megamusical’, and the subsequent globalisation of the market by Cameron Macintosh and Disney.