And All That Jazz

Musical theater "musical (noun): a stage, television or film production utilizing popular-style songs - dialogue optional - to either tell a story (book musicals) or showcase the talents of the writers and/or performers (revues)." Musicals have gone by many different names some include, operas, operettas, and burlesque. Musical theater in a sense has been going on since the 5th Century B.C.with the ancient Greeks who included music and dancing into their performances as a form of entertainment. The Romans then expanded on the Greeks idea of performance and continued to add music and dance to their entertainment theaters. In the Middle Ages, traveling groups of performers offered people shows with musical numbers and "slapstick comedies." Today we have the most common place and production companies of musical theater on Broadway most commonly found in NYC. Musical theater is still found across the world as a large form of entertainment for people. We now have well known shows like, Chicago, Hairspray, Hello Dolly, and many more. Today, a lot of feature films are being turned into musicals like the newest show of Spiderman The Musical.


http://www.pbs.org/wnet/broadway/resources.html
http://www.musicals101.com/erastage.htm