what musicals change trends?

[Howard Shore]

What musicals do you consider as changed trends and change history of   Broadway.

[sng]

Show Boat 

A Chorus Line

Rent 

Will be: Hamilton

[tazber]

People always mention Rent, but what did it change?

 

It wasn't that innovative in terms of style or structure.

 

 

 

 

[dramamama611]

^thank goodness....I thought I was the only one thinking that.  But I feel that way when most people say most things are game changing, and worse, LIFE changing. Just how did your life change?

[tazber]

Well, there is that first musical people see/hear which makes them fall in love with musicals. For me it was the OBCR of A Chorus Line and the production of Jerome Robbins Broadway , which I can honestly say set my life on its current path

 

So I can see how the impact of a show can affect someone deeply.

 

And for many people Rent was probably a personal milestone. But not a "game changer" in the larger sense.

 

Oklahoma with it's innovative use of song and dance to develop character and plot is what I'd call a trend-setter.

 

A lot of the "concept musicals" from the 70s changed the form as well.

 

 

 

 

 

[dramamama611]

Oh, I don't doubt that sometimes the statement is true, just not to the extent that people throw the phrase around.

[ChildofEarth]

I'm a Rent fan and while I don't know what the theatre world was like before it, I will say that I think the show might not be nearly as iconic if Jonathan Larsen was still with us.

Not the nicest thing to say, but it is true.

[givesmevoice]

"People always mention Rent, but what did it change?

It wasn't that innovative in terms of style or structure."

This might be totally wrong, but did it change the way audiences interacted with musicals? Isn't Rent often mentioned as really popularizing student rush/lotto tickets?

[Emmaloucbway]

Hair- the first rock musical.

[sng]

"People always mention Rent, but what did it change?

 

 

 

It wasn't that innovative in terms of style or structure.

 

 

 

 

 

I agree that  Rent wasn't something spectacular musically but the OP asked what changed the history of musical so i don't think one can deny or argue the impact of Rent to musical theatre during that time and how it brought a whole new audience/introducing lotto tickets to Broadway.

 

 

 

"

 

[rattleNwoolypenguin]

Sweeney Todd.

The horror musical.

[MichelleCraig]

SHOW BOAT

OKLAHOMA!

A CHORUS LINE

HAMILTON may do it; too early to tell.

[Ranger Tom]

Rent didn't change trends in style or structure but it opened up trends on subject matter for musicals.  Look at the musicals on Broadway the year Rent won the Tony.  Dolly, State Fair, King and I, Company, Big, Victor/Victoria, Forum, Swinging on a Star...

Show Boat, West Side Story, Hair, concept for JC Superstar, Company were trend changes - opened the door to other/new expression.  

 

[BroadwayConcierge]

Show Boat, Oklahoma!, West Side Story, Hair, Company, A Chorus Line, Rent, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Hamilton are the watershed ones in my mind.

 

Maybe even South Pacific and Sunday in the Park with George.

[brdway411]

A couple of people mentioned Hamilton. What is so game changing about it. And yes I saw Hamilton and didn't find it all that great. 

Want a rap musical IN THE HEIGHTS. and it's a better show. 

 

 

[Melissa25]

The puppetry and choral arrangements in The Lion King were new and exciting.  Disney obviously has changed the economics of Broadway but I am still waiting for Disney to top the Lion King's artistry.

[ggersten]

Emmaloucbway said: "Hair- the first rock musical."

Charles Strouse contends Bye Bye Birdie was the first "rock" musical - or at least the first to incorporate "rock and roll" 

 

[AEA AGMA SM]

Was Birdie the first show on Broadway to use an electric guitar in its orchestrations?

[TheBoyFromNC]

As much as I personally dislike it, I would include Cats in this list, as the first Mega Musical that the 80's came to be so defined by.

[TheBoyFromNC]

Also, I've heard Annie Get Your Gun referred to as the first musical written as a star vehicle - is there any truth to that? It seems every musical that Ethel, Mary, and Gwen did after it was written around them.

[HogansHero]

There is a great deal of myopia in this thread, as well as a scope issue. But most fundamentally, there is a misapprehension of the nature of art.

Let's deal with the scope issue first. Shows that do something great are not a trend. Shows that have innovative marketing are not a trend related to the art form. Shows that have innovative ways of selling tickets are not a trend related to an art form.

Art, by its nature, evolves rather than changes on a dime. Being the first show to employ a particular instrument or style of music doesn't mark a cliff that everyone dives off of, but it may mark a broadening of the available toolkit for artists. The OP used the right word: trend; others here are myopically focused on game changers. When you do all of the great things a show like Hamilton does, you don't erase what came before, but you can push certain things in the direction of going out of style. You can also raise the bar.

Technology is more susceptible of creating game-changers than art. Thus, the advent of computers really altered the way theatre is made. Late in life, Abbott was asked what the most important development in his lifetime was. His answer: the invention of the electric light. 

[The8re phan]

Company

[tazber]

I don't think technological advancement is what the OP meant.

 

I agree that a just because a show is innovative doesn't make it a trend setter.

 

When a show does something new artistically and is subsequently copied by other artists, each of whom advance the trend in their own way, is what we're talking about here.

 

As far as it being a trend setting show, you need distance to make that assertion.

 

At this point Hamilton is a great show but not in any way a trend-setter (yet?).

 

 

[Ranger Tom]

"Shows that have innovative marketing are not a trend related to the art form. Shows that have innovative ways of selling tickets are not a trend related to an art form."

HogansHero - some good points on art form and technology.  But OP didn't talk about trends related to an art form/technology.  They talked about change the history of Broadway.  New marketing that brings in a whole new audience changed the history of Broadway.  So, Rent would be appropriate to the discussion.  

 

 

[Smaxie]

The true trendsetters of the past two decades would be Beauty and the Beast and Mamma Mia; Beauty, as Disney's first theatrical venture ushered in corporate producing on Broadway, as well as inspiring movie studios to raid their vaults for inspiration and then Mamma Mia for the first of the many jukebox musicals that followed.  Shows like Hamilton that come along every decade or so may be artistic triumphs, but they tend to be one-offs, with Broadway soon returning to business as usual.