The Musical

""We should do it again! This time, as a musical! Whadya say? We'll do all the same things, except we'll break into spontaneous singing and choreography with no discernable music source!"

"Hmm. What assurance would we have that everyone else would also break into song and do the same thing?"

"I dunno. I think they probably will.""

- Phineas and Ferb, "Rollercoaster The Musical"

A musical is any presentation in which a major part of the exposition and/or action comes through the medium of song (and often, but not necessarily, dance as well). This sounds simple, but it has so many permutations that it is a loaded term for most people. For example, if you were to say that the only real difference between an opera and a musical is in what theaters they're showing it in, expect vehement protests -- and yet, trying to come up with definitions that will perfectly separate one from the other is just about impossible.

By far the most common perception of a musical is properly termed "musical theater", in which a play is performed with several songs interspersed at major plot points in the story. In the United States, these are most often associated with Broadway and Off-Broadway plays, and can be either original material or adapted from any number of sources (though adaptations are far more common than original musicals; see All Musicals Are Adaptations).

A distinction is made between "book musicals", in which songs are interspersed between chunks of spoken dialogue and action (the spoken dialogue being referred to as the "book"), and musicals that are "sung through" like an Opera, i.e. every word is sung from curtain-up to curtain-down. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Guys and Dolls are examples of book musicals; Cats and Les Misérables are sung through. Each variety has its advantages and disadvantages: with a sung through musical, there's the danger of having too much utterly mundane dialogue set to music in a way that draws the audience's attention to the blatant artificiality of the concept; with a book musical, the transitions from musical scenes to spoken dialogue and vice versa can be awkward and forced if they're not handled carefully.

In the West, musical films are often either animated, like classic Disney films, or adapted from stage musicals. Film adaptations of stage musicals have to deal with two major issues:


 * First, theatre is typically more forgiving of grand, melodramatic gestures, such as... well, bursting into song at highly emotional moments... that just look silly on film. Directors often deal with this by adding in some sort of frame story to justify all the singing (as in Chicago, where the songs are envisioned as taking place inside Roxie's head; the song "Class" had to be cut because there was no way to make it fit that scheme); alternatively, they can just go with the inherent high camp of the genre and hope they get away with it.
 * Second, films have bigger budgets than stage plays and often need to have "big names" to make sure of having an audience to justify the budget -- but most Hollywood-standard "big names" can't carry a tune in a bucket. There was a time when the standard solution was to hire a real singer to dub over the "name" (as, for instance, with Natalie Wood being dubbed by Marni Nixon in West Side Story -- Nixon also dubbed Deborah Kerr in The King and I and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady), but this has fallen out of favour -- with the result that many "musical" films are distinctly unmusical. (See Camelot or The Phantom of the Opera... actually, don't.) The alternative solution of hiring popular singers to play the roles brings with it the possibility that they can't act, which can be equally painful to watch.

There's also the problem that film and theater are very different media (as are television and film) and there are important differences that don't always translate well:


 * Film can zoom in and pan out to control the audience's focus. Theatre controls this with dialogue and blocking (how actors and props are positioned). No less a luminary than Stephen Sondheim has said that one reason why it's hard to adapt a stage musical to film is that in film a close-up can tell you everything that a song can -- so why bother with the song?
 * Film is image driven, where theater is dialogue driven. Film can have little or no dialogue and tell the story with pictures; theater can have very little physical movement and tell the story with verbal images.
 * Theater can be effective with very sparse or abstract sets, movies demand detailed and authentic backgrounds.

However, film and theater have one thing in common: you get 90 minutes of butt time, and if you run longer than that, you'd BETTER be good.

The movie/musical adaptation cycle goes both ways, with many Broadway musicals nowadays being based on films -- the reasoning being that if it's already been a success in one medium, it's less of a risk -- and the musical versions of the films then being adapted and returning to celluloid again (e.g. The Producers, Hairspray, Little Shop of Horrors).

There's also a new trend of the Jukebox Musical; adapting a musical play or film from the existing catalog of a musical artist, when the songs therein might not have anything to do with each other. Mamma Mia adapted from ABBA, Movin Out adapted from Billy Joel, and Across the Universe adapted from The Beatles are just a few examples. Moulin Rouge, which didn't stick to one artist but repurposed a few decades of pop music, was the likely trend-setter here. Of course, this technique goes back a ways--Singin in The Rain reused older songs--and prolific composers would often take songs from their less-successful shows and reuse them in new productions. (For example, Gilbert and Sullivan took the song "Climbing Over Rocky Mountain" from their early failure Thespis and dropped it in The Pirates of Penzance.)

The Rock Opera is an especially popular variant which may be album-based in origin.

Since far more people can see a Hollywood film than a Broadway musical (even one that runs for years), films adapting stage musicals are especially prone to Adaptation Displacement. It is very rare in the West for live-action musical films to be original, rather than adaptations.

In the Indian Hindi-language film industry known colloquially as Bollywood, musicals are the default genre. Japan has Takarazuka, among other classes of stage theater.

Generally considered to be strongly related to or descended from Opera. See also its bastard cousin, On Ice.

When this is incorporated into a TV show, see Musical Episode. A frequent sufferer of Title: The Adaptation, probably because All Musicals Are Adaptations.

Arguably, any non-fantasy musical could be considered an example of Magic Realism.

If you were wondering just where all that singing was coming from, see Musical World Hypotheses. Compare Hollywood Darkness, Musicalus Interruptus.

For a list of tropes related to Musical Drama and Songs you get to sing, see Musical Number Index.


 * Thirteen
 * Twenty Four
 * 42nd Street
 * Seventeen Seventy Six
 * Across the Universe (The Beatles)
 * The Addams Family
 * Aladdin
 * All Shook Up
 * American Idiot
 * American Psycho
 * Animal Crackers
 * Annie, a musical based on a newspaper strip.
 * Assassins
 * Avenue Q
 * Back to The Eighties
 * bare: a pop opera
 * Batman the Musical
 * The Batterys Down
 * Beauty and The Beast
 * Bill and Ted's Excellent Musical Adventure
 * Billy Elliot
 * Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
 * The Bonesetter's Daughter, the (Chinese/American) opera.
 * The Book of Mormon
 * Bonnie And Clyde
 * Bran Nue Dae
 * Bring It On: The Musical
 * Bugsy Malone
 * Cabaret
 * Cannibal the Musical
 * Carousel
 * Carrie
 * Cats, until 2006 the longest-running show on Broadway.
 * Chess
 * Chicago
 * Cinderella
 * The Coconuts
 * Company
 * Dancer in The Dark
 * The Devils Carnival
 * Disco Inferno
 * Doppelganger
 * Doug Live!
 * Dr. Horribles Sing Along Blog
 * Elf
 * Evita
 * The Fantasticks, off-Broadway but tops both Cats and Phantom of the Opera by its 42 year run.
 * Fiddler On the Roof
 * Finian's Rainbow
 * The Fix
 * Freaknik the Musical
 * Godspell
 * Good Vibrations
 * Grease
 * Grease 2
 * ''Guys and Dolls'
 * Hair -- the original Tribal Love Rock Musical
 * Hairspray
 * High School Musical
 * Ho Nk
 * How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.
 * The Hunchback of Notre Dame
 * The Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of the most famous ones
 * In the Heights
 * Jekyll and Hyde
 * Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well And Living In Paris
 * Jerry Springer: The Opera
 * Jersey Boys (Frankie Valley and The Four Seasons)
 * Jesus Christ Superstar
 * Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
 * Keating! a musical based on the life and times of Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating.
 * Kismet
 * The Lion King
 * The Little Mermaid
 * Little Miss Sunshine
 * A Little Night Music
 * Little Shop of Horrors
 * Lord of the Rings
 * Love
 * Mamma Mia! (ABBA)
 * Marat Sade
 * Martin Guerre
 * Mary Poppins
 * Memphis, A New Musical
 * Merrily We Roll Along
 * Les Misérables
 * Miss Saigon
 * Moulin Rouge, a Setting Update of Verdi's La Traviata, based on the younger Alexandre Dumas's La Dame aux Camelias.
 * Movin' Out (Billy Joel)
 * Mozart L Opera Rock
 * The Music Man
 * Title of Show
 * My Week With Marilyn
 * Newsies
 * Next to Normal
 * Nine, based on Felini's 8 1/2
 * Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy)
 * Oklahoma
 * Oliver, adapted from Oliver Twist
 * Once
 * Once On This Island
 * Once Upon a Mattress
 * Once Upon a Time In New Jersey
 * Pal Joey (1940) is notable for introducing the first Broadway Anti-Hero.
 * Parade
 * Passing Strange
 * Les Parapluies De Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg)
 * Phantom of the Opera, the show that toppled Cats as longest-running show.
 * Love Never Dies
 * Phoenix Wright Musical Project
 * Pippin
 * The Pirate Queen.
 * Priscilla Queen of the Desert
 * The Producers
 * Promises, Promises
 * Really Rosie
 * Reefer Madness: The Musical
 * Rent, a loose Setting Update of the opera La Boheme as a Grunge Rock Opera.
 * Repo the Genetic Opera
 * Return to The Forbidden Planet
 * Rock of Ages
 * The Rocky Horror Picture Show
 * The Scarlet Pimpernel
 * The Scottsboro Boys
 * Sera Myu
 * Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
 * She Loves Me
 * Shlomo Hameleh Veshalmai Hasandlar (King Solomon and Shalmai The Shoemaker) is a combination between a biblical version of The Prince and The Pauper, and Ecclesiastes - the Musical.
 * Show Boat, created by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein in 1927, is often seen as the first modern musical, although the innovative ideas it introduced (most prominently the idea of incorporating the book into the plot to provide a logical justification for the songs) didn't really become par for course until Rodgers and Hammerstein created Oklahoma! in 1942.
 * Shrek
 * Silence! The Musical is a musical based on the movie of Silence of the Lambs.
 * The Silent City
 * Singin in The Rain
 * The Slipper and The Rose
 * Spring Awakening
 * The Sound of Music
 * South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut
 * Spamalot (based on Monty Python and The Holy Grail), which gleefully parodies many of the tropes of Broadway musicals.
 * Starlight Express
 * Stilyagi
 * Sweet Charity, based on Fellini's Nights of Cabiria
 * Sunday in The Park With George
 * Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
 * Tarzan
 * Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny
 * Titanic (not based on the film)
 * Top Hat
 * Total Drama World Tour
 * Tripod Versus the Dragon
 * The Unsinkable Molly Brown
 * Vanities: A New Musical, based on Jack Heifner's 1976 play
 * Viva Elvis
 * Were the World Mine
 * West Side Story, another loose Setting Update of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
 * We Will Rock You (based on the music of Queen)
 * Wicked
 * The Wild Party (two unrelated adaptations of the same poem, by Michael John LaChiusa and Andrew Lippa)
 * Xanadu
 * Yentl
 * Young Frankenstein
 * You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, which in turn was adapted as a special in the animated series.
 * Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (with selections from other albums)