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{{IndexTrope}}
{{quote|"We should do it again! [[Musical Episode|This time, as a musical]]! Whadya say? [[All Musicals Are Adaptations|We'll do all the same things]], except we'll break into spontaneous singing and choreography with [[Invisible Backup Band|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]]'', "[[Title: the Adaptation|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, [[Summon Backup Dancers|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]]).
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* First, theatre is typically more forgiving of [[Milking the Giant Cow|grand, melodramatic gestures]], such as... well, [[Musicalis Interruptus|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 [[Musical World Hypotheses|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 [[Dubbing|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 ''un''musical. (See ''Camelot'' or ''[[The Phantom of the Opera]]''... actually, don't.) The alternative solution of [[Non
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:
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* 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 (film)|Across the Universe]]'' adapted from [[The Beatles (band)|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 [[Older Than They Think|goes back a ways]]--''[[Singin' in the Rain|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 [[Concept Album|album-based]] in origin.
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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]].
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Media]]
[[Category:Bollywood]]
[[Category:Show Genres]]
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[[Category:Music Tropes]]
[[Category:The Great Depression]]
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