Dance became more important in musicals. They invented the Charleston, fox trot, shimmy, one-step, two-step, the Boston and the tango.
Writing teams began; one would write the score and lyrics and the other the book.
The energy and the music of the Jazz Age were used in musicals making them even more American.
Ziegfeld Follies continued.
Timeline
1921:Shuffle Along, a musical revue, was a key addition to the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s.
1924: Gershwin Brothers (George and Ira) had their first hit with Lady, Be Good; it starred Fred and Adele Astaire.
1925:FIRST classical American musical opened – No, No, Nanette. The theme was money and American greed. It began in Detroit, went to Chicago, then Philadelphia, then to London, then finally to Broadway. FIRST out of town trial run and had revisions all along.
1926: Costumes and sets began to be changed in full view of the audience for the FIRST time.
1927: Gershwin Brothers had another hit with Strike Up the Band – dealt with liberal politics. Show Boat opened and with that musical comedy BECAME an art form. It set the bar for all shows in the future. It dealt with racism and was a reflection of American society based on Edna Ferber’s novel.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION HIT AMERICA: “Silly stuff” continued for a while; audiences didn’t want to think and couldn’t afford entertainment for the most part. Broadway wasn’t in good shape.
Reflections by Ashley Leamon
Inspiration
Musicals emerged in the 1920’s that introduced American audiences to songwriters and composers that remain masters of the genre: Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein and Cole Porter. The style of musicals created during this period didn’t depend completely on plot; instead, characters and plot lines were created for/by the performers, many of whom began their career in Vaudeville. The genre of musical comedy evolved to showcase performers who then performed an act or characterization that they specialized in. The same can be said for Drowsy Chaperone. This play was written as a Valentine to 1920’s American musicals without the intention of parody. The authors of the book, Bob Martin and Don McKellar, did substantial research into plays and movies of the time period, which influenced their writing. However, they also relied heavily on the talents and character interpretation of their actors. Like many musicals of the 1920’s, the plot creates a skeleton, but character work by talented actors makes this musical soar.
Influences From the Era
1920’s musicals were a primary source for Martin and McKellar, and Vaudeville was a primary source of talent for 1920’s musicals. Vaudeville was a light entertainment popular in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A Vaudeville show consisted of 10–15 unrelated acts featuring magicians, acrobats, comedians, trained animals, singers, and dancers. The form developed from the bawdy variety shows held in beer halls for a primarily male audience. Tony Pastor established a successful “clean” version of a Vaudeville show at a NYC theatre in 1881, which then influenced other managers to follow suit. By 1900 chains of theatres around the country portrayed cleaner Vaudeville shows, of which New York's Palace Theatre was the most famous (1913–32). Among the many entertainers who began in vaudeville were Mae West, W.C. Fields, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Abbot and Costello, and Milton Berle. Shows in this period still had this review quality to them, such as the Marx Brothers antics. Martin and McKellar stuck to a simple, light plot, which was typical to the era, and then focused the action on-stage to mirror this review quality. They researched broadly at first, finally settling on 1928 as the year to set this musical in. They loved that there isn’t a lot of documentation of the shows from this period and that there aren’t many surviving, intact cast albums. In fact, the cast albums that do remain are only highlights of the musicals; Drowsy Chaperone’s cast album, however, is the complete show. This was liberating for them as writers because it allowed them to reference the past while creating new material. They said that they were heavily influenced by musicals and movies; they only specifically mention movies they watched for inspiration, including Good News, Heads Up, Coconuts, and Animal Crackers. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies inspired the lighthearted feel of the book and the choreography of the show. The title was designed to be forgettable and archaic, like a 1920’s musical that has slipped through the cracks of time. The Drowsy Chaperone plays like an authentic 1920’s show on-stage, especially because the writers have created an entire back story for the show, complete with writers, the fictional Gable and Stein. In the souvenir program created for the show, Gable and Stein are said to have authored 11 other immensely popular musicals in the era. All were steeped heavily in melodrama and included spectacle, in addition to the rousing performances by some of Vaudeville and Broadway’s greatest performers. 1920’s Vaudeville acts and Broadway musicals provide the style for Drowsy Chaperone, but the performers provide the plot.
Source
Production Dramaturg for Villanova University, 2012, Reprinted with permission.
ASHLEY LEAMON joined the staff of Villanova Theatre in June 2013. She’s originally from Florence, South Carolina, where she graduated from Francis Marion University in 2010 with a B.A. in English Liberal Arts and a B.A. in Theatre Arts, summa cum laude. She then moved to Philadelphia to pursue her Master's in Theatre at Villanova University, where she was awarded a Costume Assistantship. At Villanova, she acted in three productions and served as a production dramaturg for "The Drowsy Chaperone" directed by Father Peter Donohue, O.S.A. She also worked as Assistant Designer under Janus Stefanowicz for shows at the Kimmel Center and Philadelphia Theatre Company. Ashley completed her M.A. in Theatre in May 2013 before being hired as Office Manager and an adjunct faculty member for the department.