Theatre

Although the American Broadway was a popular place for theatre admirers during many years, only at the end of the nineteenth century Broadway introduced the use of music and dance as the entertainment staple and beginning of the famous musicals era bringing new forms of art to the audience. Musicals were gradually changed with time as long as American people faced with new historical and social events. Starting with the musical Gold Diggers in 1933 history of the American musicals experienced important changes and improvements in the performance, stage decorations and messages toward the audience (Lewis, 2002). Spoken and musical interchanges of the Broadway musicals are liberally interlaced with dancing and singing being of serious or entrainment and comical nature (Ostrow, 2010). The current paper will address several most popular and important musical plays in the history of American Broadways musicals, including Oklahoma, Cabaret, West Side Story, Hair, Zoot Suit, Moulin Rouge and Across the Universe.
Oklahoma (1943)

Despite many art critics did not have confidence in the success of the musical Oklahoma, the freshness, beauty and the magic of its premiere performance charmed the audience and brought a vociferous ovation at the end. Originally staged by Rouben Mamoulian and the music by Richard Rodgers Oklahoma created the box-office history. Full of songs such as Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin, Pore Jud, and All or Nothin and humour in song The Farmer and the Cowman the musical has a relaxing and entertainment tone based more on the personal relations between the characters rather than addressing some serious social issues. Despite the musical did not include star performers, strayed into realism of peoples life in the Indian territory, and portrayed grim tragedy when Jud dies at the end, it was the first musical in the Broadway history that leaned heavily upon American folk-ballet choreographed by Agnes De Mille (Ostrow, 2010).  
West Side Story (1957)

West Side Story produced in 1957 transformed the story of Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare into a present-day New York revealing the issue of juvenile delinquency in the constant confrontations between two gang groups  the Jets and the Sharks. The first gang group was determined to prevent any invasion of Puerto Ricans into their territory while the second one completely formed from Puerto Ricans was struggling for their increasing influence in the region. Directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, the musical begins in a warehouse as a primary set where both gangs agreed to meet to arrange time, place and weapons to be used in their later major fight between the gangs. The first five minutes of the musicals set the tone of the whole performance when not a word is spoken, but instead spectators observe the extended dance sequence that makes the atmosphere tense and warns about the further complications between the Jets and the Sharks. Being from two different gangs Tony and Maria fall in love expressing their feelings with Maria and I Feel Pretty songs. Tonight is considered as the best ballad episode of the performance describing the scene of tenement of fire-escape followed by a dance Rumble as culmination of the musical when Tony kills Marias brother and eventually being killed himself by an avenging Shark. On the contrary to the previous musicals, West Side Story brings serious aspect to the musical by pointing to the critical social issues of that time  juvenile delinquency and confrontations between racial and ethnical groups. Moreover, the musical was dominated by the dances and moving bodies rather than still scenes and talks between the characters. The music by Leonard Bernstein only adds tension and depth of meanings into the musical, especially in Somewhere, Tonight and Rumble. Though, in America and Gee, Officer Krupke spectators can also feel the satire about the perception of America from the point of view of Puerto Rican and attempts of social workers to deal with the issue of juvenile delinquency accordingly (Mordden, 2001).  
Cabaret (1966)

Directed by Harold Prince and choreographed by Ron Field the original Broadway production of Cabaret included both inside-cabaret and outside-cabaret scenes, though the later revivals saw numerous changes in the plot, scenes and characters. Addressing the issue of the increasing power of Nazi party in 1930s Berlin, the overall tone of the musical is rather entertaining, except perhaps the last song Auf Widersehena bientot by Emcee symbolizing the harsh and violent situation in Berlin and the stronger influence of Nazi party. The scenes limited only to the cabaret and house of Fraulein Schneider are often colourful and satirical showing easy life in cabaret, nave view on life by Sally and her living with Cliff as roommates in the same room. The use of numerous songs such as Willkommen, So What, Two Ladies, Money and others make the musical entertaining and easy to perceive for spectators, though still pointing to such important issues of that time as stereotyped attitude and violent actions toward Jewish people and the increasing power of the Nazi party (Green, 2008).  
Hair (1968)

The roots of the musical Hair come from the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, which caused numerous controversial opinions of the audience concerning the depiction of illegal drugs, nude scenes, the attitude toward sexuality and changes in the American society as a whole (Wollman, 2006). Though, the main achievement of the current musical is that it brought new genre of rock musical, which is characterized by racially integrated cast and invitation of the audience to the stage for the final performing scene. The plot of musical is related to serious events experienced by a group of hippies who are fighting for sexual revolution in the country and rebelling against the war in Vietnam. Before the premiere on Broadway the musical experienced many changes with dropping some of the original songs and addition of the 13 new songs, including the uplifting ending song Let the Sun Shine In. Another achievement of Hair is that choreographers OHorgan and Julie Arenal introduced an original and organic expansion of staging style and use of nudity as a symbol of freedom and defiance against Americas involvement in Vietnam War. Making the stage completely open exposing grid and fly area to the audience without the use of curtains served as a symbol of freedom and honesty in the issue of sexual revolution and anti-Vietnam War struggles (Wollman, 2006). Moreover, objects used in the musical scenes were not specially designed and created, but those found on the streets of New York showing realistic and natural approach to the performance process. Cloths, though designed similarly to what hippies at the streets had, were enhanced with texture and additional colours to strengthen the visual effects of the performance. The most controversial part of the musical was its nude scene Where Do I Go, which lasts only twenty seconds, though usually embarrasses the audience (Block, 2009).
Zoot Suit (1979)
 
The musical Zoot Suit debuted on Broadway in 1979 became the first Chicano play addressing the issue of wrong charges of the young Mexican-Americans with murder of a rival gangster in the early 1940s. Though, young people did not commit the crime they were unfairly prosecuted and put into jail. During the whole play the majority of songs are performed by El Pachuco who acts like a conscience of the main character Henry Reyna providing comments on each scene and action in the play. The innovation in the current play was to use constantly running commentary in the form of news headlines, either commenting the musical scene or providing news about some events happened outside the stage, though related to the events viewed by the audience (Kantor and Maslon, 2010).

Moulin Rouge (2001)
With love and creative inspiration the musical Moulin Rouge became one of the most popular musical plays of the 20th century (Bloom, Vlastnik and Orbach, 2008). On the contrary to earlier musical plays, the current one does not have songs originally composed for the play, but uses songs of contemporary bands and singers, and sometimes even addressing songs of Marilyn Monroe (Murray, 2009). The emotional involvement and conversations between the characters are supported by the song lines of such modern bands as U2, Beatles, Kiss, and Wings in addition to singers Thelma Houston and Elton John. Moreover, the use of technology largely improved the scenes decorations and musical performance, including flashy costumes, quick edits, and play of lights that all together brought huge success for the musical in the United States and all over the world. The complex choreography and shooting techniques by Luhrmann created a modern variation of the classic 1930s musicals (Maslon, 2003).
Across the Universe (2007)

The same as Moulin Rouge the musical Across the Universe has numerous technological effects, play of lights and modern sound techniques in the form of the film, rather than a stage performance as with early classic musicals performed on the American Broadway. Thirty-three compositions used in the musical belong to Beatles, such as Girl, Let It Be, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Hey Jude, All You Need Is Love and others. At the same time, dance solos are accompanied by extra music, such as Come Together and Hold Me Tight (Viaga, 2009).