Composers and shows and their contributions

Hammerstein mentored Sondheim not Rodgers.

If you look into the widely publicized story, which is pretty interesting, Hammerstein basically took Sondheim under his wing as a surrogate father when the two families lived next to one another. Sondheim says he looked up to Oscar so much that he would have followed him into whatever it is Hammerstein chose to do. Sondheim came to the theater and music pretty much on his own, I believe, and wrote a musical play for school. His classmates thought it was terrific so he brought it to Hammerstein, convinced it was the next big Broadway hit, and asked him to tell him honestly what he thought. Hammerstein kept it for a night and returned it to Sondheim covered in red correction marks, telling him it was awful. But then he proceeded to tell him why, and in that afternoon the granddaddy of musical theater educated the then baby of musical theater in all its glorious ways. Hammerstein even made him a course, which Sondheim dutifully followed.

I don't think there has ever been a relationship in musical theater quite like the one between Hammerstein and Sondheim though. Since then they've kind of turned it into a formula.

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George M. Cohan practically invented what we know as "Broadway." There's a wondeful biography of him out there called "The Man Who Owned Broadway," and of course the film "Yankee Doodle Dandee." The film is highly fictionalized, but it's pretty accurate when it comes to paying tribute to his contributions and accomplishments. Look him up. :)

Not another composer, but Hal Prince did a heck of a lot of tutoring and teaching with Jason Robert Brown, as JRB loves to mention, constantly.

I think that Sondheim's most important contribution(s) were the 1-2-3 punch of Company, Follies, and A Little Night Music, but if I were to point to a singular inovation in musical theater, Company would probably be it.

"Doesn't believe in reprises?" Come on. He may not call them "reprises," but he certainly uses them -- that is, he repeats key melodies with different arrangements and different sets of lyrics. If that's not a reprise, I don't know what is.

Oh another thing I majorly need help with is choreographers. I really am not that much of a dance-minded person, so I really can't articulate what exactly Fosse's innovations were (strong poses and subtle movements? I dunno).

And BSo thanks for that article.

Akiva

I understand what you're saying, but the two composers are merely using the reprises differently...but they're both still reprises.

Updated On: 3/13/06 at 06:32 PM

:) Couldn't agree more on your selection of choreographers!

You may want to include some mention of the through-composed musicals by the likes of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Boublil/Schonberg. Their musicals ( Phantom, Cats, Les Mis and Miss Saigon) are/were some of the longest-running musicals on Broadway and undoubtedly had some influence on the direction of musical theatre as well.

I have nothing to add, but just want to thank you all for the discourse on this thread. It is, unfortunately, rather rare to see intellectual analysis of the musical theater art form on this message board. You've all contributed some great information.

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Hah..and Merrick is a character in his own right. Reading about the creation of Destry Rides Again is hilarious.

Akiva

"Also any information about famous mentorings I know Rogers mentored Sondheimm who in turn mentored Larson, LaChuisa, Guettel (any others?). Also did Jason Robert Brown have a mentor? Andrew Lippa was mentored by Stephen Schwartz...etc."

Why would these be considered 'famous?' Other than the unfortunate turn of events for Larson and its subsequent effect on RENT's reception, none of the others have blazed a trail of any substantial merit to give serious consideration to their
'influences.' Who cares if Lippa was mentored by Schwartz, for heaven's sake? He's just another writer without a track record and there are hundreds of them in NYC.

"I believe Sondheim's major contribution to Broadway was to de-romanticize the American musical. Along with Hal Prince, he envisioned the musical as an art form; he did not want to make the audience comfortable, he wasn't the first, but he is the most prominent composer to establish Postmodernism on Broadway. He deconstructs the material, the plot, the music; he created characters that were human, he didn't romanticize figures like the "ingenue" or the "hero." He spoke about problems and didn't give answers. He created a sort of theater that inspired the minds, not always the heart. His songs are often described as a one-act play, they always have a purpose; he didn't write hit songs, he was one of the first composers to write for his characters and he doesn't believe in reprises."

Except in the end, Sondheim turns out to be THE most romantic of writers--the ennui, the death-haunted yearning right out of Wagner, the angst, the vision of the tortured artist--Sondheim would not have been out of place in the fin-de-siecle of the 19th century. And for the record, Sondheim didn't create characters, his librettists did, and he was only one of many writers to "write for characters." Loesser, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe all were dramatists and storytellers who wrote integrated musicals and fashioned songs for their characters in universal-specific terms.


Melinda Tentrees
Brighton, England