Was Of Thee I Sing the first true musical?

By "true musical", I assume you mean "book musical"? If so, then many scholars would name The Black Crook (1866) as the first one. Show Boat, which debuted in 1927, was also a major touchstone as a musical play/drama as opposed to the more thinly-plotted musical comedies that had filled Broadway previously. Oklahoma! is often referred to as the first fully integrated musical, where the music is completely integrated with the plot and does not make as much sense out of context, although this description is sometimes debated.

Show Boat was the first "book musical."

Leaving aside Show Boat, Threepenny Opera, Happy End, even The New Moon, why exactly would Of Thee I Sing be a "truer" musical than any prior Gershwin show?

Of Thee I Sing's critical (Pulitzer!) salient appeal has far more to do with the breezy way it satirized American politics than any formal innovation to the musical form. In terms of the relationship between score and narrative, the most distinguishing feature of Of Thee I Sing might arguably be that it had no crossover standards/ hit songs. But that seems an unsatisfying criterion for a "truer musical"; far too many musicals universally acknowledged to fit the integrated book-and-score mold have hit songs with a life of their own to build a case on that ground. (in any event wasn't "Who Cares?" somewhat of a hit)

Updated On: 3/25/17 at 10:14 AM

The more I think about it the stronger the case for OF THEE I SING becomes.

Look at the opening of "Never Was There A Girl So Fair" for example, that is very specifically about the story, moreso than anything in SHOW BOAT. The reporters' lines at the beginning of "Who Cares" are also specific in this way. Even the nonsense about corn muffins in "Some Girls Can Bake A Pie" can be seen as very specific to this story. And of course then you have entire song/story sequences like the French Ambassador scene and the Wedding/Act One Finale

Steve C. said: "Pardon my "book learnin'' but what would you consider a whole list of shows, like first, any of Gilbert & Sullivan's works; or also Lehar's "Merry Widow"...call them different "titles" but operetta, or musicals, how do you discern the difference? Romberg's Desert Song, or others, ..."Babes In Toyland", even vaudeville, Ziegfeld/Will Rogers style "Follies" had extended music story "plays", minstrel shows...lots of shades of grey here. They just didn't call things "book". "

The difference usually came from the composers themselves, but you could also say that it was a question of musical formatting. G&S insisted their works were "comic operas", not musicals.

A Will Rogers or Zeigfeld Follies would be more properly classified as "revues" or "burlesques" (and I use that term in its British theatre sense, not its American one). Revues dont have books, they have sketches.

Just to complicate definitions further, I believe 'Of Thee I Sing' (and 'Let 'Em Eat Cake', and 'Strike Up the Band'; possibly others?) were basically the Gershwins putting their own spin on the G&S style. So if G&S shows are comic operas, maybe OTIS etc should be classified as such as well. I don't particularly mind which shows are classified as what though.

Speaking of OTIS, seems like a good time for another limited-engagement revival or concert presentation, doesn't it? Crazy politics... presidential beauty pageant controversies... "The people of this country demand John P. Wintergreen for President, and they're going to get him whether they like it or not." If anything, the problem is that the show is too affectionate towards Wintergreen! Judging from the score, 'Strike Up The Band' would seem pretty topical these days too.

This is always an interesting subject, one that might not even have a satisfactory answer. But it's ludicrous to think Off Thee I Sing Is the first true musical.....there are dozens of shows written before Off Thee I Sing! Fluffy as they may be, the Kern Princess musicals all have books with integrated scores. And Gilbert and Sullivan may have called their works "comic operas," but to suggest they're not musicals because they aren't CALLED musicals is splitting hairs: they're musicals, folks. I would also argue that Off Thee I Sing, so closely modeled on G and S, is more a comic opera than a musical! LOL

The Friml and Romberg operettas are also integrated and we're also hugely popular entertainments, as well.

However, Show Boat's book is as integrated as Off Thee I Sing's. So I would argue, then, than no--Off Thee I Sing is NOT the first "true" musical.

That thing I wanted to happen is happening, yay! Cast's not bad either.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Bryce-Pinkham-Phillipa-Soo-and-Elizabeth-Stanley-Led-OF-THEE-I-SING-Headlines-MasterVoices-2017-18-Season-20170817

The notion that "integrated" starts with anything in the twentieth century is absurd. There were shows with wholly story-attuned scores in the 1990s--Reginald De Koven's Robin Hood and John Philip Sousa's El Capitan, for instance. And that's speaking only of the American theatre. In England, the musical--meaning a dramatic work with dialogue and song that is more or less in the popular rather than the classical idiom--dates back to The Beggar's Opera, in 1728.

The Black Crook, so often called "the first musical," had only two vocal numbers when it opened, in 1866. Other songs were added in during its many productions, as a poster above has noted. And most of the titles that scholars bring up--Evangeline, for instance--from the 1870s and 1880s were either plays with a few songs and dances or, at least, started that way. Evangeline didn't have a full evening's worth of vocal music till four years after its premiere.

It's also misleading to go by the nomenclature of bygone days--"comic opera," for instance. Gilbert and Sullivan didn't "insist" on that term. There was nothing to insist about; comic opera was what most English musicals above the level of pantomimes were called. "Musical comedy" as a term didn't come into use till after Gilbert and Sullivan had parted company, and the term "musical" (that is, without the "comedy"wasn't used until the 1940s, to identify a work that was more adult than the silly shows but wasn't an operetta or "musical play," either.