Saoirse Daly

R00209883
Cathal Synnott
Musical Theatre Repertory Studies (MUSC7032)
‘The Golden Age of Broadway Musicals: Exploring the Impact of the 1940s’

It is not uncommon knowledge that the Golden Age is perhaps considered the peak of
musical theatre’s popularity within the general population of New York City and across the
world, but to understand this we must look deeper into its roots and causes. Upon research, I
believe it reasonable to state the main contributor to be the aftermath of the Great Depression
and World War II. Entertainment, particularly musical theatre, were one of the ways the
people escaped from their everyday reality. Ticket prices had plummeted after the
Depression, with a ‘25-cent minimum, with a $1.00 top price’ per ticket (Talkin’ Broadway).
People could finally afford to go see shows, and so musical theatre began to be something
everybody could enjoy as opposed to just the upper classes of New York City society that
were able to pay the pre-Depression prices. The people were used to seeing stories that had
no real or major stories, they were either serious and long Operettas, or comedies filled with
cheap laughs and lots of non-sensical dance numbers to fill gaps. The roots of the products of
1940s musical theatre can be put to one duo – Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II,
and they go as far back as Hammerstein’s collaboration with Jerome Kern on Showboat
(1927) which was the first beginnings of the breakthrough in musical theatre where shows
had substance and tackled real-world problems as opposed to just surface level entertainment.
The stories told were relevant to the struggles of the American people at the time, as well as
those around the world. It was a turning point in the development of musical theatre, and has
inspired us even to this day in looking for new ways and unconventional methods to further
explore how we can bring something new to this art form. The legendary Julie Andrews had
said of this, ‘I was fortunate enough to work at the peak of the great golden age of musicals.
And then for a while, I think they were being advanced in different ways… The joy of
musicals is that there is no perfect recipe; it is what you throw into it’ (CT Insider).

Perhaps the most significant piece of musical theatre that had a significant long-term impact
on musical theatre as we know it today is Rodgers and Hammerstein’s work Oklahoma!
which opened on March 31st, 1943. The box office that day was described as a frenzy as the
people poured in to see this new show that displayed, for the first time in history, a show with
a cohesive, brilliant and smooth blending of all the key elements of musical theatre. With the
dream ballet that closes Act 1, it was clear that the show had successfully progressed dance
from a filler between acts/songs for sheer simplistic entertainment, to a way to further
advance the plot and add to the storyline. It was the first of its kind, choreographed by female
ballet dancer Agnes de Mille, who took traditional ballet and turned it into a functional
catalyst of storytelling in Act 1. It perfectly captured all of Laurie’s, the main character,
feelings and emotions towards both the men she had to choose between. De Mille said of her
inspiration in a conversation with Hammerstein, ‘this is the kind of dream that young girls
who are worried have. She’s frantic because she doesn’t know which boy to go to the box
social with. And so, if she had a dream, it would be a dream of terror, a childish dream, a
haunted dream.’ (The Rodgers and Hammerstein Official Website). De Mille did indeed
encapsulate this inspiration in her work, as she managed to give Laurie’s ‘dream’ a plotline
purely through the art of dance. At the end of the Act, Laurie awakens and realises what she
must do, the ‘dream’s’ dance having given her clarity and helping her to make up her mind.
Oklahoma! objectively effectively combined light-hearted, happy-go-lucky comedy with
serious, dark and truthful material, including gender and class issues seen in society at the
time. The show was the start of a wave of musicals from the duo of Rodgers and
Hammerstein that dealt and portrayed social issues of America and the world, tackling
domestic violence in Carousel, racism in South Pacific, albeit not in the most sensitive,
politically correct way. Nonetheless, they were some of the first of their time to take these
injustices and bring them on stage to an audience for them to see from the outsiders
perspective and to perhaps start conversations and force people to look on the inside and
question their own beliefs. Oklahoma! was an instant hit, winning a Pulitzer Prize, Theatre
World Award and Tony Award in it’s opening season. There have been countless revivals,
and to this day plays in London’s Wyndham Theatre, having won the Olivier for the Best
Revival earlier this year (April 2nd, 2023). The musical South Pacific that followed in the
footsteps of Oklahoma! opened on Broadway on April 7th, 1949. This show, to me personally,
is the show that perhaps challenged the conservative view of the American population the
most in the Golden Age. It highlighted and brought awareness to the inequality and
tribulations experienced by mixed race couples and children in America at the time and
arguable to this day. It was a brave move from Rodgers and Hammerstein, it ‘took a
remarkably daring look at race and the clash of cultures’ (Newsweek). As stated previously, it
may not have at the time been done so in a way that was complimentary of other races and
cultures, but it was a start. The duo were ahead of their time, almost a full decade before the
start of the Civil Rights Movement, and around two decades before the Civil Rights Act and
Voting Rights Act were passed in Congress.

On a creative note, the ball started rolling in terms of change within musical theatre and how
it was written and structured. Hammerstein, without living to see it, mentored one of the
game changers of musical theatre as we know it today: which was Stephen Sondheim. In fact,
Sondheim happened to be his neighbour. This is, of course, how they met, with Sondheim
being of the same age, and a friend of Hammerstein’s son, James. As a teenager,
Hammerstein gave him the foundations of how to write songs suitable for musicals. He
encourage him to write with the idea that ‘a song is a wedding of two crafts’ (OUPblog). This
of course, is the basis of Sondheim’s works as he is renowned for his ability to create
musicals that interweaved music with the lyrics and vice versa, in order to convincingly
entertain and inform an audience. One aspect of Sondheim’s work I think we are still
continuously being influenced by are his uses of rhyme and rhythm, i.e. the use of
unconventional time signatures rhythm and storytelling rhymes, and his ability to make
entertainment and comedy from the serious, the gruesome and the religious. Two composers I
think that have drawn on this are Lin Manuel Miranda and Robert Lopez, respectfully.
Miranda, in a similar sense to Sondheim, has taken something previously unchartered in
musical theatre, in the case of Sondheim, rhythm and patter, and in the sense of Miranda, rap
and R&B, and used it to create a signature style that goes on to inspire others to do the same.
With Lopez, he has taken topics like Christianity (particularly Mormonism) and it’s
relationship (or lack thereof) with the LGBTQ+ community, seen in The Book of Mormon,
and children’s entertainment being turned into something more mature, seen in Avenue Q,
and turned them upside down to create something hilarious yet impactful. We see this in
nearly all of Sondheim’s works, a few that come to mind include Sweeney Todd, Company
and Follies. Sondheim took topics and situations that were dark and sad, and managed to
incorporate comedy and character while still having moments that displayed the effects of
these situations on people. There is also something to be said on the mentorship of Adam
Guettel by Sondheim. Guettel, who would go on to write the musical (based the book and
movie) The Light In The Piazza, amongst others, which in my opinion shares the influences
from both Sondheim and Hammerstein. The light, operatic style of the songs definitely is
reminiscent of some of Hammerstein’s works, while also being true to its setting, the home of
opera, Italy. The broken chords and arpeggios featured on the piano, which can be definitely
heard in particular in the introduction of ‘The Beauty Is’, are in my opinion comparable to
Sondheim’s trademark dissonant and clashing piano creations.

It is important to remember that the Golden Age ran into the late 1960s. Times were changing
by the day, and a newfound promotion of racial tolerance and acceptance of the LGBTQ+
community had started to make its way into society. There were now performers of many
different ethnicities and sexualities being cast amongst cis, white performers in one cast.
Musical theatre wanted to start to push a more open-minded and evolved understanding of
humanity. Musicals like Hair, West Side Story and Funny Girl took what people knew as
traditional musical theatre and fought to change the typical lives, Hair explores the hippie
movement through newly-popularised rock music, West Side Story openly discusses racial
inequality in New York City between the white community and the Latin community, and
Funny Girl told the true story of Fanny Brice, Follie girl, who challenged the concept that
Follie girls had to be ‘conventionally’ pretty to make it big. Talent will always outlive beauty,
and she showed that with a sense of independence, dignity and incredulous determination and
tenacity. For women at home, in particular Jewish women, they felt represented and seen.
West Side Story depicted the story of Romeo and Juliet, but through the cultures that people
identified with in New York at the time. Yet again, this brought awareness to the Latin and
black communities struggles, in particular the Puerto Rican community, in the height of the
Civil Rights Movement. It also displayed the rise of gang violence and crime in New York
City, that continues to be rampant in some ways to this day. Leonard Bernstein, the
composer, wrote in his own copy of Romeo and Juliet that West Side Story was to be ‘an out
and out plea for racial tolerance.’ (Google: Arts and Culture). It was obvious that the creative
team wanted to create a demonstration of the reality of the city’s problems, no less than
creating one of the ground-breaking and worldwide adored musicals of the Golden Age.

However, creative influences are not the only thing that the 1940s musicals had an impact on.
Technical and production aspects also had some monumental developments in the Golden
Age that continue to be used and have roots in today. When Fred and Adele Astaire first
recorded an LP of The Band Wagon in 1931, it didn’t really take off and was not widely or
heavily released. In fact, it was the cast and orchestra of Oklahoma! in 1943 that recorded the
first ever original cast recording of a musical, that included the full original cast with leads
and ensemble and the full orchestra. This has become an industry norm, it quickly spread as a
concept around the world, and is used so ordinarily to this day. This was an astronomical
advancement, as it meant those who did not live in New York City and those who could not
afford tickets, could now listen to shows from their own homes. It allowed musicals to travel
across the four corners of the globe, bringing a new wave of international fans to listen. The
original cast recording of Oklahoma! is still listened to in today’s times, and this has been the
case with countless other musicals of the Golden Age. As stated by Cary O’Dell, ‘the mass
production and distribution of “Oklahoma!” meant that this collective of songs, by two great
writers, could be exposed to a wider audience than ever before.’ (Library of Congress). It
allows the shows of the past to live on, and be remembered for years to come. Another
industry-changing advancement of musical theatre came with the invention and increased
ownership of televisions and constructions of public cinemas. Hollywood was expanding at
an exorbitant rate, and the stars of Broadway found themselves moving to the West Coast for
the lights of the studio as opposed to the stage, the pay (and not the mention the weather) was
better and the concept of fame and celebrity was one that drew them all in. Movie musicals
started to become produced more and more as people idolised the screen and the actors and
actresses that skyrocketed to fame from them. Yet again, it immortalized the Golden Age
musicals as the majority are still available to be watched today on DVD and on various
streaming platforms. For example, anyone can log onto YouTube.com and rent/buy musicals
from The King And I to West Side Story. Massive stars like Marilyn Monroe and Audrey
Hepburn brought in audiences that would not have necessarily gone out of their way to see a
show solely due to their fame and notoriety. It exposed a new audience to musical theatre,
and adaptions of musicals into movies is still common practice in the industry today.

It is, of course, then only fair to say we would not be where we are today in musical theatre
without the Golden Age. How could we have moved from flashy, upbeat showgirl-orientated
numbers seen in Anything Goes and the Follie Girls to the likes of Spring Awakening or
Jekyll and Hyde, had it not been for the daring choices by 1940s musical theatre to begin
including grim and acute subject matter into shows. The Golden Age was crucial in terms of
seeing change in the types of musicals being produced on Broadway, and spreading it all
across the world. There is no denying that the composers of today would not be creating the
contemporary musical theatre we know and love had it not been for the bold originators like
Rodgers and Hammerstein, Loewe and Bernstein. The impact of the Golden Age is
immeasurable, it cannot be put into simple words, but it is safe to say it will continue to
impact musical theatre for decades, dare I say centuries to come.
Works Cited

Block, Geoffrey. ‘On Hammerstein and Sondheim’, an excerpt from ‘Enchanted Evenings:
The Broadway Musical from Showboat to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber’, OUPblog,
https://blog.oup.com/2009/09/hammerstein_sondheim/. Accessed 12th May, 2023.

Grandjean, Pat. ‘Q&A Exclusive: Julie Andrews’, CT Insider,

https://www.ctinsider.com/connecticutmagazine/arts-events/article/Q-A-Exclusive-Julie-
Andrews-17042050.php. Accessed 10th May, 2023.

Maslon, Laurence. ‘OUT OF MY DREAMS: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CANVAS OF

CHOREOGRAPHER AGNES DE MILLE’, The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization,
https://rodgersandhammerstein.com/oklahoma-out-of-my-dreams-the-psychological-canvas-
of-choreographer-agnes-de-mille/. Accessed 8th May, 2023.

McGuigan, Cathleen. ‘Theater of War’, Newsweek, https://www.newsweek.com/theater-war-

84457. Accessed 11th May, 2023.

O’Dell, Cary. ‘”Oklahoma!” (Original Cast Recording) (1943)’, Library Of Congress,

https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/
OKLAHOMA!.pdf. Accessed 12th May, 2023.

Oja, Carol J. ‘An Out and Out Plea for Racial Tolerance: West Side Story, Civil Rights, and
Immigration Politics’, Google Arts & Culture,
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/9AVByxXwWyd8Kg?hl=en. Accessed 10th May,
2023.

Rusie, Robert. ‘Broadway 101, The History of The Great White Way; 1930-1940 The Great
Depression’, Talkin’ Broadway, https://www.talkinbroadway.com/bway101/5b.html.
Accessed 11th May, 2023.