Musical Theater - Research Paper Example

All over the world “Musicals” are performed. Sometimes they are performed at big budget venues such as Broadway theatre productions and West End theatre. It is sometimes performed on small scale theatres such as Off-Broadway and Fringe Theatre. The fact is that it is present in almost every corner of the world. Since from the start of twentieth century “book musicals” has been the source of musical plays in which dances and songs are integrated into a well composed story, having some real dramatic goals and as a result it evoked real emotions except laughter.

There are three different componenets of book musicals, the first one is the book, the second is lyrics and the third is songs. The book refers to the main story and its spoken words. Book is also sometimes referred to as the combination of lyrics and dialogues together. In opera it is known as the libretto which mean a concise book in ltalian. The creative team of any musical have the responsibility to interpretate the musical in such a way that it influence the audience to a great extent. (Miller, 34) The creative team of each production consists of a musical director, director, orchestrator and choreographer.

The technical aspects of musical production include props (the stage properties), set design, sound, lighting and costumes. These technical aspects change from one production to the other depending on the story. The book musical usually do not have fixed length. It can have only single act and sometimes it contains several acts of different lengths. Musicals are normally presented in two different lengths with intermission in between. (Miller, 76) The first act is usually longer than the second one.

Most of the musicals lasts from one hour to one and a half hour. In the first act most of the music and all of the characters are introduced. It often ends with plot complications. The second act reprises some important