Broadway Musicals Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Broadway Musicals - Essay ExampleThis display created another layer for people to indulge in and pose a part of as they watched this very different style. By the 1940s the musicals of the 1920s had fallen on hard times. Because of the War and the economic times people were not able to pay to see dramatics as often. The shows that were more unusual or daring fell by the wayside form drop of audience participation. The reviews that had been so popular because it was a place where new actors were show cased, evolved into vaudeville. Many performers from the gray-headed musicals were at one time doing motion pictures. Major composers were either dead, retired or doing something different. The musicals of the 1920s had crated a formula of fast and furious pastime without a plot, realism or a good story (Mordden 19994). By the 1940s audiences were bored with the old musicals and they were looking for something fresh and different. It is important to note that all the musicals of the 1920s to the 1940s had different formulas that encouraged buffoonery with no real plot. An example, many of the Andy Hardy musicals with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney were examples of these. Babes on Broadway was to entertain people and take a shit them happy. It had very little plot. Usually the musical started with a bit musical number that evolved the entire chorus. Irving Berlin, lolly Porter and the team of Rodgers and Hart were producing singable tunes that also had elements of the music from the time -- ragtime, boogie-woogie, jazz and more (Mordden 24).