By Wendy Mendoza
Musical theater is a performance that combines music, songs, dialogue and dance. The theaters of the West in London, or on Broadway, New York, are icons of musical theater productions, productions that are represented in various theaters around the world too.
Musical theater is said to have been born in 1866, in the United States, when a European dance company teamed up with a theater company. This collaboration arises from the fact that the first was without a venue to perform, while the second was mounting a production that turned out to be much more expensive than expected. As a result of this, on September 12, the play “The Black Crook” premiered at New York’s Niblo’s Garden.
By 1920, there is already a variety theater where music is integrated, and the scripts are written so the stories can be told with music. The one that is considered the first musical, (since in this work the songs narrated the plot without stopping, to the continuity of the story), it is released in this decade: “Showboat”.
The classical era is established between 1930 and 1960, where we can find endearing musicals such as “West side story”, “Hello Dolly!” or “The sound of music”. Later, with the full development of movies and cinema, the possibilities were expanded. Many musicals were transformed into film, (and later, several films were taken to the musical theater as well: “The lord of the rings”, “Gone with the wind”, “Shrek” and “Spiderman”) and new sound trends influenced the growth of musicals, adding rock and R&B to modern-day musicals, to bring us priceless stories like “Hair,” “Jesuschrist superstar,” and “Dreamgirls.”
In the modern era, many musicals made this genre an experience full of sensations and emotions, such as: “Cats”, “The phantom of the opera”, “Mamma mía”, “The fiddler on the roof”, “Les Misérables”, “Wicked”, “Avenue Q”, “The book of mormon”, “Hairspray”, “Rent”, “Chicago”, and I will have to stop with this list because it would never end!
And to enjoy a little of some of the best stories that musical theater has given us, this January we will have special performances of musicals that have been brought to the big screen, on our Saturday matinees:
On Saturday, January 22, come see “Annie” with your children at 10:30am, or enjoy “Les Miserables” with your friends at 12:30pm.
On Saturday, January 29, bring your family to enjoy “Aladdin” at 10:30am; or bring your partner to be dazzled by “Moulin Rouge” at 1pm.
Admission is free, a voluntary donation is suggested at the end of the performance. Come and join us!
Film
Matinee Saturdays at Teatro Santa Ana presents:
The Charm of The Musical Theater
Sat, Jan 22 and 29, 10:30am
Teatro Santa Ana
Reloj 50A, Centro
Free
