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Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining music, songs, spoken dialogue and dance. more...

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The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole.

Musical theatre works, usually referred to as "musicals", are performed around the world. They may be presented in large venues, such as big budget West End and Broadway theatre productions in London and New York City, or in smaller Off-Broadway or regional productions, on tour, or by amateur groups in schools, theatres and other performance spaces. In addition to Britain and the U.S. there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in Germany, Austria, France, Canada, Japan, Eastern Europe, Australia, and other places.

Some famous musicals include Oklahoma!, The Sound of Music, West Side Story, Les Misérables, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, and Rent.

Introduction and definitions

The three main components of a musical are the music, the lyrics, and the book. The book of a musical refers to the "play" or story of the show - in effect its spoken (not sung) lines; however, "book" can also refer to the dialogue and lyrics together, which are sometimes referred to (as in opera) as the libretto (Italian for “little book”). The music and lyrics together form the score of the musical. The interpretation of the musical by the creative team heavily influences the way that the musical is presented. The creative team includes a director, a musical director and usually a choreographer. A musicals' production is also creatively characterized by technical aspects, such as set, costumes, stage properties, lighting, etc., that generally change from production to production (although some famous production aspects tend to be retained from the original production, for example, Bob Fosse's choregraphy in Chicago).

There is no fixed length for a musical, and it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several acts and several hours in length; however, most musicals range from one and a half hours to 3 hours. Musicals today are typically presented in two acts, with one intermission fifteen to twenty minutes in length. The first act is almost always somewhat longer than the second act, and generally introduces most of the music. A musical may be built around 4-6 main theme tunes that are reprised throughout the show, or consist of a series of songs not directly musically related. Spoken dialogue is generally interspersed between musical numbers, although the use of "sung dialogue" or recitative is not unknown, especially in so-called "sung-through" musicals.

Read more at Wikipedia.org