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    Musicals of 1930S

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    Anca O
    The Wall Street crash of 1929 had a devastating impact on the theatre industry in the 1930s. Around 2/3 of theatres shut down and many performers, musicians and producers either went bankrupt or to Hollywood. The number of new musical shows produced dropped sharply. Songwriters addressed the gloom and unemployment of the era through songs promoting optimism. Busby Berkeley's elaborate cinematic dance sequences in films like 42nd Street provided spectacle and fantasy to lift audiences' spirits. Marc Blitzstein's pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock (1938) addressed social issues through its allegorical story, though it faced cuts to the Federal Theatre Project where it was produced.

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    Musicals of 1930S

    Uploaded by

    Anca O
    55 views12 pages
    The Wall Street crash of 1929 had a devastating impact on the theatre industry in the 1930s. Around 2/3 of theatres shut down and many performers, musicians and producers either went bankrupt or to Hollywood. The number of new musical shows produced dropped sharply. Songwriters addressed the gloom and unemployment of the era through songs promoting optimism. Busby Berkeley's elaborate cinematic dance sequences in films like 42nd Street provided spectacle and fantasy to lift audiences' spirits. Marc Blitzstein's pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock (1938) addressed social issues through its allegorical story, though it faced cuts to the Federal Theatre Project where it was produced.

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    The Wall Street crash of 1929 had a devastating impact on the theatre industry in the 1930s. Around 2/3 of theatres shut down and many performers, musicians and producers either went bankrupt or to Hollywood. The number of new musical shows produced dropped sharply. Songwriters addressed the gloom and unemployment of the era through songs promoting optimism. Busby Berkeley's elaborate cinematic dance sequences in films like 42nd Street provided spectacle and fantasy to lift audiences' spirits. Marc Blitzstein's pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock (1938) addressed social issues through its allegorical story, though it faced cuts to the Federal Theatre Project where it was produced.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    55 views12 pages

    Musicals of 1930S

    Uploaded by

    Anca O
    The Wall Street crash of 1929 had a devastating impact on the theatre industry in the 1930s. Around 2/3 of theatres shut down and many performers, musicians and producers either went bankrupt or to Hollywood. The number of new musical shows produced dropped sharply. Songwriters addressed the gloom and unemployment of the era through songs promoting optimism. Busby Berkeley's elaborate cinematic dance sequences in films like 42nd Street provided spectacle and fantasy to lift audiences' spirits. Marc Blitzstein's pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock (1938) addressed social issues through its allegorical story, though it faced cuts to the Federal Theatre Project where it was produced.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 12

    MUSICALS OF

    1930S
    Wall Street Crash
    29th October 1929

    16m shares changed hands in one day


    12 million people out of work: rises to 25% population

    ■ 12,000 people being made unemployed a day


    ■ 20,000 companies went bankrupt
    ■ 1616 banks went bankrupt (20%)
    ■ 1 farmer in 20 evicted
    ■ 23,000 people committed suicide in one year
    ■ Average income reduced by 40%
    Impact on Theatre

    ■ 2/3rds theatres shut


    ■ Performers, musicians, directors headed for films and
    Hollywood
    ■ Key producers from 1920s either died or went
    bankrupt or went to Hollywood: Dillingham, Earl
    Carroll, Ziegfeld (d 1932), George White, Busby
    Berkeley
    ■ 1928-1930: 42 new musical shows
    ■ 1933-1934: 13
    ■ Only been above 20 TWICE since
    Dispelling the Gloom

    Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee from Face the Music (1932)
    Irving Berlin (lyrics and music) & Moss Hart (book)
    Why worry when skies are gray?
    Why should we complain?
    Let’s laugh at the cloudy day.
    Let’s sing in the rain.
    Songwriters say the storm quickly passes
    That’s their philosophy.
    They see the world through rose coloured glasses.
    Why shouldn’t we?

    Just around the corner there’s a rainbow in the sky.


    So let’s have another cup of coffee and let’s have a piece o’ pie!
    Trouble’s just a bubble and the clouds will soon roll by.
    So let’s have another cup of coffee and let’s have a piece o’ pie!
    Let a smile be your umbrella,
    And it’s just an April show’r.
    Even John D Rockerfeller
    Is looking for a silver lining.
    Mister Herbert Hoover says that now’s the time to buy
    So let’s have another cup of coffee and let’s have a piece o’ pie!
    Anything Goes Cole Porter, 1934 (film: 1956)

    You've Got to Give the People Hoke

    You Can Bounce Right Back


    In dance terms: Busby Berkley (1895-1976)
    I'm Young and Healthy

    Cine-dance
    Geometry and patterns
    Girls: as collective
    as anonymous bodies though ‘parade of faces’
    as props/objects/patterns (dehumanised) or as erotic spectacle
    Building on Ziegfeld and glorifying the American girl

    “In Berkeley’s films, dance represents the fantasy life of ordinary people.”
    (Imogen Sara Smith)

    “there is little traditional dancing in Berkeley’s creations. His chorus girls are drilled to
    machine-like precision…but their movements are often reduced to gestures as minimal
    as repetitively waving their arms over their heads or swinging their wide skirts.” (Imogen Sara Smith)

    NB: Tap as something else…


    42nd Street

    Film: 1933 (directed: Lloyd Bacon; choreography: Busby Berkley)

    Stage: 1980 (directed and choreography: Gower Champion)

    Music: Harry Warren


    Lyrics: Al Dubin
    Book: Stewart and
    Bramble
    42nd street film

    42nd Street Gower Champion

    42nd Street (2017)

    “The stage show has a physical effect on the audience, as fifty tap shoes all dance the same steps and
    reverberations kick in at rib-level. (Emma Brockes: What Would Barbara Do? 43)

    Plus:

    Remember my Forgotten Man (Gold Diggers of 1933)

    Petting in the Park (Gold Diggers of 1933)

    And:

    All that Jazz: Hospital Hallucinations (Fosse)


    Cradle Will Rock
    Marc Blitzstein (1938)

    Dir: Orson Welles for the Federal Theatre Project


    Short Documentary on FTP and The Cradle Will Rock
    A Nickel Under Foot (Patti Lupone)
    The Cradle Will Rock (1964)

    The Cradle Will Rock (Tim Robbins Film)


    The Cradle Will Rock

    •Zeitopern: operas of the times (see also Weill: Street


    Scene/Gershwin: Porgy and Bess)
    •Influence (and meetings with) Brecht
    •Morality play: in absence of the unions people forced into
    prostitution
    •Allegorical characters: names stand for who they are, what they
    do: Mister Mister, the boss of Steeltown, Reverend Salvation
    •Defines America as Steeltown: contested place run by bosses
    but rightfully belonging to those who’ve built it: need for unions
    •Became player in larger drama: steel strikers deaths; cuts in
    WPA
    Additional Reading
    Eric A Gordon: Mark the Music: the Life and Work of Marc
    Blitzstein (iUniverse, 2000)
    Stanley Green: Broadway Musicals of the 1930s (Da Capo,
    1971)
    Ethan Mordden: Sing For Your Supper: the Broadway Musical
    and the 1930s (Palgrave, 2005)
    Mark Roth: ‘Some Warner Musicals and the Spirit of the New
    Deal’ in Altman (ed) Genre: The Musical: (BFI, 1981)
    Imogen Sara Smith: Busby Berkeley (1895-1976): http://
    www.danceheritage.org/treasures/berkeley_essay_smith.pdf

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