How ‘american' Is Musical Theatre

America has surely had a lot of success when it comes to Musical Theatre, being home to some of the finest composers, actors, singers, musicians and dancers the world of Musical Theatre has ever seen. The origins of Musical Theatre have been debated for years, but there is no escaping the fact that America is one of the main sources of influence. This essay is going to explore how ‘American’ Musical theatre really is, comparing it to other influences such as Europe and the different nationalities involved and events that took place.

It could be argued that musical theatre has some of its roots from Europe. The ancients Greeks were not only the influence for theatre ‘The very words, theatre, drama, tragedy and comedy are Greek in origin; so are scene, episode, music, chorus, character, mime, and dialogue.’ (Brown, pg 13, 1995) but they could have also been an influence on musical theatre, including music and dance in their stage comedies and tragedies between 600 and 200 BC, ‘Officially, tragedies and comedies were contests between choruses, groups singing and dancing in unison’ (Wiles, pg 34, 2000). This may therefore show that Greek Theatre in Europe could have possibly been the original influence for musical theatre, thousands of years before America was even discovered.

In Europe during the Renaissance period (1500-1660) music, theatre and dance were steadily growing more popular. The earliest surviving opera, Euridice, was recorded to be written in 1600 by Italian composer Jacopo Peri:

‘Peri provided music for Rinuccini’s pastoral Dafne in 1598. Shortly thereafter they again collaborated in a pioneering effort to produce the opera Euridice (1600), the earliest surviving example of its kind.’ (Robinson, pg 281, 2001)

Although opera is not strictly a musical theatre performance like we see today, it still combines the elements of song and story together, similarly to musical theatre.

Also during the renaissance period the Commedia dell’arte began to thrive in Italy. Commedia dell’arte was made up of professional actors, who improvised scenarios, each playing a stock character,

‘Many of the plot elements in commedia dell’arte can be traced back to the Roman comedies of Plautus (c.254-184 B.C.E) and playwright Terence (d. 159 B.C.E), some of which were in turn translations of earlier lost Greek comedies from the fourteenth century B.C.E’. (New world encyclopaedia contributors, www.newworldencyclopedia.org, 2009)

Not only were scenes acted out but they also used “mime, acrobatics, jokes, tirades, slapstick, soliloquies, tricks, romance, dance and music’ (Hill, pg 228, 1984). This shows the evolution from Greek theatre, with the commedia dell’arte still using and recreating the stories but in a way that nudges it closer to musical theatre and comedy with the styles in which they chose to perform, song and dance being a large factor. This again