The Rock Musical

March 27th, 2009

What is a rock musical?

• Rock music as primary idiom

• Self-identified and marketed

• Smaller bands; guitar/drum based ensembles playing on stage

• Avant-garde performance techniques

Broadway vs. Rock

• Authenticity– Pop as commercial, manufactured, and phony– Rock as true, raw emotion; performer embodies

him/herself.

• Anti-establishment– Rock as rebellious, transgressive, and a vehicle for

sociopolitical change

• Anti-theatrical– Rock as the seemingly spontaneous expression of

individuals

“Rock and Roll”

• 1950s youth culture.– Concurrent decline of

Broadway audiences– Broadway elitism

against Rock

• Bye Bye Birdie (1960)– Parody of rock and

generational divide

1960s Context

• Broadway decline– Catering to the

“establishment”

• Rise of the “Rock Musical,” 1960s youth culture.– Off-Broadway and Off-

off Broadway

Hair (1967-68)

• Counter-culture meets mainstream theatre– Era of disillusionment

• James Rado and Gerome Ragni– East Village; Open Theatre

• Move from Public Theatre to discothèque to Broadway

Hair (1967-68)

• Avant-garde approach – Collective creation and

improvisational acting– Audience involvement– Band on stage;

amplification and mics

• Popular hit– Music sells– “pandering to

establisment”?