The Music Man Square Research Paper

In this paper I am going to discuss what the Tin Pan Alley Era was. What historical practices allowed the music and recording industry to produce “feel good” music while almost completely ignoring the pressing social concerns of the day? How did the invention of the radio and other technologies like the microphone change the music industry? Why did Tin Pan Alley last as long as it did, and last what killed Tin Pan Alley?

Humorous, energetic, enjoyable and all-around fun, Legally Blonde: The Musical captured my attention from the get-go. This comical yet heartwarming musical portrays the story of a young woman following an ex-love to Harvard Law School only to realize the potential she possessed within herself and in the new life she creates for her own. After viewing this hit Broadway production, I am fascinated with how this theatre play was brought to life on stage with the lighting, sound, spacing and overall entertainment from the cast to the costumes. Altogether, this play is one of my all-time favorite productions and it is one that keeps my attention from the moment it takes off to the closing of the curtain at the end.

If you live in the D.C. metro area, there’s a fairly high chance that you may have heard go-go music. You may have been walking down the street in D.C. and heard people banging on trash cans and not even realized what kind of music it was.

“76 trombones led the big parade! With 110 cornets close at hand!” Wow, isn’t that a great song? It can get annoying, but yes, it is a fun, upbeat song, created by Mason City’s Meredith Willson. Who is Meredith Willson? How did someone from Mason City get so famous? These questions, and more unanswered questions will be revealed in this essay.

Everything looked like what you would expect of the late 1800’s. Horse drawn carriages, suspenders, paved streets, it all really added to the movie and helped the story along instead of getting in the way. Something that I think genuinely worked in their favor was the contrast between the wealthy and the poor. Take David’s family for example, a family of five living in what looks to be a studio apartment, maybe a one bedroom and contrast that with Joseph Pulitzer’s office at the top of a tall, domed building finished off with a gold coat. Also, the music used in the background was nice to help create suspense, I specifically liked how in spots during the second half you could hear pieces of “Santa Fe” float around. Along with that, this is a musical, songs are a large part of the plot and how the story is told and I believe that the songs were quite effectful. Songs where all of the boys sing together, like “The World Will Know” and “Seize the Day”, were really strong and gave you this feeling of power, determination, and readiness for what lies

I believe a musical, or any play is successful when it receives good reviews from critics, good reviews from the general audience, and tends to have a close to 100% of seats filled. My definition of a successful show is about as close to flawless as reality can allow. It pleases everyone and turns a profit.

Despite the somewhat cold weather, downtown Marietta radiated a vibrant atmosphere on April 22 for the inaugural Brick Street Arts Bash. In coordination with Marshall Kimball and the Marietta College Music Department, along with the Leader in Residence program through the McDonough Center, the People’s Bank Theater contributed tremendously to the success of the festival; predominantly in terms of publicizing to the community and offering a performance venue. Within this essay, I will discuss how the People’s Bank Theatre exhibited Drucker’s idea of social responsibility, as described by William Cohen, with specific regard to its involvement with the Brick Street Arts Bash.

I've been experiencing live productions for my whole life. My relationship with the performers was very strong. Usually, when I see a live production, I look for character development, change, and believability. Bingo:The Winning Musical did not change what I look for in a play, but it did give me a new experience for looking at musicals.

The musical, Shultz explains, was written in the Spring of 1890, and although at the beginning was considered scandalous, it is now considered a classic of dramatic literature, as it has influenced and anticipated a lot of other dramatic forms. It is a very influential play even though not well known to mainstream audiences. At the time of its creation it was very reviled and controversial, and because of that it was not given a sage until 1906 in Berlin. After than, the production was banned in many places until 1974, when in England the

“Seventy-six trombones led the big Parade, with a hundred and ten cornets close at hand,” says the man known as the Music Man. Meredith Wilson was born and raised in Mason City, was very musically talented, made Mason City famous, was very successful, and is still known today.

The scenery revealed multiples information about the setting. The opening scene conveyed that the musical is set in the present times. The set looked very rusty and depressing implying that the setting was very poor-like, the set designer did an extraordinary job on creating the tone. In the beginning the tone was very melancholy, but as the musical proceeded it turned into a cheerful comedy. In the beginning the colors of brown and gray dominated the scenery, but the colors frequently change depending on the musical number acts and what the musical numbers wanted to accomplish. The scenery didn’t have many moving parts, but they had many pulleys that change the set. The main setting was this huge background wall that was dominated by many geometric shapes, this was mostly used when the main character reunited to hold their rehearsal for their final performance. Also, there were many lights manipulations to change the setting, the big wall was diminished by black lights and they use simple sets like urinal stall and beds to represent the club’s bathroom and the bedroom respectively. I knew that this musical was realistic because there were not any absurdities in the set. Another aspect to carefully evaluate when you go to the theater is the costumes and lighting. The costumes were very simple and not too literal, the main characters were all middle-aged men. Their wives had a much fancier

Music in The Music Man Music is an element that can modify the atmosphere of anything. Whether it is in a movie, a party, or in a musical, it can change the scene from melancholy to cheerful. In The Music Man by Meredith Wilson and Franklin Lacey, music is the most important element of the production as it drives the plot and changes the emotion of the audience to match what the playwright imagined. I watched this musical in the Performing Arts Center of North Royalton High School, Directed by Megan Dolar.

The play, The Music Man, was a well-preformed play. At the beginning of the play there was a scene where all of the salesmen were on a train. The first use of language in this musical is when the conductor made his first appearance onto the stage. When he began to speak he started speaking the words came out at an exceedingly fast rate fast and began using words not everyone could understand. This would be the example that Professor Kenworthy used in class with the toy car salesmen commercial. His addressed needed to be slowed this also could be seen as semantic noise because of how fast he was speaking. The next since of language a person could notice is the salesmen, who are in a small group, begin talking in some sort of rhythm and keeping beat. With all of this physical noise going on it was tough to focus on what they were actually saying instead of focusing on the rhythm especially coming from a person who has a music background. The next thing in this scene would be a guy repeating that he,

Musical theatre has quite an extensive history. They can be dated back to ancient Greece, around the 5th century BCE. However, the most noteworthy period of time, The Golden Age, for musicals was during the 1940s to the 1960s. Since this was the period right after the economic recession, when “The American Dream” was coveted, many musicals wrapped their ideas and themes based on it. During this Golden Age time period, hits from Rodgers and Hammerstein such as The Sound of Music and The King and I were produced.

The two essays that are being analyzed are “Music, Space, Identity: Geographies of Youth Culture in Bangalore” by Arun Saldanha published in the journal Cultural Studies, as well as “Feeling the Noise: Teenagers, Bedrooms, and Music” by Sian Lincoln in the journal Leisure Studies (see abstract). Both essays adopt the critical approach of cultural studies, and focus on similar key concepts like music, space, and youth culture. I selected these two essays because they had parallel focuses, but exemplified them in different ways. Lincoln is more concerned with youth culture and how music is used in various ways to shape space (bedroom) and creation of the self, while Saldanha exemplifies these concepts through global youth in Bangalore and their relationship with space and western music.