Rock Musicals - History

History

The rock musical became an important part of the musical theatre scene in the late 1960s with the hit show Hair. Styled "The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical," the anti-war free-love hippie-themed, nude-scened Hair premiered in 1967 as the first production staged at The Public Theater. It moved to Broadway in October 1968. Your Own Thing also opened in 1968 and featured a gender-switching version of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. However, the first musical to hint at what was to come had been the final edition of the Ziegfeld Follies in 1957. This production featured one rock and roll number, "The Juvenile Delinquent". The song was performed by fifty year-old Billy De Wolfe. This was followed by another precursor to the rock musical, Bye Bye Birdie (1960)." Although rock and roll would have to wait for seven more years before returning to Broadway, these early, tentative infusions of rock into musical theatre paved the way for Hair and its progeny.

Jesus Christ Superstar, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, began as an album musical in 1970. The money made from album sales was used to fund the subsequent stage production in late 1971. This show and some other rock musicals that have no dialogue or are otherwise reminiscent of opera, with dramatic, emotional themes, are sometimes styled "rock operas". The musical Godspell (1971), had similar religious themes (albeit with a less controversial treatment) and pop/rock influences. The genre continued to develop through the 1970s with shows such as Grease and Pippin. The rock musical soon moved in other directions with shows like The Wiz, Raisin, Dreamgirls and Purlie, which were heavily influenced by R&B and soul music.

The rock musical saw a decline in popularity through the 1980s. Except for a few outposts of rock, like Little Shop of Horrors (1982) and Chess (1986), audience tastes turned to shows with European pop scores, like Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera, as well as to more nostalgic fare. However, the rock musical achieved a renaissance in the 1990s, due in no small part to the popularity of Jonathan Larson's Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning rock musical Rent (1996). This was followed by Off-Broadway rock musicals like Bat Boy: The Musical (1997) and Hedwig and the Angry Inch (1998), John Cameron Mitchell's Off-Broadway show about a transgendered rocker. The end of the 1980s saw the beginning of a new form, jukebox musicals, such as Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story, Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys, which feature the songs of a popular band, performer or genre.

The rock musical has seen a resurgence in the late 1990s and the 2000s, with shows by composers like Elton John (Aida, 1998), as well as a number of successful jukebox musicals with rock scores. Recent major original rock musical productions include Duncan Sheik's 2007 Tony Award winner, Spring Awakening, Passing Strange (2008), Rock of Ages and Next to Normal (both 2009), and American Idiot (2010).