Opera and Operetta
Broadway Foundations
Masters of the Songs
Songs 1 and Songs 2
Early American Vernacular
100

This British lyricist and composer duo dominated the late 19th-century stage with witty, satirical comic operettas like The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado.

Who are Gilbert and Sullivan?

100

This 1866 New York production is widely cited as the first American musical, born out of necessity when a stranded French ballet troupe was integrated into a spectacular melodramatic play at Niblo's Garden.

What is The Black Crook?

100

This fiercely patriotic showman wrote, directed, produced, and starred in early 20th-century hits like Little Johnny Jones, giving the world standards like "Give My Regards to Broadway" and "The Yankee Doodle Boy."

Who is George M. Cohan?

100

The AABA form is sometimes called what? Songs are built on this number?

What is the 32-bar form? What is 8.

100

This clean, family-friendly variety entertainment form dominated the late 19th and early 20th centuries, serving as the essential training ground for early musical theatre stars. 

What is Vaudeville?

200

This is what we might call the style of singing that we inherited from opera.

What is legit?

200

This legendary producer of the Follies, also produced what we consider the first musical?

Who is Ziegfeld? (And which is Showboat)

200

Name one composer of the Great American Songbook?

Who is Irving Berlin? (Gershwins, Kern, Rodgers, Porter)

200

Where is the hook in this form? The hook, a catchy melody, typically also contains the…” What is the name of the central character’s yearning song?

What is in the first A section? What is the title. What is the “I Want Song?”

200

Harrigan and Hart wrote, produced, and starred in a series of highly popular musical farces documenting the chaotic lives of working-class Irish and German immigrants in New York. The name of that series.

What are the Mulligan Guard plays?

300

Strongly allied to the plots of opera, we borrowed this dramatic form from opera.

What is melodrama?

300

This early 20s series of shows called the Cinderella Musicals injected what into the musical’s development?

What is a female central character with agency.

300

The Princess Musicals (1915–1918) performed in the Princess Theatre did what to the development of the musical?

What is made acting more realistic?

300

Where is the chorus in the AABA form? Where is the verse in the AABA form?

What is the entire form, the entire AABA? What is before the first A section.

300

This pioneering African American vaudeville star was the first Black man hired for the Follies. What is the performer’s name and who hired him?

Who is Bert Williams and Florenz Ziegfeld?

400

We might call the musical a middle class art and thoroughly American because?

What is an art form that rejects Europe, high brow art and opera?

400

This West 28th Street neighborhood and collective of music publishers dominated American popular music production at the turn of the century, supplying Broadway with its pluggers and sheet music hits

What is Tin Pan Alley?

400

This composer brilliantly blended classical techniques with jazz, ragtime, and blues rhythms in 1920s musical comedies like Lady, Be Good! and Oh, Kay!.

Who is George Gershwin?

400

The advantage of this form over ABAB is? The shift from AABA to ABAB occurred in this decade.

It has a greater linear tendency and more storytelling? What is the 60s?

400

Known as the "Father of the musical" this American showman has a statue in Times Square.

George M. Cohan

500

One of the structural elements of opera that we borrowed is evident in shows like Phantom of the Opera and Hamilton.

What is sung-through?

500

The entire theatre district in NYC is called what and named after what?

 What is Times Square named after the New York Times?

500

This lyricist teamed up with his brother to create some of the best songs of the Great American Songbook.

Who is Ira Gershwin?

500

This typically happens in the second A, but for sure by the third A section. This is the song that makes love at first sight more palatable.

What is development or a build in the narrative of the character. What is the conditional love song.

500

Originating in the 1840s and remaining popular through the late 19th century, this structurally rigid, three-part entertainment form utilized blackface and deeply racist caricatures, yet inadvertently established the baseline structural pacing for early American musical revues.

What is the Minstrel Show?

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