The antecedents of musical theatre in Europe can be traced back to the theatre of ancient Greece, where music and dance were included in stage comedies and tragedies during the 5th century BCE. The dramatists See more

Around 1850, the French composer Hervé was experimenting with a form of comic musical theatre that came to be called opérette See more

Virtually eliminated from the English-speaking stage by competition from the ubiquitous Edwardian musical comedies in the 1890s, operettas returned to London and Broadway in 1907 with The Merry Widow, and operettas and musicals became direct … See more

The Great Depression affected theatre audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, as people had little money to spend on entertainment. Only a few stage shows exceeded a run on Broadway or in London of 500 performances during the decade.
Many shows … See more

The European Renaissance saw older forms evolve into commedia dell'arte, an Italian tradition where raucous clowns improvised their … See more

Charles H. Hoyt's A Trip to Chinatown (1891) was Broadway's long-run champion (until Irene in 1919), running for 657 performances. Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas were both … See more

The musicals of the Roaring Twenties, borrowing from vaudeville, music hall and other light entertainments, tended to emphasize star actors and actresses, big dance routines, and … See more