by Jean Sidden

Created on: August 13, 2009   Last Updated: October 03, 2009

Although music has been a part of theater since ancient times, the musical theater we know and love today was born in the United States. America can lay claim to being the nursery of a unique form that used song and dance as a means of furthering the action of the text or revealing information about a character.

In 1866 the combination of a French ballet troupe without a performing venue and a newly written melodrama in need of enhancement produced a happy accident known as The Black Crook. Elevating respect for musical theater it generated a new audience and an unsurpassed box office. It contributed more to the public's acceptance of musical theater than any work up to that point. The profitable success of The Black Crook proved that America had given birth to a new art form.

Musical theater in the United States has always informed itself in context with the fabric of American society. The waves of immigrants flooding into the United States at the turn of the twentieth century fueled the work of artists like George M. Cohan. Born of Irish descent, Cohan's hit Little Johnny Jones, portrayed a Irish American patriot in Britain who was the epitome of a Yankee.

After World War I, with the advent of the Jazz Age, popular music changed. Just as The Black Crook had reconfigured the landscape of American musical productions, 1921 brought Shuffle Along's successful run on Broadway. This all black musical revue sent the message that audiences would flock to see African American work. Shuffle Along introduced two songs to the American songbook: "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and "Love Will Find a Way." It also opened the door for new African American talents including Paul Robeson and Josephine Baker.

Shuffle Along opened the world of popular musical performance to the African American community and built a bridge for its performers to work in a white world. In 1927 Showboat crossed that bridge in a landmark creation that confronted racial issues head on. The integrity of the text, adapted from Edna Ferber's novel, was fully blended with the excellence of the score. For Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II Showboat was one of the jewels in their lifetime careers. Its many popular songs, like "Ol' Man River" and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", are still widely known and sung.

The Depression saw years of political and social turmoil that was reflected in theatrical performance. In 1931 Of Thee I Sing took a fun jab at political campaigning. The show was the result of a creative

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