Editing Musical theatre (section)

=== ''Show Boat'' and the Great Depression ===
Progressing far beyond the comparatively frivolous musicals and sentimental operettas of the decade, Broadway's ''[[Show Boat]]'' (1927) represented an even more complete integration of book and score than the Princess Theatre musicals, with dramatic themes told through the music, dialogue, setting and movement. This was accomplished by combining the lyricism of Kern's music with the skillful libretto of [[Oscar Hammerstein II]]. One historian wrote, "Here we come to a completely new genre – the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now ... everything else was subservient to that play. Now ... came complete integration of song, humor and production numbers into a single and inextricable artistic entity."<ref name=history>Lubbock (2002)</ref>

[[File:Rodgers and Hart NYWTS.jpg|left|thumb|[[Rodgers and Hart]]]]
As the [[Great Depression]] set in during the post-Broadway national tour of ''Show Boat'', the public turned back to mostly light, escapist song-and-dance entertainment.<ref name=Quarterly/> Audiences on both sides of the Atlantic had little money to spend on entertainment, and only a few stage shows anywhere exceeded a run of 500 performances during the decade. The revue ''[[The Band Wagon (musical)|The Band Wagon]]'' (1931) starred dancing partners Fred Astaire and his sister [[Adele Astaire|Adele]], while Porter's ''[[Anything Goes]]'' (1934) confirmed [[Ethel Merman]]'s position as the First Lady of musical theatre, a title she maintained for many years. Coward and Novello continued to deliver old fashioned, sentimental musicals, such as ''[[The Dancing Years]]'', while Rodgers and Hart returned from Hollywood to create a series of successful Broadway shows, including ''[[On Your Toes]]'' (1936, with [[Ray Bolger]], the first Broadway musical to make dramatic use of classical dance), ''[[Babes in Arms]]'' (1937) and ''[[The Boys from Syracuse]]'' (1938). Porter added ''[[Du Barry Was a Lady]]'' (1939). The longest-running piece of musical theatre of the 1930s in the US was ''[[Hellzapoppin (musical)|Hellzapoppin]]'' (1938), a revue with audience participation, which played for 1,404 performances, setting a new Broadway record.<ref name=Hellz/> In Britain, ''[[Me and My Girl]]'' ran for 1,646 performances.<ref name=h1598/>

Still, a few creative teams began to build on ''Show Boat''{{'}}s innovations. ''[[Of Thee I Sing]]'' (1931), a political satire by the Gershwins, was the first musical awarded the [[Pulitzer Prize]].<ref name=KenrickShort/><ref>[http://www.pulitzer.org/awards/1944 1944 Pulitzer awards], Pulitzer.org, accessed July 7, 2012</ref> ''[[As Thousands Cheer]]'' (1933), a revue by [[Irving Berlin]] and [[Moss Hart]] in which each song or sketch was based on a newspaper headline, marked the first Broadway show in which an African-American, [[Ethel Waters]], starred alongside white actors. Waters' numbers included "[[Supper Time]]", a woman's lament for her husband who has been lynched.<ref>Connema, Richard. [http://www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/sanfran/s75.html "San Francisco: ''As Thousands Cheer'' and ''Dear World''"], TalkinBroadway.org (2000), accessed May 26, 2009</ref> The Gershwins' ''[[Porgy and Bess]]'' (1935) featured an all African-American cast and blended operatic, folk and jazz idioms. ''[[The Cradle Will Rock]]'' (1937), directed by [[Orson Welles]], was a highly political pro-[[trade union|union]] piece that, despite the controversy surrounding it, ran for 108 performances.<ref name=Kenrick/> Rodgers and Hart's ''[[I'd Rather Be Right]]'' (1937) was a political satire with [[George M. Cohan]] as President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], and [[Kurt Weill]]'s ''[[Knickerbocker Holiday]]'' depicted New York City's early history while good-naturedly satirizing Roosevelt's good intentions.

The motion picture mounted a challenge to the stage. Silent films had presented only limited competition, but by the end of the 1920s, films like ''[[The Jazz Singer]]'' could be presented with synchronized sound. [[Sound film|"Talkie"]] films at low prices effectively killed off [[vaudeville]] by the early 1930s.<ref>Kenrick, John. [http://www.musicals101.com/1927-30film2.htm "History of Musical Film, 1927–30: Part II"], Musicals101.com, 2004, accessed May 17, 2010</ref> Despite the economic woes of the 1930s and the competition from film, the musical survived. In fact, it continued to evolve thematically beyond the gags and showgirls musicals of the ''Gay Nineties'' and ''Roaring Twenties'' and the sentimental romance of operetta, adding technical expertise and the fast-paced staging and naturalistic dialogue style led by director [[George Abbott]].<ref name=KenrickShort/>