Editing Musical theatre (section)

=== Early antecedents ===
{{Main|Development of musical theatre}}
[[File:Opera backdrop..gif|thumb|left|A view of [[Rhodes]] by [[John Webb (architect)|John Webb]], which was painted on a backshutter for the first performance of ''[[The Siege of Rhodes]]'' (1656)]]
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.<ref>{{cite web|last=Thornton|first=Shay| url=http://www.tuts.com/season07/wonderful_study.pdf|title=A Wonderful Life|publisher=[[Theatre Under The Stars (Houston)|Theatre Under the Stars]]|location=Houston, Texas|page=2|date=2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071127051412/http://www.tuts.com/season07/wonderful_study.pdf|access-date=May 26, 2009|archive-date=2007-11-27}}</ref><ref>[[Noël Goodwin|Goodwin, Noël]]. [https://www.britannica.com/art/theatre-music/The-history-of-theatrical-music "The history of theatrical music"], Britannica.com, accessed August 4, 2021; and Blakeley, Sasha and Jenna Conan. [https://study.com/academy/lesson/history-of-musical-theatre-lesson-for-kids.html "History of Musical Theatre: Lesson for Kids – Early Musicals"], Study.com, accessed August 4, 2021</ref> The music from the ancient forms is lost, however, and they had little influence on later development of musical theatre.<ref name=KenrickShort>[[John Kenrick (theatre writer)|Kenrick, John]]. [http://www.musicals101.com/stagecap.htm "A Capsule History"], Musicals101.com, 2003, accessed October 12, 2015</ref> In the 12th and 13th centuries, religious dramas taught the [[liturgy]]. Groups of actors would use outdoor [[Pageant wagon]]s (stages on wheels) to tell each part of the story. Poetic forms sometimes alternated with the prose dialogues, and liturgical chants gave way to new melodies.<ref>Hoppin, pp. 180–181</ref>

The European [[Renaissance]] saw older forms evolve into two antecedents of musical theatre: [[commedia dell'arte]], where raucous clowns improvised familiar stories, and later, [[opera buffa]]. In England, Elizabethan and Jacobean plays frequently included music,<ref>Lord, p. 41</ref> and short musical plays began to be included in an evenings' dramatic entertainments.<ref>Lord, p. 42</ref> Court [[masque]]s developed during the [[Tudor period]] that involved music, dancing, singing and acting, often with expensive costumes and a complex [[stage design]].<ref>Buelow 2004, p. 26</ref><ref>Shakespeare 1998, p. 44</ref> These developed into sung plays that are recognizable as English operas, the first usually being thought of as ''[[The Siege of Rhodes]]'' (1656).<ref name=Buelow328>Buelow, p. 328</ref> In France, meanwhile, [[Molière]] turned several of his farcical comedies into musical entertainments with songs (music provided by [[Jean-Baptiste Lully]]) and dance in the late 17th century. These influenced a brief period of [[Opera in English|English opera]]<ref name="Carter">Carter and Butt 2005, p. 280</ref> by composers such as [[John Blow]]<ref>Parker 2001, p. 42</ref> and [[Henry Purcell]].<ref name=Buelow328/>

From the 18th century, the most popular forms of musical theatre in Britain were [[ballad opera]]s, like [[John Gay]]'s ''[[The Beggar's Opera]]'', that included lyrics written to the tunes of popular songs of the day (often spoofing opera), and later [[pantomime]], which developed from commedia dell'arte, and [[comic opera]] with mostly romantic plot lines, like [[Michael Balfe]]'s ''[[The Bohemian Girl]]'' (1845). Meanwhile, on the continent, [[singspiel]], [[comédie en vaudeville]], [[opéra comique]], [[zarzuela]] and other forms of light musical entertainment were emerging. ''The Beggar's Opera'' was the first recorded long-running play of any kind, running for 62 successive performances in 1728. It would take almost a century afterwards before any play broke 100 performances,<ref>The first was ''[[Tom and Jerry, or Life in London]]'' (1821)</ref> but the record soon reached 150 in the late 1820s.<ref name="dgillan.screaming.net">Gillan, Don. [http://www.stagebeauty.net/th-frames.html?http&&&www.stagebeauty.net/th-longr.html "Longest Running Plays in London and New York"], Stage Beauty (2007), accessed May 26, 2009</ref><ref name=Parker1196>Parker (1925), pp. 1196–1197</ref> Other musical theatre forms developed in England by the 19th century, such as [[music hall]], [[melodrama]] and [[burletta]], which were popularized partly because most London theatres were licensed only as music halls and not allowed to present plays without music.

Colonial America did not have a significant theatre presence until 1752, when London entrepreneur William Hallam sent a company of actors to the colonies managed by his brother [[Lewis Hallam|Lewis]].<ref name=Wilmethp.182>Wilmeth and Miller, p. 182</ref> In New York in the summer of 1753, they performed ballad-operas, such as ''The Beggar's Opera'', and ballad-farces.<ref name=Wilmethp.182/> By the 1840s, [[P. T. Barnum]] was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan.<ref>Wilmeth and Miller, p. 56</ref> Other early musical theatre in America consisted of British forms, such as burletta and pantomime,<ref name=KenrickShort/> but what a piece was called did not necessarily define what it was. The 1852 Broadway [[extravaganza]] ''The Magic Deer'' advertised itself as "A Serio Comico Tragico Operatical Historical Extravaganzical Burletical Tale of Enchantment."<ref name=Kenrick>Kenrick, John. [http://www.musicals101.com/erastage.htm "History of Stage Musicals"], Musicals101.com, 2003, accessed May 26, 2009</ref> Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown from around 1850 and did not arrive in the Times Square area until the 1920s and 1930s. New York runs lagged far behind those in London, but [[Laura Keene]]'s "musical burletta" ''[[The Seven Sisters (play)|Seven Sisters]]'' (1860) shattered previous New York musical theatre record, with a run of 253 performances.<ref>Allen, p. 106</ref>