Editing Musical theatre (section)

=== 1890s to the new century ===
{{further|Edwardian musical comedy}}
[[File:Cover of the Vocal Score of Sidney Jones' The Geisha.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Cover of the Vocal Score of [[Sidney Jones (composer)|Sidney Jones]]' ''The Geisha'']]
''[[A Trip to Chinatown]]'' (1891) was Broadway's long-run champion (until ''[[Irene (musical)|Irene]]'' in 1919), running for 657 performances, but New York runs continued to be relatively short, with a few exceptions, compared with London runs, until the 1920s.<ref name="dgillan.screaming.net"/> Gilbert and Sullivan were widely pirated and also were imitated in New York by productions such as [[Reginald De Koven]]'s ''[[Robin Hood (De Koven opera)|Robin Hood]]'' (1891) and [[John Philip Sousa]]'s ''[[El Capitan (operetta)|El Capitan]]'' (1896). ''A Trip to Coontown'' (1898) was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans on Broadway (largely inspired by the routines of the [[minstrel show]]s), followed by [[ragtime]]-tinged shows. Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 20th century, composed of songs written in New York's [[Tin Pan Alley]], including those by [[George M. Cohan]], who worked to create an American style distinct from the Gilbert and Sullivan works. The most successful New York shows were often followed by extensive national tours.<ref>Mark Evan Swartz's ''[[Oz Before the Rainbow]]'' describes the enormous train trips required of the cast of the 1903 smash hit, ''[[The Wizard of Oz (1902 musical)|The Wizard of Oz]]'', which tour ran for nine years, including on the road. [https://books.google.com/books?id=X_7VbOGM8iMC&q=%22Oz+before+the+rainbow%22 "Oz Before the Rainbow: L. Frank Baum's ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' on Stage and Screen to 1939"]. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000 {{ISBN|0-8018-6477-1}}</ref>

Meanwhile, musicals took over the London stage in the [[Gay Nineties]], led by producer [[George Edwardes]], who perceived that audiences wanted a new alternative to the [[Savoy opera|Savoy]]-style comic operas and their intellectual, political, absurdist satire. He experimented with a modern-dress, family-friendly musical theatre style, with breezy, popular songs, snappy, romantic banter, and stylish spectacle at the [[Gaiety Theatre, London|Gaiety]] and his other theatres. These drew on the traditions of comic opera and used elements of burlesque and of the Harrigan and Hart pieces. He replaced the bawdy women of burlesque with his "respectable" corps of [[Gaiety Girls]] to complete the musical and visual fun. The success of the first of these, ''[[In Town (musical)|In Town]]'' (1892) and ''[[A Gaiety Girl]]'' (1893) set the style for the next three decades. The plots were generally light, romantic "poor maiden loves aristocrat and wins him against all odds" shows, with music by [[Ivan Caryll]], [[Sidney Jones (composer)|Sidney Jones]] and [[Lionel Monckton]]. These shows were immediately widely copied in America, and [[Edwardian musical comedy]] swept away the earlier musical forms of comic opera and operetta. ''[[The Geisha]]'' (1896) was one of the most successful in the 1890s, running for more than two years and achieving great international success.

''[[The Belle of New York (musical)|The Belle of New York]]'' (1898) became the first American musical to run for over a year in London. The British musical comedy ''[[Florodora]]'' (1899) was a popular success on both sides of the Atlantic, as was ''[[A Chinese Honeymoon]]'' (1901), which ran for a record-setting 1,074 performances in London and 376 in New York.<ref name=Parker1196/> After the turn of the 20th century, [[Seymour Hicks]] joined forces with Edwardes and American producer [[Charles Frohman]] to create another decade of popular shows. Other enduring Edwardian musical comedy hits included ''[[The Arcadians (musical)|The Arcadians]]'' (1909) and ''[[The Quaker Girl]]'' (1910).<ref>See, generally, Index to ''The Gaiety'', a British musical theatre publication about Victorian and Edwardian musical theatre.</ref>