History of Musicals and Link to Popular Culture
Musicals as conceptualized today are singing and dancing extravaganzas complete with special effects and large chorus numbers, similar to the one referenced in the chapter title from Disney’s Teen Beach Movie (Hornaday, 2013). Animated versions are popular with children, singing teenage movie dramas remain a staple of the tween and teen experience, and live musical theater productions continue to be a draw for all ages (Tepper, 2018). Despite their popularity as a vehicle for entertainment, they are rarely discussed in scholarly work relating popular culture to academic achievement. This chapter will examine the three components of musicals: theater, song, and dance and the relationship to literacy instruction.
Modern musicals are derived from a long history of combining theater and music for an audience’s enhanced experience. As early as the third century, Greek performances combined choreography, song, and drama (DK, 2015). Storytelling integrated with music and choreography continued through the ages varied by culture and social standing. For example, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, operas were considered high culture in European societies, while opera buffa, singspeil, and vaudeville were comedic music/drama performances intended for everyday people in Italy, Germany, and France, respectively. Performances for the everyday people tended to feature well known stories, although with simpler plot lines and more overt humor. The development of the operette in nineteenth century France helped define this art performance into the type of performance we would recognize today as a musical (DK, 2015). Modern musicals draw heavily from source material in the entertainment world, from rock songs in Mamma Mia! (Andersson & Ulvaeus, 2002) to children’s literature in Matilda (Minchin, 2012) to animated movies such as Frozen: The Musical (Lee, Anderson-Lopez, & Lopez, 2018). In fact, Disney is the biggest and most successful producer of animated musicals and has been credited with helping the resurgence of popularity for the tradition of musicals (DK, 2015).
When viewing the history of musicals, it becomes apparent that this art form may be considered the origin of the phrase popular culture (DK, 2015). From the very beginnings, the combination of music, choreography, and drama have been intended to entice everyday people into stories and experiences derived from high culture such as opera. These stories and experiences are transformed in the musical with simpler plot and dialog as well as with music and song considered to be more accessible or engaging to everyday people. Literacy experts will recognize the same division in literature, with some books being part of the cannon and holding the esteem of experts while others are known to be popular sellers in the marketplace, yet have not been deemed as highly valued by the critics. Examples of such a divide would be comparisons of the Odyssey (Homer, N.D.) and its modern cousin Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, (Riordan, 2005). Each details the story of a warrior on an epic journey, interacting with the Greek gods and drawing on Greek mythology for characters and events. However, one is recognized as an example of brilliant storytelling revered as one of the earliest fundamental works of literature in the Western canon, while the modern version is considered a best-selling, highly engaging novel for outside of school reading.
Similarly, musicals, much like literature, reflect not only the higher culture stories and experiences from which they are derived, but also the time and culture in which they were conceived. As such, successful musicals or books evolve over time to spark interest in their audiences. Just as literature for children began with tales such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll, 1865), and now includes tales such as The Hunger Games (Collins, 2008) and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling, 1999), musicals might be derived from classic plays or operas such as Carousel (Rogers & Hammerstein, 1945) featuring a retelling of the play Liliom (Molnar, 1909) and incorporating sensibilities, plot lines, and music from the more ‘modern’ 1940’s. Perhaps the best example of this currently is Hamilton: an American musical (Miranda, 2016). A musical based on a nonfiction account of Alexander Hamilton’s life, with songs derived from rap, jazz, 1960’s British pop, and contemporary R&B (DeOreo & Barnett, 2018) would have seemed out of place at the time of Carousel, but fits in beautifully with the sensibilities of the current day. As such, modern musicals provide a venue to examine the link between popular culture and literacy practices for children today. A caveat to this line of thought, however, is the warning that what is popular in one era may not be indicative of a long -lasting classic. “What is popular can become enduring and universal; What is ‘universal’ can be reinterpreted as a biased fiction of its immediate time” (Dyson, 1997, p. 181). Modern musicals are more likely to contain characters which reflect children’s sensibilities in this time period.
Anne Haas Dyson’s (1997) seminal work on popular culture shows us that students bring the ideas, knowledge, and assumptions of their out of school lives immersed in popular culture into the classroom. These ideas and assumptions both help build and also constrain children’s writing and literacy learning. Popular culture incorporation into literacy learning brings engagement, affirmation of a student’s identity outside of school (Weld, 2011) in ways that help bridge the home/school divide for students. Also, the “…expanding definitions of literacy reflect the range of media besides print that people use for business, entertainment and communication…” (Asselin, 2001, p. 47). Indeed, popular culture integration with literacy instruction is not limited to the arts. As digital technologies have become ubiquitous in students’ lives, the idea of conflating the first space (home) and the second space (school) with the digital realm to create a third space where academics, home or popular culture, and technology are all connected and respected to help the student grow in literacy skills has become the ideal to which educators aspire (Dredger, 2014).
In literacy instruction, this may take many forms. It may manifest in the preferences for leisure reading. It may also show itself in the topics students write about. Popular culture characters and plot lines often resonate with students in ways that traditional school materials do not. Students are more likely to choose books based on popular culture topics for summer reading programs (Allington & McGill-Franzen, 2013) and are more likely to play apps or computer games with links to popular culture (Takeuchi, 2011). Similar to the updated musicals, especially those adapted specifically for children’s performances, they contain dialog, plots, music, and lyrics that speak to modern audiences. Popular culture stories, games, and apps may allow students to see themselves and their values reflected within the school setting. They may help students connect with the literacy materials.