Modern Theatre Research Paper

Jane Fonda said it perfectly, “As an actress you spend all your life trying to do something they put people in asylums for.” I’ve always been fond of the performing arts. The stage draws me in. I enjoy exploring methods from Michael Chekhov, like imaginary body, and balance and form. As someone who greatly appreciates the theatre, I feel that it is important to educate others on the difference between a play, and musical. For both a play and musical, dialogue is used to convey the story. Plays focus on the spoken word while musicals use singing, and dancing. But even in some instances, plays incorporate music, and choreography.
In modern day theatre, the word “play” has a broad meaning. A “play” is a stage adaptation of a story using dialogue. A different common term for …show more content…
Singing, dancing, acting, live orchestrated music, and creative set design are some of the few things that help to whisk the audience away. This form of theatre includes songs, and choreography to explain the story, and move the ideas along. To clarify, a musical is a play. Both contain a script with stage directions. However, the music that is added to it makes it a musical. A musical is a play but play cannot be a musical. There are many different genre’s of musicals. The most popular genre’s include: Jukebox musicals, musical operas, and movie musicals. A jukebox musical is a stage adaptation that uses previously released music as its musical score. Jersey Boys is a great example of a jukebox musical. Musical opera’s simply have no dialogue, and use only singing to tell the story. Rent, Les Miserables, and Hamilton are the most popular shows amongst this genre. Lastly, movie musicals are musicals that were written for film and adapted to the stage, or vice versa. Some example’s of this are: Moulin Rouge, and Into the Woods. Adaptations between the theatrical performance, and movie performance may