A series of elaborate theatrical revue productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 to 1931, with renewals in 1934 and 1936. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.
- Film: 1946
- Book: James Goldman
- Music & lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
- Première: 1971 at Broadway The story concerns a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre, scheduled for demolition, of the past performers of the "Weismann's Follies", a musical revue (based on the Ziegfeld Follies), that played in that theatre between the World Wars. It focuses on two couples, Buddy and Sally Durant Plummer and Benjamin and Phyllis Rogers Stone, who are attending the reunion.
Set in 1931 Berlin as the Nazis are rising to power, it focuses on the nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub, and revolves around an American writer and his relationship with an English cabaret performe.
- Basis: I Am a Camera (1951 play) by John Van Druten;
Goodbye to Berlin (1939 novel) by Christopher Isherwood
- Book: Joe Masteroff
- Music: John Kander
- Lyrics: Fred Ebb
- Première: 1966 at Broadway
- Film: 1972, starring Lisa Minnelli (daughter of Judy Garland)
- Basis: Chicago, 1926 play by Maurine Dallas Watkins
- Book: Fred Ebb, Bob Fosse
- Music: John Kander
- Lyrics: Fred Ebb
- Première: 1975 at 46th Street Theater (until 1977, 936 performances)
- Film: 2002 Set in Chicago in the jazz age, the American musical is about actual criminals and the crimes on which she reported. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justiceand the concept of the "celebrity criminal".
It tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make the "Jellicle choice," deciding which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life.
- Basis: Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot
- Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber
- Première: 1981 at New London Theatre, London
- Film: 1998, 2019
- Lyrics: Don Black, Richard Maltby, Jr. (additional)
- Productions: 1982 West End
A musical comprising two acts, one told entirely in "Song" and one entirely in "Dance", tied together by a unifying love story:
(1) The "Song" act is 'Tell Me on a Sunday', about a young British woman's romantic misadventures in New York City and Hollywood.
(2) The "Dance" act is a ballet choreographed to Variations (composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber for his cellist brother Julian) which is based on the A Minor Caprice No. 24 by Paganini.
The musical tells the story of a young but obsolete steam engine, Rusty, who races in a championship against modern engines in the hope of impressing a first-class carriage, Pearl.
Famously, the actors perform the entire show on roller skates.
- Musical: Andrew Lloyd Webber (later + son Alastair Lloyd Webber)
- Lyrics: Richard Stilgoe (later + Don Black, David Yazbek, Nick Coler and Lauren Aquilina)
- Productions: multiple productions worldwide
"The show holds the record as the ninth-longest-running theatrical production in West End history, having been performed 7,409 times between 1984 and 2002."
The story is loosely based on the Gospels' accounts of the last week of Jesus' life. [In addition,] it depicts political and interpersonal struggles between Judas Iscariot and Jesus that are not present in the Bible.
- Basis: the Gospels
- Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber
- Lyrics: Tim Rice
- Première: 1970 at Universal Amphitheater, LA; 1971 at Mark Hellinger Theater, NYC
- Film: Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
- Basis: Giacomo Puccini's opera La Bohème
- Music, lyrics, and book: Jonathan Larson
- Première: 1996 at New York Theatre Workshop, NYC
- Film: 2005 It tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists struggling to survive and create a life in Lower Manhattan's East Village in the thriving days of Bohemian Alphabet City, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS.
- Basis: the Aida opera written by Giuseppe Verdi
- Music: Elton John
- Lyrics: Tim Rice
- Book: Linda Woolverton, Robert Falls, and David Henry Hwang
- Première: 2000 at The Aldwych Theater, NYC
- Basis: The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
- Book: Richard Stilgoe, Andrew Lloyd Webber
- Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber
- Lyrics: Charles Hart, Richard Stilgoe
- Première: 1986 at Her Majesty's Theatre, London
- Film: 2004
Both the musical on stage and in film are fantastic and recommended highly.
Les Misérables (/leɪ ˌmɪzəˈrɑːb(lə)/; French: [le mizeʁabl(ə)])
- aka Les Mis (/leɪ ˈmɪz/) in English-speaking countries
- Basis: Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
- Book:
French version - Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg
English version - Trevor Nunn, John Caird, plus James Fenton
- Music: Claude-Michel Schönberg
- Lyrics:
French version - Alain Boublil, Jean-Marc Natel
English version - Herbert Kretzmer
- Première: 1980 at Palais des Sports (Paris), 1985 at London
- Film: 2012
* 'I've Dreamed a Dream' sings Susan Boyle in BGT.
- Book: Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg
- Music: Claude-Michel Schönberg
- Lyrics: Alain Boublil, Richard Maltby Jr.
- Première: 1989 at Drury Land, Theater Royal
- Film: 2009 Similar to Puccini's Madame Butterfly, it tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving a 17-year-old South Vietnamese bargirl abandoned by her USMC lover in the 1970s.
- Basis: The Lion King (1994) by Walt Disney Animation Studios
- Book: RogerAllers, Irene Mecchi
- Music: Elton John et al
- Lyrics: Tim Rice et al
- Première: 1997 Minneapolis (tryout), 1997 Broadway
A theatrical show consisting mainly of traditional Irish music and dance.
- Composer: Bill Whelan
- Choreograph: Michael Flatley, Jean Butler, Maria Pagas
- Première: 1995 at Point Thater, Dublin
A sensational musical re the life of a Yiddish (Jewish) community in the Pale of Settlement in Imperial Russia circa 1905
- Basis: Tevye and his Daughters, and other tales by Sholem Aleichem
- Book: Joseph Stein
- Music: Jerry Bock
- Lyrics: Sheldon Harnick
- Première: 1964 at Imperial Theater, NYC (3242 performanes)
- Film: 1971 (3hr) The story centers on Tevye and his attempts to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural traditions as outside influences encroach upon the family's lives.
- Basis: Shepherd Mead's 1952 book of the same name
- Book: Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert
- Music & lyrics: Frank Loesser
- Première: 1961 at 46th Street Theatre, NYC (1,417 performances)
- Film: 1967 The story concerns young, ambitious J. Pierrepont Finch, who, with the help of the book "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", rises from window washer to chairman of the board of the World Wide Wicket Company.
- Basis: George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion
- Book & lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner
- Music: Frederick Loewe
- Première: 1956 at Mark Hellinger Theater, NYC (2717 perdormances)
- Film: 1964 The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phoneticist, so that she may pass as a lady. (The original Broadway and London shows starred Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews.)
- Basis: Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs, Oklahoma!
- Book & lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II
- Music: Richard Rodgers
- Première: 1943 at St. James Theater (2212 performances)
- Basis: Edna Ferber's novel of the same name
- Book & lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II
- Music: Jerome Kern
- Première: 1927 at Ziegfeld Theater, NYC (572 performances) The musical follows the lives of the performers, stagehands and dock workers on the Cotton Blossom, a Mississippi River show boat, over 40 years from 1887 to 1927.
- Basis: (1) 1956 German film "Die Trapp-Familie"; (2) Maria von Trapp's autobiography "The Story of the Trapp Family Singers"
- Book: Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse
- Music: Richard Rodgers
- Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II
- Première: 1959 at Lunt-Fontanne Theater, NYC (1443 performances)
- Film: 1965
- Book & lyrics: Luc Plamondon
- Music: Michel Berger
- Première: 1979 Palais des Congres de Paris Originally a Canadian-French cyberpunk rock opera written in 1976, it is now considered one of the most famous rock operas in French history. Several of its songs have passed into mainstream Francophone pop culture.
An English version with lyrics by Tim Rice, titled Tycoon, premiered with the release of a studio recording in 1992.
A sung-through French musical
- Basis: Victor Hugo's novel Notre-Dame de Paris
- Book: Luc Plamondon
- Music: Riccardo Cocciante (aka Richard Cocciante)
- Lyrics: Luc Plamondon (French), later Will Jennings (English)
- Première: 1998 in Paris
- Basis: the life and death of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I
- Book & lyrics: Michael Kunze
- Music: Sylvester Levay.
- Première: 1992 at Theater an der Wien A Viennese, German-language musical that has been translated into seven languages and seen by over ten million spectators worldwide, making it the most successful German-language musical of all time. (It has not yet been staged in the English speaking world.)
- Basis: the struggling life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Book & lyrics: Michael Kunze
- Music & arrangements: Sylvester Levay.
- Première: 1999 at Theater an der Wien (419 performances)
"A concept musical is a work of musical theatre whose book and score are structured around conveying a theme or message, rather than emphasizing a narrative plot." - Wiki
(musical comedy)
- Music & lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
- Book: George Furth
- Première: 1970 at Alvin Theatre, NYC (690 performances) "Its plot revolves around Robert (a single man unable to commit fully to a steady relationship, let alone marriage), the five married couples who are his best friends, and his three girlfriends."
- Basis: Ingmar Bergman's film Smiles of a Summer Night
- Book: Hugh Wheeler
- Music & lyrics: Stephen Sondheimand
- Première: 1973 at Shubert Theater, NYC (600 performaces)
It involves the romantic lives of several couples.
- Book: James Lapine
- Music & lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
- Première: 1984 at Booth Theater, NYC (604 performances) The plot revolves around George, a fictionalized version of Seurat, who immerses himself deeply in painting his masterpiece, and his great-grandson (also named George), a conflicted and cynical contemporary artist.
"The musical intertwines the plots of several Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault fairy tales, exploring the consequences of the characters' wishes and quests."
- Basis: The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim
- Book & direction: James Lapine.
- Music & lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
- Première: 1987 at Martin Beck Theater (764 performances)
"Using the framing device of an all-American, yet sinister, carnival game, the semi-revue portrays a group of historical figures who attempted (successfully or not) to assassinate Presidents of the United States, and explores what their presence in American history says about the ideals of their country."
- Basis: Original concept by Charles Gilbert Jr.
- Book: John Weidman
- Music & lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
- Première: 1990 Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons, NYC (73 performances)
- Basis: Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet play
- Book: Authur Laurentsjj
- Music: Leonard Bernstein
- Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
- Direction/Choreograph: Jerome Robbins
- Première: 1957 at Winter Garden Theater (732 performances)
- Film: West Side Story (1961)
West Side Story (2021) is directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg. It is the second feature-length adaptation of the 1957 stage musical of the same name.
Approach 2: Restructuring and rewriting weak drama books;
- Basis: Miquel de Cervantes' Don Quixote (17th-century novel)
- Book: Dale Wasserma
- Music: Mitch Leigh
- Lyrics: Joe Darion
- Première: 1965 at ANTA Washington Theater (2,328 performances)
- Film: Man of La Mancha (1972)
It tells the story of the "mad" knight Don Quixote as a play within a play, performed by Cervantes and his fellow prisoners as he awaits a hearing with the Spanish Inquisition.
BY PERIODS 
