Share This
Music theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining music, songs, spoken dialogue and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole...
Learn more about Music theatre »
Add More Topics
Save this view to a base, or just for yourself.
about 700 Play topics matching:
Filter this Collection
West Side Story
West Side Story is an American musical with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The musical's plot is based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
Set in New York in the mid-1950s, the musical...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
Country of origin:
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. Many songs from the...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Productions:
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a 1976 musical with music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. It is considered to be a legendary Broadway flop, running only seven performances. It was Leonard Bernstein's last original score for...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Date of First Performance:
- May 4, 1976
Playwright:
Country of origin:
South Pacific
South Pacific is a 1949 musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The story draws from James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning, 1948 novel, Tales of the South Pacific, weaving...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Oklahoma!
Oklahoma! is the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Date of First Performance:
- Mar 31, 1943
Country of origin:
A Little Night Music
A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Its title is a literal English...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
Anyone Can Whistle
Anyone Can Whistle is a 1964 musical with a book by Arthur Laurents and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The story concerns a corrupt mayoress, an idealistic nurse, a man who may be a doctor, and various officials, patients and townspeople, all...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart.
Inspired by the farces of the ancient Roman playwright Plautus (251–183 BC), specifically Pseudolus...
Composer:
Lyricist:
Date of First Performance:
- May 8, 1962
Country of origin:
Carousel
Carousel is a musical by Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics) that was adapted from Ferenc Molnar's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting the Budapest setting of Molnar's play to a New England fishing village. The show...
Composer:
Lyricist:
Date of First Performance:
- Apr 19, 1945
Follies
Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. Several of its songs have become standards, including "Broadway Baby," "I'm Still Here," "Too Many Mornings," "Could I Leave You?" and "Losing My Mind." The...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Gypsy: A Musical Fable
Gypsy is a 1959 musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. Gypsy is based on the 1957 memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous striptease artist, and focuses on her mother, Rose, whose name has become...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Date of First Performance:
- 1959
Playwright:
Country of origin:
Into the Woods
Into the Woods is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and premiered on Broadway in 1987. Bernadette Peters' performance as the Witch, and Joanna...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
Paint Your Wagon
Paint Your Wagon is a 1951 Broadway musical comedy, with book and lyrics by Alan J. Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, set in a mining camp in Gold Rush-era California.
The musical opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on November 12, 1951,...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Date of First Performance:
- Nov 12, 1951
Productions:
View entire collection »Playwright:
Pacific Overtures
Pacific Overtures is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, a libretto by John Weidman, and additional material by Hugh Wheeler. The musical is set in 1853 Japan and follows the difficult Westernization of Japan, through the lives of...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Rent
Rent is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème. It tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York's Lower East Side in...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Productions:
Playwright:
The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera (German: Die Dreigroschenoper) is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century...
Genre:
Playwright:
Assassins
Assassins is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman, based on an idea by Charles Gilbert, Jr. It uses the premise of a murderous carnival game to produce a revue-style portrayal of men and women who attempted ...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
I'd Rather Be Right
I'd Rather Be Right is a musical with a book by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, lyrics by Lorenz Hart, and music by Richard Rodgers. The story is a Depression-era political satire set in New York City, about Washington politics and political...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera that became a musical by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. It highlights the political and interpersonal struggles of Judas Iscariot and Jesus. The rock opera is based on St John's Gospel account of the last...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
The King and I
The King and I is a musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II based on the book Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon. The plot comes from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became school teacher to the children of King Mongkut of...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
Brigadoon
Brigadoon is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Songs from the musical, such as "Almost Like Being in Love" have become standards.
It tells the story of a mysterious Scottish village that appears for...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
Hair
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became...
Composer:
Genre:
Productions:
Country of origin:
Kiss Me, Kate
Kiss Me, Kate is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It is structured as a play within a play, where the interior play is a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.
Kiss Me, Kate was a comeback and a personal...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Carmen Jones
Carmen Jones is a 1943 Broadway musical, later made into a 1954 musical film; the play also ran for a season in 1991 at London's Old Vic and most recently in London's Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre in 2007. It is an updating of the...
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
Fiddler on the Roof
Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in Tsarist Russia in 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Milkman) and other tales by Sholem Aleichem. The...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Characters:
Playwright:
Company
Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
Originally entitled Threes, its plot revolves around Bobby (a single man unable to commit fully to a steady relationship, let alone marriage), the five...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
The Music Man
The Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson. The show is based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
Oliver!
Oliver! is a British musical, with music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is based upon the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.
It premiered in the West End in 1960, enjoying a long run, a successful Broadway production in 1963 and further...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Productions:
Playwright:
Funny Girl
Funny Girl is a musical with a book by Isobel Lennart, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Bob Merrill. The semi-biographical plot is based on the life and career of Broadway, film star and comedienne Fanny Brice and her stormy relationship with...
Composer:
Genre:
Playwright:
Hello, Dolly!
Hello, Dolly! is a musical with lyrics and music by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1955.
Hello, Dolly! was first produced...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
Grease
Grease is a 1972 musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey.
The musical has its name from the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as the greasers. The musical, set in 1959 at fictional Rydell High School (loosely based on William...
Genre:
Babes in Arms
Babes in Arms is a 1937 musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart and book by Rodgers and Hart. It concerns a teen-age boy who puts on a show with his friends to avoid being sent to a work farm.
Babes in Arms opened on Broadway at...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
The Rocky Horror Show
The Rocky Horror Show is a long-running British stage musical, opening in London on 19 June 1973. It was written by Richard O'Brien, and developed by O'Brien in collaboration with Australian theater director Jim Sharman. It came eighth in a BBC...
Genre:
Ain't Misbehavin'
Ain't Misbehavin' is a musical revue with a book by Murray Horwitz and Richard Maltby, Jr., music by Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller, and lyrics by various writers. It is named after the song by Fats Waller, "Ain't Misbehavin'"
It serves as a tribute to...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
1776
1776 is a musical with music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone. It is based on the events leading to the writing and signing of the United States Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1776.
The musical...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha is a musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth...
Genre:
Evita
Evita is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. It concentrates on the life of Argentine political leader Eva Perón, the second wife of Argentinian president Juan Perón. The story follows Evita's early life, acting...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
The Boy Friend
The Boy Friend (sometimes mis-spelled The Boyfriend) is a musical by Sandy Wilson. The musical's original 1954 London production ran for 2,078 performances, making it briefly the third-longest running musical in West End or Broadway history (after...
Genre:
Date of First Performance:
- 1953
Playwright:
Chicago
Chicago is a Kander and Ebb musical set in prohibition era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice, and the concept...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Cats
Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats T. S. Eliot. It introduced the song standard "Memory."
The musical first opened in the West End in 1981 and then on Broadway in 1982. Each time directed...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and the play of the same name which he co...
Genre:
Sunday in the Park with George
Sunday in the Park with George is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical was inspired by the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat. A complex work...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
Florodora
Florodora is an Edwardian musical comedy and became one of the first successful Broadway musicals of the 20th century. The book was written by Jimmy Davis under the pseudonym Owen Hall, the music was by Leslie Stuart with additional songs by Paul...
Genre:
Playwright:
Les Misérables
Les Misérables (pronounced /leɪ ˈmɪzəˌrɑːb/ or /leɪ ˌmɪzəˈrɑːb/; French pronunciation: [le mizeˈʁaːblə]), colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz, is a musical that was composed in 1980 by the French composer Claude-Michel Schönberg with a libretto...
Composer:
Genre:
Productions:
Playwright:
Miss Saigon
Miss Saigon is a West End musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr. It is a modern adaptation of Giacomo Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed...
Composer:
Genre:
Starlight Express
Starlight Express is a rock musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber (music), Richard Stilgoe (lyrics) and Arlene Phillips (choreography), with later revisions by Don Black (lyrics) and David Yazbek (music and lyrics for the 2nd US tour). The story follows a...
Composer:
Genre:
Productions:
Playwright:
Ziegfeld Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.
Inspired by the Folies Bergères of Paris,...
Genre:
Chess
Chess is a musical with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, formerly of ABBA. The story involves a romantic triangle between two top players, an American and a Russian, in a world chess championship, and a woman who...
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley (1860-1926), who was a sharpshooter from Ohio...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Guys and Dolls
Guys and Dolls is a musical, with the music and lyrics written by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon. It also borrows characters and...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux. The music was composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Charles Hart and additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. The...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Date of First Performance:
- Oct 9, 1986
Country of origin:
Aspects of Love
Aspects of Love is a musical with a book and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Don Black and Charles Hart. It is famous for the song "Love Changes Everything."
Based on the novella of the same name by David Garnett, the piece focuses on the...
Composer:
Genre:
Playwright:
Song and Dance
Song and Dance is a musical entertainment comprising two acts, one told entirely in "Song" and one entirely in "Dance", tied together by a love story.
The first part is Tell Me On A Sunday, with lyrics by Don Black and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber,...
Composer:
Genre:
Godspell
Godspell (an archaic spelling of the word gospel) is a 1970 musical by Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak. It opened off Broadway on May 17, 1971, and has played in various touring companies and revivals many times since. Several cast albums...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
Whoopee
Whoopee! is a musical comedy with the book, based on Owen Davis's play The Nervous Wreck, written by William Anthony McGuire, music by Walter Donaldson and lyrics by Gus Kahn. The musical premiered on Broadway in 1928, and introduced the hit song ...
Genre:
Playwright:
Sweet Charity
Sweet Charity is a musical with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and book by Neil Simon. It is based on Federico Fellini's screenplay for Nights of Cabiria. However, where Fellini's black-and-white Italian film concerns the romantic ups...
Composer:
Genre:
Playwright:
Cabaret
Cabaret is a musical with a book by Joe Masteroff, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and music by John Kander. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions.
It is based on John Van Druten's 1951 play...
Composer:
Genre:
Lyricist:
Playwright:
Sweethearts
Sweethearts is an operetta or musical play in two acts with music by Victor Herbert, lyrics by Robert B. Smith and book by Harry B. Smith and Fred De Gressac.
The first performance of the work was at the Academy of Music in Baltimore in March 1913,...
Composer:
Genre:
Dear World
Dear World is a Broadway musical with a book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. With its opening, Herman became the only composer-lyricist in history to have three productions running simultaneously on...
