Rudolf Friml (1879-1972) is best known as the composer of romantic 1920s operettas. Beginning in 1912 he wrote music in different styles for Broadway, and in 1914, along with Irving Berlin and Victor Herbert, he became a charter member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). Skilled at evoking far-away times and places through music, Friml also composed music for films, often based on his popular musicals such as "Rose Marie" and "The Vagabond King." Parallel to this stage and screen activity, he composed piano concertos, orchestral works, and piano pieces and...

The Broadway musical has greatly influenced American (and world) culture. Such shows as Oklahoma and Annie Get Your Gun are as "American as apple pie," while the long runs of imports like Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, and Les Miserables have broken records. Broadway has produced such cultural icons as Ethel Merman, Yul Brynner, and Julie Andrews, and composers and lyricists such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and many others have had their melodies sung on its stages. Visionaries...

The musical, whether on stage or screen, is undoubtedly one of the most recognizable musical genres, yet one of the most perplexing. What are its defining features? How does it negotiate multiple socio-cultural-economic spaces? Is it a popular tradition? Is it a commercial enterprise? Is it a sophisticated cultural product and signifier? This research guide includes more than 1,400 annotated entries related to the genre as it appears on stage and screen. It includes reference works, monographs, articles, anthologies, and websites related to the musical.

This handbook is the first to provide a systematic investigation of the various roles of producers in commercial and not-for-profit musical theatre.