History of Broadway

There have been many debates on whether or not Broadway musicals are considered “serious” art forms. People feel that a musical can never be taken seriously if the character is always singing sporadically, which is very unusual in real life. However, musicals have been around for quite some time now, many musicals are being adapted into major motion pictures, many children are raised on the famous Disney musical cartoons and everybody( whether they’ll admit it or not) has seen at least one musical in their lifetime and are able to sing some of the songs from it. It seems that musicals have made an impact on society but yet are still not taken seriously. The history of musicals dates back to the Greeks. It is a common known fact that the Greeks incorporated song and dance into their stage comedies and tragedies as early as the 5th Century B.C. Some used existing songs but it is known that Sophocles wrote his own. The Romans are also known for taking the Greek musicals and expanding on them. The Romans liked the idea of musicals so much that they attached metal chips to their shoes, creating the first tap shoes, so that there would be more focus on the dancing throughout the play. Of course musicals and the idea of telling stories through song and dance really became popular through the Renaissance era. During the 1700’s the two main types of plays were ballad operas and comic operas. Many people think that musicals evolved from operas however if you follow the history of musicals and operas you will learn that it is the other way around yet operas are much more respected than musicals. Musicals came to America during the mid-1800’s as saloon shows. They were also known as variety shows and consisted of everything from clowns, singers, dancers and chorus girls. In Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, New York, 1991, p. 92), historian Luc Sante, claims that variety shows were born in Manhattan's Bowery saloons during