Orchestration in Musical Theatre offers an analytic and critical overview of the practice, execution, and effects of orchestration in musical theatre since the time that rock music became significant in the genre.
Broadly described as the art of arranging a piece of music for a particular musical ensemble, orchestration is a specific skill that few composers or songwriters possess. This volume helps the reader understand and appreciate the art of orchestration and traces how the incorporation of rock and other types of popular music into scores for musical theatre on Broadway and in the West End fundamentally changed the genre’s sound. From discussions of specific instrumentation through to a brief history of the art, this book demystifies how different instrumentation contributes to a show’s soundscape.
Featuring case studies from shows such as Hair, The Phantom of the Opera, The Lion King, Wicked, and Hamilton, this accessible and engaging volume in the Topics in Musical Theatre series gives students the tools to identify and discuss how orchestration contributes to the drama, characterization and dramaturgy of the modern musical.
Gordon, Robert: -
Robert Gordon is Professor of Theatre and Director of the Pinter Centre for Performance and Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, where in 2003 he introduced the first British MA in Musical Theatre for producers and writers and a new BA in Musical Theatre in 2018. He is author of The Purpose of Playing: Modern Acting Theory in Perspective (2006), Harold Pinter's Theatre of Power (2012) and, with Olaf Jubin and Millie Taylor, British Musical Theatre Since 1950 (2016). Edited collections include The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies (2014) and, with Olaf Jubin, The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical (2016). He has acted and directed in South Africa, the UK, Ireland, the USA, Italy, Russia and the Czech Republic. In 2013, he directed the European première of Kander and Ebb's Steel Pier in Brno, while his musical version of Five Children
and It with composer Nick Hutson, received a professional workshop in 2015. He is currently engaged as a writer and actor of Shylock Speaks, which premiered in February 2020.
Laird, Paul R.: - Paul R. Laird is Professor of Musicology, University of Kansas . He has published widely on the American musical theatre, including co-editing three editions of The Cambridge Companion to the Musical with William A. Everett. One of his books also concerned orchestration: West Side Story, Gypsy, and the Art of Broadway Orchestration (Routledge, 2022).
Méndez, Emilio: - Emilio Méndez is associate professor of Theatre Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He has worked as a director and translator. He has published works on the history of musical theatre in Mexico and Mexican training programmes for theatre. He received the 2015 National University Distinction for Young Academics in the field of Artistic Creation and Cultural Dissemination.
Sallinger, Elizabeth: - Elizabeth Sallinger is Visiting Assistant Professor of Music, University of Connecticut', US. Her research focuses on the Broadway music and orchestration, examining rock musicals in particular. She has presented on this and other topics in musical theatre at several conferences and contributed to Dueling Grounds: Revolution and Revelation in the Musical Hamilton, as well as several other works-in-progress.
