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Strike Up the Band: A New History of Musical Theatre
The way some histories portray the advent of musicals, youd think the genre emerged fully formed with Show Boat . Yet in truth, it took root decades earlier. In Strike Up the Band Scott Miller tells the whole story of musicals, pulling back the curtain on the amazing innovation and adventurousness of the art form, revealing its political and social conscience, and chronicling its incredibly rapid evolution over the last century. Strike Up the Band focuses not only on what happened on stage but also on how it happened and why it matters to us today. Its a different kind of history that explores the famous and, especially, the not-so famous productions to discover the lineage that paved the way to contemporary musicals. Digging into 150 shows, Miller offers a forward-looking perspective on treasures from each erasuch as Anything Goes , West Side Story , Hair , and Rent while also looking at fascinating, genre-busting, and often short-lived productions, including Bat Boy , Rocky Horror Show , Promenade , and The Capeman , to see how even obscure or commercially unsuccessful musicals defined and advanced the form. Moving decade by decade, Miller offers insight and inside information about the artistic approaches various composers, lyricists, bookwriters, and directors have taken, how those approaches have changed over time, and what social and historical forces continue to shape musical theatre today. He provides a strong sense of what groups have historically controlled the industry and how other groups hard work and vision continue to change the musical theatre landscape for the better. In fact, Strike Up the Band opens a new and vitally important discussion of the roles played in the musicals history by people of color, by gays and lesbians, by people with disabilities, and by women. It frames musical theatre as an important, irreplaceable piece of American history and demonstrates how it reflects the social and political conditions of its timeand how it changes them. On Broadway or off, Strike Up the Band is as adventuresome, detailed, and thoughtful in tracing the story behind the musical as it is in celebrating the forms diversity, vigor, innovation, and promise. Join Scott Miller not only in commemorating great moments on stage, but in gaining a powerful understanding of what the musical was, what it is today, and what it is becoming.
276 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
2 people are currently reading
77 people want to read
About the author
Scott Miller
53 books17 followersScott Miller is the founder and artistic director of New Line Theatre, an alternative musical theatre company he established in 1991 in St. Louis, at the vanguard of a new wave of nonprofit musical theatre being born across the country during the early 1990s, offering an alternative to the commercial musical theatre of New York and Broadway tours. He has been working in musical theatre since 1978 and has been directing musicals since 1981. He has written the book, music, and lyrics for ten musicals and two plays. His play Head Games has enjoyed runs in St. Louis, Los Angeles, London, and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland; and his musical, Johnny Appleweed, was nominated for four Kevin Kline Awards. He has written more than a dozen books about musical theatre, including The ABCs of Broadway Musicals series. He has also written chapters for several other collections of musical theatre essays, and pieces for several national theatre magazines and websites, and he has composed music for television and radio. For fifteen years, he co-hosted "Break a Leg - Theatre in St. Louis and Beyond," a weekly theatre talk show on KDHX-FM in St. Louis, and now he hosts the theatre podcast Stage Grok, available on iTunes. Miller holds a degree in music and musical theatre from Harvard University, and in 2014, the St. Louis Theater Circle awarded Miller a special award for his body of work in the musical theatre.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 4, 2010
Unfortunately, many of the Musical Theatre books of the past several years which seem like they might be interesting are by Scott Miller. Miller is evidently some kind of theater person from St. Louis, and he wrote "Deconstructing Harold Hill", which was pretty popular in my circles a while back.
I say unfortunately, because Mr. Miller is a goof whose personal tastes and opinions obliterate his objectivity, and who reviews all his competitor's books on Amazon and rips every one of them, sometimes with identical pasted in reviews. Yuck.
I used this book in a course, and while it is concise and well-organized, it if full of eccentricities like about half a chapter on the Muni in St. Louis (and this is an important part of Broadway how?). He spends more time on "Viet Rock" than on "Hair" (huh?) and says that "RENT" is based on the Murger Boheme more than the Puccini opera. (False.) My students hated the book and nearly rebelled.
Anyhow, I didn't hate this book, but its repugnant author shines through too much.
I say unfortunately, because Mr. Miller is a goof whose personal tastes and opinions obliterate his objectivity, and who reviews all his competitor's books on Amazon and rips every one of them, sometimes with identical pasted in reviews. Yuck.
I used this book in a course, and while it is concise and well-organized, it if full of eccentricities like about half a chapter on the Muni in St. Louis (and this is an important part of Broadway how?). He spends more time on "Viet Rock" than on "Hair" (huh?) and says that "RENT" is based on the Murger Boheme more than the Puccini opera. (False.) My students hated the book and nearly rebelled.
Anyhow, I didn't hate this book, but its repugnant author shines through too much.
February 27, 2008
This book is a social and political history of the American musical theatre (with a few forays into Brit offerings). It doesn't claim to be comprehensive, but rather focuses on shows with a social conscience and/or political underpinnings. I especially dug the info about lesser-known productions that were never quite mainstream enough to really make it. Despite a few egregious typos in the manuscript (I counted at least four without looking for them) and an odd emphasis on the role of St. Louis in the evolution of the form (I realize Miller's based there, but still...), it's a great read and a compelling argument for the artistic and sociopolitical relevance of the musical.
November 16, 2018
Sing Me a Song of Social Significance
Who'd have thunk that American musical theatre was so deliciously progressive and subversive. Scott Miller provides an effusively intimate set of grace notes covering the evolution of the form. The book is filled with such intriguing hooks such Neil Simon being called in to punch up the dialog of A Chorus Line, Les Mis cost $16m in overtime (it ran just over 3 hours) so in early 2001 14 minutes were cut in the Broadway version (but not the touring companies) in order to keep the show solvent and that the wording in Phantom suffered because Andrew Lloyd Webber did not collaborate with his lyricists, rather he handed down the score from above which made for an awkward fit.
Most of the book is about how the medium was used to push the boundaries of what could be said about violence, sexuality, racism and social inequity. Intriguingly he brings out the social intensity of "The Cradle with Rock" and manages to link "Oklahoma!'" and Rent - the 1943 wholesome musical farm musical, which set a musical dance style for a generation, so much so that dream ballets were required (ie: Anita and Tony's ballet dance in Act II of "West Side Story"), is much darker than one initially thinks - Judd is a pornographer a murderer and possibly a rapist (pp49). One main character in 1945's Carousel commits suicide and the other, Julie, has to deal with ostracism from her community plus the conflict of being in love with the man who beat her. Sarafina! is about hope, made even more poignant once you understand that an integral part of black resistance to the Afrikaaner regime was to perform it in English. Both Ragtime and Show confront anti-black racism, but so did Shuffle Along, Cabin in the Sky, Carmen Jones and Jelly's Last Jam, all on much smaller budgets. However the much loved "The King and I" hid Western condescension towards Asians, brought out in Christopher Renshaw's 1996 reinterpretation, 45 years after it's debut. Flower Drum Song was produced very much in the same mold, a "State Fair in yellow face" with non-Asians playing all of the key roles (Larry Storch played Sammy Fong), until rewritten and revived in LA in 2002 by David Hwang followed by a brief Broadway run.
As a theatre goer I found the book quite gratifying, even though it lacks footnotes citing sources used or a bibliography. The only exception is a reference to Miller's own book, "Let the Sun Shine In" (pp108). I was surprised to discover the large number of shows that I was familiar with as well as an equally large number of interesting shows that I'd never heard of before that I'd now like to see. Miller writes well but occasionally takes his theme of progressiveness a bit far. Charlie Brown is Everyman, but You're A Good Man Charlie Brown (the first play I was ever taken to as a child) isn't quite Candide and Lucy's song "Little Known Facts" is hardly an attack on organized religion any more than "Supper Time" is about world hunger, rather it pokes fun at stuffed shirts and their naive explanations. Some of the shows that failed to gain an audience such as The Nervous Set probably did so not because they were too advanced for the times but, and this comes across from Miller's own description, they just weren't that interesting. "How to Succeed in Business" caricatures large corporations as well as self help manuals, but the real fun is that J. Pierpont Finch is a con artist who constantly winks at us through the 4th wall bringing the audience in on the game. Miller assails Julie Taymor's Lion King as turning Broadway into a theme park, albeit very good theme park, and decries that too many theatre goers are "foreigners and tourists", missing that a major reason for going to the theatre is to be entertained and that Broadway is one of those factors that make NYC a destination location, and if you are spending $350 a night on a hotel room, paying half that amount for a ticket isn't quite as outrageous as opposed to having to shell out $2.75 for a subway fare and do the same.
Notwithstanding I would recommend this and any of Miller's books in a heartbeat, and I've read several and given them as gifts where appropriate. He adores musicals and so do we. Recommended!
Who'd have thunk that American musical theatre was so deliciously progressive and subversive. Scott Miller provides an effusively intimate set of grace notes covering the evolution of the form. The book is filled with such intriguing hooks such Neil Simon being called in to punch up the dialog of A Chorus Line, Les Mis cost $16m in overtime (it ran just over 3 hours) so in early 2001 14 minutes were cut in the Broadway version (but not the touring companies) in order to keep the show solvent and that the wording in Phantom suffered because Andrew Lloyd Webber did not collaborate with his lyricists, rather he handed down the score from above which made for an awkward fit.
Most of the book is about how the medium was used to push the boundaries of what could be said about violence, sexuality, racism and social inequity. Intriguingly he brings out the social intensity of "The Cradle with Rock" and manages to link "Oklahoma!'" and Rent - the 1943 wholesome musical farm musical, which set a musical dance style for a generation, so much so that dream ballets were required (ie: Anita and Tony's ballet dance in Act II of "West Side Story"), is much darker than one initially thinks - Judd is a pornographer a murderer and possibly a rapist (pp49). One main character in 1945's Carousel commits suicide and the other, Julie, has to deal with ostracism from her community plus the conflict of being in love with the man who beat her. Sarafina! is about hope, made even more poignant once you understand that an integral part of black resistance to the Afrikaaner regime was to perform it in English. Both Ragtime and Show confront anti-black racism, but so did Shuffle Along, Cabin in the Sky, Carmen Jones and Jelly's Last Jam, all on much smaller budgets. However the much loved "The King and I" hid Western condescension towards Asians, brought out in Christopher Renshaw's 1996 reinterpretation, 45 years after it's debut. Flower Drum Song was produced very much in the same mold, a "State Fair in yellow face" with non-Asians playing all of the key roles (Larry Storch played Sammy Fong), until rewritten and revived in LA in 2002 by David Hwang followed by a brief Broadway run.
As a theatre goer I found the book quite gratifying, even though it lacks footnotes citing sources used or a bibliography. The only exception is a reference to Miller's own book, "Let the Sun Shine In" (pp108). I was surprised to discover the large number of shows that I was familiar with as well as an equally large number of interesting shows that I'd never heard of before that I'd now like to see. Miller writes well but occasionally takes his theme of progressiveness a bit far. Charlie Brown is Everyman, but You're A Good Man Charlie Brown (the first play I was ever taken to as a child) isn't quite Candide and Lucy's song "Little Known Facts" is hardly an attack on organized religion any more than "Supper Time" is about world hunger, rather it pokes fun at stuffed shirts and their naive explanations. Some of the shows that failed to gain an audience such as The Nervous Set probably did so not because they were too advanced for the times but, and this comes across from Miller's own description, they just weren't that interesting. "How to Succeed in Business" caricatures large corporations as well as self help manuals, but the real fun is that J. Pierpont Finch is a con artist who constantly winks at us through the 4th wall bringing the audience in on the game. Miller assails Julie Taymor's Lion King as turning Broadway into a theme park, albeit very good theme park, and decries that too many theatre goers are "foreigners and tourists", missing that a major reason for going to the theatre is to be entertained and that Broadway is one of those factors that make NYC a destination location, and if you are spending $350 a night on a hotel room, paying half that amount for a ticket isn't quite as outrageous as opposed to having to shell out $2.75 for a subway fare and do the same.
Notwithstanding I would recommend this and any of Miller's books in a heartbeat, and I've read several and given them as gifts where appropriate. He adores musicals and so do we. Recommended!
January 6, 2025
Definitely not my personal preference. Compares musical theatre to sexual pleasure on the first page. Made a discouraging comment on church and school theatres. Refers to Andrew lloyd webber's work as limited and repetitive. It's been an incredibly hard to dredge my way through this book.
December 2, 2014
(I think this actually deserves 2.75 stars... )
Miller's thesis was great: address and credit Broadway productions that changed the overall form of musicals and/or reflected overall paradigm shifts of the time regarding race, sexuality, gender, labor, idealism, patriotism. But I would have benefited from some differences in organization.
It doesn't seem that he uses a consistent method for comparing and contrasting each work. Instead, he judges each production on its own scale. This makes it hard on the reader to establish the general trends that support his thesis.
The book leans towards run-ons. He does very little recap and summarization. I would have benefited from some bold headings for each production he talks about. As it is, each production is listed with its commentary one after another in big blocks of text. Luckily, the margins are wide- so if you plan on referencing this book for anything you can be sure to write in a production's name off to the side.
Miller is also very opinionated! So if you wanted to know "about" a show without knowing someone's take, this might not be the book.
Miller's inclusion of lesser-known works is where this text was most valuable in my class. His coverage of these seems more clear (maybe because he isn't assuming his readers have seen them.) Pair this with another source that goes into more detail about the main works.
Miller's thesis was great: address and credit Broadway productions that changed the overall form of musicals and/or reflected overall paradigm shifts of the time regarding race, sexuality, gender, labor, idealism, patriotism. But I would have benefited from some differences in organization.
It doesn't seem that he uses a consistent method for comparing and contrasting each work. Instead, he judges each production on its own scale. This makes it hard on the reader to establish the general trends that support his thesis.
The book leans towards run-ons. He does very little recap and summarization. I would have benefited from some bold headings for each production he talks about. As it is, each production is listed with its commentary one after another in big blocks of text. Luckily, the margins are wide- so if you plan on referencing this book for anything you can be sure to write in a production's name off to the side.
Miller is also very opinionated! So if you wanted to know "about" a show without knowing someone's take, this might not be the book.
Miller's inclusion of lesser-known works is where this text was most valuable in my class. His coverage of these seems more clear (maybe because he isn't assuming his readers have seen them.) Pair this with another source that goes into more detail about the main works.
March 24, 2014
Not my favorite textbook, that's for sure. Then again, My teacher didn't teach anything. We simply read the book cover to cover, with quizzes after each chapter. Not optimal learning.
That said, I thought the chapter-by-decade was just too much. Some decades had a ton of stuff happening, others less, but it was just monotony of never ending dates and names of actors/producers, etcetera. After a while it really became a blur. If think there has to be a better way of divvying up the info into digestible chunks.
That said, I thought the chapter-by-decade was just too much. Some decades had a ton of stuff happening, others less, but it was just monotony of never ending dates and names of actors/producers, etcetera. After a while it really became a blur. If think there has to be a better way of divvying up the info into digestible chunks.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews