In this interview, the speakers discuss the resurgence of musical theatre’s popularity, attributing it to the influence of television talent shows (American Idol, America's Got Talent), TV series (Glee), and film adaptations (Chicago, Moulin Rouge) that have introduced the genre to younger, broader audiences. They note that contemporary pop music now plays a central role in new productions, which helps attract modern listeners but also creates storytelling challenges. The conversation highlights the difficulty of integrating pop’s lyrical conventions—such as limited use of pure rhyme, heavy repetition, and simple structures—into a theatrical context where audiences expect lyrical depth, narrative development, and varied musical expression. The speakers argue that composers must balance the appeal of current sounds with the need for lyrical sophistication, ensuring that songs develop rather than repeat verbatim, especially in comedic numbers, to meet the expectations of paying theatre-goers.
You've watched the industry go through many different incarnations. What are some of the trends you're seeing in our industry right now?
Well, there's the biggest, probably the most important trend is that musical theater is cool, and it hasn't been for— it wasn't for many, many years. You know, it was, you know, back in the '50s, it was very popular, and then it went into ill repute for quite some time and was frowned upon and looked down upon and considered cheesy and, you know, déclassé. But with the advent of all of the contest shows like American Idol and America's Got Talent and all of these things that were— where the art form of, at least of singing, is being celebrated, that has helped. And then the television shows like Glee, maybe not Smash so much, but Glee certainly made musicals more interesting to a younger demographic. High School Musical. The kinds of things that, and part of that is because they were able to, because they weren't just in theater, because they were on TV and in film. Some of the films like Chicago and Moulin Rouge, I think, were really groundbreaking to get people back interested in the art of musicals in a really broad demographic that has been very, very useful to us. So suddenly they're cooler than they used to be, so that makes a big difference. In terms of other trends, certainly contemporary music has become very, very important to musicals, and it's a good thing and a bad thing at the same— or a good thing and a difficult thing at the same time, because obviously the music speaks to a younger demographic because they find it more interesting and more compelling. It's what they listen to on iTunes instead of the more standard musical theater fare that they might find to be a bit tame and old-fashioned. At the same time, though, pop music in its rawest form, in its pop form, contemporary music and pop music are not really very good storytelling vehicles. And so the challenge for a composer today is to figure out how to sound current and yet still use the tools of storytelling in a way that allow you to do what you need to do but still sound that way. And in particular, Rhyme is something that is not generally used in pop music. Pure rhyme isn't. There's a lot of slant rhyme and a lot of impure rhyme. And that's okay if someone's listening to a song on the elevator, in the car. They don't need to know what the lyrics are the first time. They're gonna hear that song 100 times. But you've paid $100, $150, $200 to go see a show. $300. Yeah. You wanna be able to hear it the first time. And rhyme and structure are really, really important for that. Pop lyrics are very repetitive. They have a tendency to sort of give you the idea and then live in that idea and swim in that idea, chorus after chorus after chorus. And musical theater really needs more development. We get bored if we're hearing the same stuff over and over again. And that's particularly true, for instance, in a comedy song. If you have a great comic, a really funny line, you don't want to repeat it. It's funny the first time, it's not funny the second time.
Right.
So repetition, A certain amount of repetition is useful, but too much repetition in musical theater is a real detriment to the development. So you really need development or repetition with development. Yeah, to get it with a slight twist.
To have it so that it does stick in your head, as they say in the pop world, but not to the point where, as you said, it just feels like I'm watching a live version of iTunes.
Right, right. And you're just sort of swimming in the same moment and the show isn't progressing, the plot isn't going forward, nothing's happening. We're just listening to music, and that's a concert.
