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CHAPTER II
MUSICAL THEATRE HISTORY: 1890-SHOW BOAT (1927)
Musical theatre has always been a part of the American experience according to
historian Julian Mates. He described it as “both indigenous and our oldest theatre tradi-
tion.” 1 The Black Crook (1866) is often cited as the first American musical drama. A
serendipitous collaboration between an acting company displaced by a theater fire and a
stranded French ballet troupe, this production provided an original form of spectacle to a
mid-Victorian era audience. Although technically a melodrama with dance interludes,
The Black Crook should be granted the distinction as the first “modern” American
musical, based upon its long New York City run and popular cross-country tours that
spanned several decades. Edith Boroff, however, identifies twenty-eight different
opinions in her article, “Origin of the Species: Conflicting Views of American Musical
Theater History.” 2 The musical strands between 1890 and 1930 that eventually coalesced
into the integrated book musical of twentieth-century American theatre include European
and American operetta, melodrama, minstrel shows, vaudeville, music revues, musical
comedy, and Tin Pan Alley popular songs with their seductive rhythms of ragtime and
jazz. A brief background of each of these influences on American entertainment should
Press, 1985), 4.
1 America’s Musical Stage: Two Hundred Years of Musical Theatre (Westport CT: Greenwood
2
American Music 2/4 (winter 1984): 101-108.
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