Blog Post 6

PART A

1. I interviewed Karl Kippola, a assistant professor in the department of performing arts. He holds a BA in drama at the Unversity of Montana, an MFA in acting at Wayne State University and a PHD in Theatre at the University of Maryland. He is an actor, choreographer, adapter and dialtect coach leading him to be in more than 100 musical theatre productions.

2. He is a reliable source because he has extensive experience and knows a lot about Musical Theatre and it's istory. he has studied at many schools and has a lot of personal experience.

3. I interviewed another Musical Theatre professor, Caleen Jennings, who is currently on sabbatical and away from campus, but she recommended Karl Kippola as another reliable source. We communicated through email and I got tremendous feed back.

PART B

Blog Post questions and answers (paraphrased):

Q. Do you know where or how Musical Theatre was developed? Such as who thought of it, what countries or cultures started it and how it spread about?

A. Ancient Greek tragedies combined storytelling, music and dance to tell there stories. This continues between Greeks and Romans through the middle ages and Renaissance period. Our ideo of Modern Musicals developed in the 1800's inspired by opera, operetta, ballad opera, melodrama, vaudeville, burlesque, minstrelsy, and many other popular forms of entertainment.Our contemporary understanding of the musical primarily emerges from France, England, Spain, and America.  But independently, Asian and African countries also have a strong tradition of combining music, drama, and dance into their storytelling.

Q. How has Musical Theatre changed through out the years?

A. The previously mentioned musical and theatrical forms that inspired it also are primarily part of pop culture, although opera certainly has more elitist connotations.  Our modern understanding of the musical places it strongly in that popular entertainment category -- from the fledgling attempts in the 1800s to the golden age of musical theatre in the 1940s and 1950s.  Most of the music that filled these works was popular -- the music that people sang on the streets and in their homes.  Once radio become common, the songs of musical theatre frequently dominated the airwaves.  After rock and roll became the dominant form of popular music, musical theatre went through something of an identity crisis -- one that still exists.  Some musicals have attempted to incorporate whatever music is popular into its storytelling, while an almost equal number of musicals uses more traditional "musical theatre" types of songs.  A greater number of musical shows also are addressing more heavy, serious themes.

Q. How does Musical  Theatre or theatre in general impact other cultures and religions?

A. This is an enormous question.  It varies from culture to culture, from religion to religion, and from era to era.  I don't know that I could identify a general impact.  Sometimes the impact is great.  Usually, however, the impact is more subtle.  Primarily, musical theatre is an entertainment.  Only on rare occasions can a work have a larger impact.  There are a few 20th century works that come to mind -- The Cradle Will Rock in the 1930s,  Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar in the 1960s, and perhaps Rent in the 1990s.  These are works that reached out beyond the proscenium to have a greater impact.

Some of the answers i copied and pasted from his direct response while others I just paraphrased.