Includes bibliographical references (p. 329-337) and index.

From soaring divas to growling rockers : how changes in singing forged and felled the show tune -- How mavericks, highbrows, and enlightened collectivism invented the book and lyrics and tweaked the music -- Revolutions in Broadway rhythm : how the rock groove decomposed the musical and dismantled the fourth wall -- The loudspeakers are alive with the sound of music : how electronics trumped the artful acoustics of Broadway -- Wagging the musical : how director-choreographers co-opted a writer's medium -- The age of McMusicals : vaudeville redux.

Mark N. Grant thoroughly investigates all aspects of the Broadway musical as he traces the transformation of singing and melody, libretto and lyric writing, dance rhythms, sound design, and choreography and stage direction through three distinct eras: the formative period (1866-1927), the golden age (1927-1966), and the fall (1967 to the present). He explores how and why the unsophisticated genre of pre-1920s musical comedy evolved into the creative, innovative, and immensely popular theater produced by the likes of Rodgers and Hammerstein, and then steadily faded as a significant entertainment genre in American culture.