{"id":293,"date":"2013-12-03T13:58:58","date_gmt":"2013-12-03T13:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wsu.tonahangen.com\/fysfifties\/?p=293"},"modified":"2017-07-26T19:45:15","modified_gmt":"2017-07-26T19:45:15","slug":"thats-a-wrap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wsu.tonahangen.com\/fysfifties\/thats-a-wrap\/","title":{"rendered":"That’s a Wrap"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Throughout this course, we have learned about many topics involved in the 1950s. Those topics include McCarthyism, living conditions, Rock and Roll, consumerism, entertainment, and much more. Unfortunately there are many other topics we did not cover during this course. One topic that we did not go over, and my personal favorite, is musicals. <\/p>\n

American musicals date back as early as the 18th century<\/a>. They typically included performances with song, dance, and dialogue that correlated with public interest. Because of this direct correlation, musicals became popular with much of America\u2019s population during the 18th, 19th and most of the 20th century. It was not until the 1960s that America\u2019s interest in musicals declined. <\/p>\n

During the early 20th century, musicals remained popular with most of America\u2019s population. Due to this popularity, Broadway, unlike many other industries, was not harmed financially during the Great Depression<\/a>. Although fewer plays were produced, much of this success continued into the fifties. <\/p>\n

In America in the Fifties<\/em>, by Andrew Dunar, it was estimated that Broadway was producing an average less than 70 plays a year in the 1950s. This was a dramatic decrease from 224 average plays produced yearly earlier in the century. Popular shows like South Pacific, Guys and Dolls, The King and I, My Fair Lady, West Side Story<\/em>, and Gypsy<\/em> kept a constant audience returning to the theater, but it was apparent Broadway\u2019s popularity was decreasing. <\/p>\n

One can assume that much of Broadway\u2019s decreasing popularity was the result of movies and television. Movies and television could provide viewers with elements that musical theater could not. For instance, movies and television shows were filmed in different locations while musicals were set on one stage. Movies and television shows allowed viewers to physically visualize locations while musical viewers had to mentally visualize locations. Not to mention TVs were also much more accessible than traveling distances to see a show. <\/p>\n

Since the 1950s, the popularity of musical theater has not changed much. As technology advances it just becomes harder for Broadway to keep up with popular demand. Because of this plateau in musical popularity, Dunar describes the fifties as \u201cthe last decade in which the musical was at center stage in American popular culture\u201d (Dunar 267). <\/p>\n

In my eyes, musicals are the epitome of hard work and dedication. For a musical to succeed the actors, tech workers, director, and any other workers involved must come together as one. Similarly, this hard work and dedication can also be seen when learning about the 1950s. During this simple decade our country went through many positive and negative defining moments. As Americans, our ancestors came together and created a decade that will forever be remembered. In comparison to musicals, I guess you can think of America during the 1950s as West Side Story. Just as West Side Story did, America interpreted old ideas and modernized them.<\/p>\n

Bad situations occur and things do not always end up how we would like, but like the famous musical saying, \u201cthe show must go on\u201d. <\/p>\n

— Kate M. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Throughout this course, we have learned about many topics involved in the 1950s. Those topics include McCarthyism, living conditions, Rock and Roll, consumerism, entertainment, and much more. Unfortunately there are many other topics we did not cover during this course. One topic that we did not go over, and my personal favorite, is musicals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-student-blogposts","tag-fa13"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsu.tonahangen.com\/fysfifties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsu.tonahangen.com\/fysfifties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsu.tonahangen.com\/fysfifties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsu.tonahangen.com\/fysfifties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsu.tonahangen.com\/fysfifties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wsu.tonahangen.com\/fysfifties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":294,"href":"https:\/\/wsu.tonahangen.com\/fysfifties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions\/294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsu.tonahangen.com\/fysfifties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsu.tonahangen.com\/fysfifties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsu.tonahangen.com\/fysfifties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}