#11 - Medium

Why calling musical theatre a genre will hurt it

Jan 27, 2022

Today the editor of the Stage wrote an article where he called musical theatre a genre and it again got me thinking that the simplest thing that everyone can do to start changing peoples’ minds is to think of and discuss musical theatre as a medium.

He writes:

As I have said before we do not call plays a genre. We do not call films a genre. We do not call literature a genre or poetry a genre. That is because we see them as highly flexible and malleable forms with an infinite amount of possibility.

Musicals are of course an intersected form. They are the integration and weaving of two other forms; music and drama. But this does not make them a genre. This makes them an intersected medium. Another example of this is comic books which are an intersected medium comprised of visual art and prose/poetry. Even though comic books and graphic novels are often similarly culturally under-appreciated, it is rare that people think of them as a genre. They are a a form. They are a medium.

The reason I will keep fighting for this subtle linguistic shift and mental reallocation of musical theatre is because of what happens when people hear the word genre.

Rom Com is a genre

Horror is a genre

True crime is a genre

Rock is a genre

Autofiction is a genre

Folk is a genre

Thriller is a genre

Impressionism is a genre

When I hear musicals described as a genre it comes with the implicit suggestion that musicals are as informationally slim as the genres I have listed above. That they contain that many structural and tonal boundaries and that many tropes and archetypes. It suggests that the result will more or less fit into a smaller bucket of possibility.

I would agree that there is a genre of musical theatre that almost everyone is talking about when they say the word musical theatre. A genre that is fun, light, unprovocative, visually dazzling, uplifting and tuneful. But this leaves a huge negative space for all the other possibilities that the simple integration of music and drama can bring us.

Perhaps people discussing these types of musical should call them musical musicals. Thus speaking of their genre and medium in an accurate way.

But there can be horror musicals, rock musicals, autofiction musicals, rom com musicals, true crime musicals.

But calling musicals a genre leads us to only musical musicals and subtly ignores the possibilities of the other things that the form and the medium can be.

I would also add that most West End musicals do fit into the genre of musical musicals because that is what audiences expect musicals to be and there is a lot of resistance from the theatre industry to give them anything else.

There is an assumption that making money from musicals involves making and selling people what they already imagine a musical to be and what they already think they want. Celebrity writers who are naive to the form often give up on their own artistic endeavours, expertise and craft to give audiences musical musicals that they feel are precisely what audiences want and expect when they see a musical.

Most of the best writers I know are finding their own creative space within the entire form and possibility of musical theatre as a medium. But systemic forces are rejecting the way those musicals sound and look because they do not fit systemic presumptions of what the form should be.

As ever I think it’s time to properly elevate writers who are expert in the medium and let them tell us what a musical is rather than enforce a slim idea of musicals as a genre onto them.

The issue is that while musicals are systemically undermined, they are also often designed to elide with expectations of musicals as a genre and to both make money and appeal to the same mode of entertainment that audiences get when they see pantomimes or big summer movie blockbusters. Thus the form is restricted at the production end and so the opportunity to make musicals and grow a career is badly limited.

I think the main reason for this is not because - as Alistair writes - musicals are difficult and expensive but rather because they are confined and undermined. They are pigeon holed and flattened out at every turn even by those who seek to support them.

Not all musicals are big and expensive or difficult. I have managed to get musicals from idea to stage in less than a year and with almost no funding or budget. These are often the sorts of musicals that challenge perceived notions of what musicals should look and sound like, and as such they find themselves as outliers of their own, not fit for systemic integration or inclusion.

But a lot of these musicals speak with a similar tone and energy to the sharp, incisive and provocative plays that fill our new writing theatres. But people in theatre don’t often know what to do with these shows. They instead tend only to acknowledge musicals that are musical musicals. They perceive the medium as a genre and use it to bat away the shows that live beyond that small zone of perceived possibility.

Musicals aren’t difficult or big or expensive if you speak to the right people and trust them. But theatre tends not to trust musicals or the writers who are dedicated to them. They tend to enforce their ideas of musicals as a genre onto them.

So if you are reading this I ask you. What happens when instead of saying ‘musicals are a genre’ you say ‘ musicals are a medium’. See how it changes your conversations, your intentions and your mind. I think you’ll be surprised.

Thank you for reading

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COUNTERPOINT by Adam Lenson

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