Today's musical theatre world rocks. Now that rock 'n' roll music and its offshoots, including pop, hard rock, rap, r&b, funk, folk, and world-pop music, are the standard language of musical theatre, theatre singers need a source of information on these styles, their origins, and their performance practices. Rock in the Musical Theatre: A Guide for Singers fills this need. Today's musical theatre training programs are now including rock music in their coursework and rock songs and musicals in their repertoires. This is a text for those trainees, courses, and productions. It will also be of great value to working professionals, teachers, music directors, and coaches less familiar with rock styles, or who want to improve their rock-related skills. The author, an experienced music director, vocal coach, and university professor, and an acknowledged expert on rock music in the theatre, examines the many aspects of performing rock music in the theatre and offers practical advice through a combination of aesthetic and theoretical study, extensive discussions of musical, vocal, and acting techniques, and chronicles of coaching sessions. The book also includes advice from working actors, casting directors, and music directors who specialize in rock music for the stage.

"A much-needed study of the impact of rock music on the musical theater and its resulting challenges, complexities, failures, and successes. Anyone interested in Broadway will learn a great deal from this book." ---William Everett, author of The Musical: A Research Guide to Musical Theatre "As Wollman weaves her historical narrative, she compellingly returns to . . . the conflict between the aesthetics and ideologies of rock music and the disciplined and commercial practices of the musical stage." ---Theatre Research International "This well-written account puts the highs and lows of producing staged rock musicals in New York City into perspective and is well worth reading for the depth of insight it provides." ---Studies in Musical Theatre The tumultuous decade of the 1960s in America gave birth to many new ideas and forms of expression, among them the rock musical. An unlikely offspring of the performing arts, the rock musical appeared when two highly distinctive and American art forms joined onstage in New York City. The Theater Will Rock explores the history of the rock musical, which has since evolved to become one of the most important cultural influences on American musical theater, and a major cultural export. Despite the genre’s influence and fame, there are still some critics who claim that the term “rock musical” is an oxymoron. The relationship between rock and the musical theater has been stormy from the start, and even the comparatively recent success of Rent has done little to convince theater producers that rock musicals are anything but highly risky ventures. Elizabeth L. Wollman explores the reasons behind these problematic connections and looks at the socioeconomic forces that underlie aesthetic decisions. She weighs the influence on the rock musical by mass media, sound, and recording technology, and the economic pressures that have affected New York theater in general over the past three decades. Finally, Wollman offers a meditation on the state of the musical, its relation to rock, and, ultimately, its future. Packed with candid commentary by members of New York's vibrant theater community, The Theater Will Rock traces the rock musical’s evolution over nearly fifty years, in popular productions such as Hair, The Who's Tommy, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Little Shop of Horrors, Rent, and Mamma Mia!—and in notable flops such as The Capeman. Elizabeth L. Wollman is Assistant Professor of Music at Baruch College of the City University of New York.

With guts, love, and her finger on the pulse, rock musical audition coach Sheri Sanders shares the essential tools artists need to interpret rock material with openness, sensitivity, creativity, and authenticity so they may succeed in the audition room and on stage. It includes tips from interviews with industry insiders and innovators.

An endlessly entertaining and informative look at how musicals have both reflected and adapted to America's changing mores

(Easy Piano Vocal Selections). A dozen easy piano arrangements from the Tony Award-nominated 2015 musical adapted from the popular 2003 silver screen production of the same name. Our folio includes the new songs with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Glenn Slater and the title track by Mike White and Samuel Buonaugurio. Includes: Children of Rock * Here at Horace Green * Horace Green Alma Mater * I'm Too Hot for You * If Only You Would Listen * If Only You Would Listen (Reprise) * School of Rock * Stick It to the Man * Time to Play * When I Climb to the Top of Mount Rock * Where Did the Rock Go? * You're in the Band.

Tells the story of transsexual rocker Hedwig Schmidt, an East German immigrant whose sex change operation has been botched and who finds herself living in a trailer park in Kansas.

Theater music directors must draw on a remarkably broad range of musical skills. Not only do they conduct during rehearsals and performances, but they must also be adept arrangers, choral directors, vocal coaches, and accompanists. Like a record producer, the successful music director must have the flexibility to adjust as needed to a multifaceted job description, one which changes with each production and often with each performer. In Music Direction for the Stage, veteran music director and instructor Joseph Church demystifies the job in a book that offers aspiring and practicing music directors the practical tips and instruction they need in order to mount a successful musical production. Church, one of Broadway's foremost music directors, emerges from the orchestra pit to tell how the music is put into a musical show. He gives particular attention to the music itself, explaining how a music director can best plan the task of learning, analyzing, and teaching each new piece. Based on his years of professional experience, he offers a practical discussion of a music director's methods of analyzing, learning, and practicing a score, thoroughly illustrated by examples from the repertoire. The book also describes how a music director can effectively approach dramatic and choreographic rehearsals, including key tips on cueing music to dialogue and staging, determining incidental music and underscoring, making musical adjustments and revisions in rehearsal, and adjusting style and tempo to performers' needs. A key theme of the book is effective collaboration with other professionals, from the production team to the creative team to the performers themselves, all grounded in Church's real-world experience with professional, amateur, and even student performances. He concludes with a look at music direction as a career, offering invaluable advice on how the enterprising music director can find work and gain standing in the field.