Theatre History Overview - Part 104 - Jukebox Musicals

Many people consider jukebox musicals to be a new form of musical theatre. They assume that they only started in the 2000s. The term "jukebox musical" is applied to many different musical and theatrical forms, but for this post, the jukebox musical has a specific definition. The jukebox musical is a musical that is built around the songs of a certain artist, of a couple or of a few certain artists, or songs from a certain time period.

If the songs already tell a story when they are put together, the musical may revolve around a story that the songs tell. If they songs don't tell a story, dialogue that makes a whole story is written to connect the different songs and keep them relavant for the musical.

Jukebox musicals are as old as the second half of the 18th century. Of course, the term jukebox musical would not have existed at the time because the jukebox was not invented until 1890. 1728's The Beggar's Opera by John Gay interspersed dialogue with popular 18th century songs.

While there were certainly more jukebox musicals written in the 1800s and 1900s, they exploded in popularity during the 2000s. There are two types of jukebox musicals that fall into the definition for this post. There's the type that tells the story of the artist (here refered to as a biographical jukebox musical) and the type that uses songs to tell a completely different story connecting the songs with dialogue, sometimes in between the songs and sometimes during them.

Jersey Boys is an example of a biographical jukebox musical. It tells the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Mamma Mia! is an example of a jukebox musical that tells a different story using the songs of an artist. Disaster! The Musical is an example of a jukebox musical that tells a story using the songs from a certain time. Sometimes jukebox musicals work really well such as The Marvelous Wonderettes/. Other times, there are very clever ways of using songs like how Disaster! using the song "Hot Stuff," and inserts dialog changing the meaning of hot stuff for each character. However, the plot can be weak and the show can fall flat. It seems certain that as long as people are producing music, jukebox musicals will exist.

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