• List of Illustrations • Curtain Raiser • ACT ONE - From Soaring Divas to Growing Rockers: How Changes in Singing Forged and Felled the Show Tune • Scene One. Before the Microphone • Scene Two. After the Microphone • ACT TWO - How Mavericks, Highbrows, and Enlightened Collectivism Invemted the Book and Lyrics and Tweaked the Music • Scene One. The Book • Scene Two. The Lyrics • Scene Three. The Music • ACT THREE - Revolutions in Broadway Rhythm: How the Rock Groove Decomposed the Musical and Dismantled the Fourth Wall • Scene One. Era of the March • Scene Two. The Foxtrot and Rhythm Section Revolution • Scene Three. The Rock Groove Cataclysm • ACT FOUR - The Loudspeakers Are Alive with The Sound of Music: How Electronics Trumped the Artful Acoustics of Broadway • Scene One. Orchestrators • Scene Two. Sound Design • ACT FIVE - Waggin the Musical: How Director-Choreographers Co-opted a Writer's Medium • Scene One. From The Black Crook to Balanchine • Scene Two. Apx: Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins, and Playwrighting Choreography • Scene Three. Decline: Directors and Choreographers as Conceptual Showmen • RIDEOUT - The Age of McMusicals: Vaudeville Redux • Notes • Bibliography • Permissions Acknowledgements • Index