Porgy And Bess Research Paper

In 1926, the Gershwins read a novel about an upper class white southerner named Porgy. The novel featured a series of vignettes about life in a black ghetto called Catfish Row, Porgy then ends up falling in love with a women named Bess. Immediately the Gershwins called Dubose Heyward because they wanted to create an opera about the story, Heyward denied their request because he was was adapting the book as a play. Around 1933 the Gershwins and Dubose began teaming up and writing songs but it wasn’t until September 1935 that their first opera named Porgy and Bess debuted. Porgy and Bess was an important piece of work. George Gershwin wanted to write his own original folk songs and spirituals as apposed to using original folk material. Gershwin found a way to use drama, humor, religious fervor and much more to combine opera with theatre. Porgy and Bess was also important in the history of musical theatre. Nearly a 124 performances were played which is impressive for an opera and it was also a major success on Broadway. There is a reason why Porgy and Bess is known as the great American opera.

10. In 1937, Rodgers
The later part of 1937 featured four politically charged musicals on Broadway and one of them was Pins and Needles. The nation at this time struggled between labor and management which caused many strikes. David Dubinsky who was in charge of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union had an idea of a cultural division, so he hired Harold Rome to write a musical revue for members of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and that’s where the ideas of Pins and Needles was created. The typical workers in Rome’s Pins and Needles cast worked long day jobs and then came in for Pins and Needles rehearsals and were assembled from the ranks of stitchers, seamstress and cutters. When Pins and Needles debuted, it was significant because it showcased a look at the young people in a changing society and made people forget about the worlds