Playbill: When you walked through the door, your ticket would be torn by a taker in the lobby before you were led to your seat. There, you could settle in until the lights dimmed, and the orchestra swelled. In the darkness, you and your fellow audience members would be transported by the melodies of the musical you were about to see, getting a sneak peek at the songs you would be singing upon your exit. By the time the curtain rose, you would be on the edge of your seat, ready to witness the world that such intoxicating melodies were born from.
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I think part of the reason overtures seem to be going by the wayside is that attention spans are getting shorter. In all forms of media, people seem to prefer being dropped right into the action rather than settling in with an intro to what’s to come. This is true in movies with exciting opening scenes, TV shows with cold opens, and even TikTok videos where consumers are ruthless about the “millennial pause” rather than creators jumping right into their statement, and live theatre is not immune. People seem to have less patience for staring at an empty stage. However, I do think overtures can be beautiful to listen to, and I definitely enjoy listening to them on my own time in the background of working or something. Plus it provides a great moment where the lowering of the house lights, and then the first light cue of the show, can be timed to the music to really transport the audience into the world of the play. I think overtures have more of a place in some shows than others; it really just depends on the tone and style.
Having an Overture in a show is one of my favorite things ever. Some of my fondest memories of working theatre is the moment I’m sitting in the booth, calling GO for the first sound or lighting cue, and hearing that Overture start. It’s a way for me to compose myself for a few minutes, for the cast to get it together backstage, and for the audience to settle down. Also, who doesn’t just like to hear an orchestra play for a few minutes and give you a look at what the show is going to sound like. When I saw Jagged Little Pill on Sunday, I was so excited to hear an Overture on a modern musical. It makes sense for that show to have an overture. But I can also agree with the fact that some shows just don’t really need it. I couldn’t imagine Hamilton with an Overture, because it makes sense to just start the show and introduce the main character and story through song.
Much like the grandiose and often unrelated opening numbers of the second act acting as a warning for audience members to return to their seats I associate overtures with the shows and broadway era of the golden age with more modern musicals ditching both numbers all together. As a person who has a love for the overture and often listens to them while doing homework something else I have noticed is often shows that have overtures in their staged productions chose to cut the songs from their cast recording. I suppose logistically and financially this makes sense as full symphonic orchestras are expensive and hard to come by. With audience attention spans getting shorter and theater gaming more of a focus on immersion into the world onstage I do not see a world where overtures make a return anytime soon. I also think a contributing factor to the death of overtures is cell phones with a clock and computer in one's pocket. The theater has become much less of a social experience in recent years.
Theo
I Clicked on this article because I find overtures really impressive. Overtures I feel like are essential to musicals and have been for a while now. It makes me sad that they’re not in a lot of musicals anymore. I feel like it is such a known thing for musicals to have overtures. I understand why they don’t include them anymore because of the consumer aspect of people wanting songs that they can sing along to but it's not the same time that’s not what Broadway is about. I like in this article that they talked about Stephen Sondheim. I feel like his overtures are known throughout Broadway history and I feel like they always will be. So there is something to say about them not doing them anymore after he’s gone. It's almost a memorial type aspect but at the same time I still feel like they’re important to musicals.
Personally, I am a huge fan of overtures. I love listening to old musicals and will often, when looking for a musical to listen to, choose a show simply because it has a great overture. I think that the way it opens the show and puts you in the right mood to see a work of theater is incomparable. That being said, I do understand why we as an industry have moved away from using overtures in new musicals. As much as I love them, they just aren’t needed as much anymore and are definitely out of style. They very much have an old fashioned feel to them which while useful and good in some cases, is not what is wanted for many new shows. However, I had never really given much thought as to why that is. Reading about how this shift has happened was really interesting. Still, I would always love a new, modern musical with an overture.
Overture is something I haven’t heard anyone mention in so long. In my memory, a lot of recent musicals don’t have them anymore. Even when we did ‘Oklahoma!’ last semester in class, the 2019 version has removed the Overture (there is an Opening number though). I wonder if it’s just like the article said – for realism, cut down cost and reduce run time. I do remember listening to ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and how the Overture gives me goosebumps every time. The article mentions how in the olden days the show tunes would be what people bought at CD stores. It makes me wonder how much music streaming or just current technology has affected modern musical theatre. I suppose it very much depends on the directorial intention of the story to decide whether an overture is effective or necessary. There are certainly some musicals where overtures are abundant and counter-productive. I am hoping though, to see another modern musical with an overture.
This article brought up something that has kind of been kicking around in my brain for awhile but I hadn’t really thought about it until seeing Cosi Fan Tutte recently. The overture for Cosi Fan Tutte is around 5 minutes long, and I found my mind wandering during it - leading me to consider how short my attention span was while listening to music in a performance setting (as other folks have noted). I played music in an orchestral setting for years - I once played the ten minute overture to another opera and didn’t blink an eye so I wonder about why this one I couldn’t focus on as much. I liked the way Beetlejuice the musical did the entracte - a short but recognizable introduction to the second act. I know that not every show needs an overture but, I think that sound and score is essential to how we interpret a piece of art and I hope that overtures (even short) stay in style.
I have three specific memories of Overtures that will forever be engrained in my mind. The first is the Overture of Phantom Of the Opera. Its grandness and sweeping musicality whisks me away into the story before its even begun. The second is Music Man. This was the show I stage managed my senior year of high school. We were lucky to have a live orchestra pit filled with many talented music students. I enjoyed the short break before the show began as I mentally called out which songs I heard throughout the piece. And the third is Hello Dolly! I saw the show in 8th Grade when it had Bernadette Peters in it, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I went into the show blind, and I remember the venture giving me a sense of the music of the show and me beginning to get lost in it. Overtures set the tone of the show, and I miss them in the more modern shows. I will say I had forgotten that the opening credits in film had a similar effect and had also been removed. And honestly I wish it stayed. The opening credits are a great feature. It allows you to take a moment to remember the crew and creatives, not just the actors, and usually gives you some fun music that sets the tone. You know what kind of story you get in to. Then, for forgetful folks like me, It also lets me grab the snack I forgot to grab on the way over to the couch. I want to say that opening credits and overtures are a vital part of a stage or screen story. Yet we’ve seen that it isn't. And I honestly don't know how I feel about that.
To be completely honest I kind of miss overtures. I love me a good overture. But I can see why they have kind of gone out of style over the years. I agree with the author of this article when they say that overtures might have gone out of style due to people wanting to set more realistic tones in their show right off the bat. It would not really make sense to have a five minute overture on a show that is supposed to be super realistic and just drop the audience into the events of a character’s life. It also makes sense that it is also due to the changes in the music industry and how people get music. They do not have to rely on audience members remembering the music enough to go out and what to buy the show's album, now audience members can just look up the musical on Spotify or whatnot and listen to the album on their commute home.
I'm honestly pretty 50/50 on overtures. Although I think that they can sometimes be a fun addition to the show, other times, they drag on a little too long and aren't done properly. My personal preference with overtures would be to listen to them with the house lights at full or at half. Some companies do overtures entirely in the dark, which I feel can be a little uncomfortable, especially if the Overture is over around a minute and a half. I think it also depends on the show but that also might just be me. I think that shows with fun story lines and upbeat music can do well with an overture, but for some shows I think that they're kind of unnecessary. I don't feel strongly enough about disliking the long overtures that I think that they should stop, but I think that they should be rethought and all the designers should make sure that they actually make sense in a show rather than just throwing them in.
It never occurred to me that part of the decline in overtures was due to the thinning of the orchestra. It absolutely makes sense, producers trying to cut costs and time wherever they can.
I think there will never be a complete absence of overtures as it helps transport the audience to the world of the show. For shows like Chorus Line, adding an overture would take away from the spare beginning, but for shows like The Little Mermaid, the audience wants to see the magic. When the orchestra is onstage for shows like Hadestown or Natashia, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, the presence of the orchestra onstage signals the start of the show.. There is a compromise, as done perfectly in the show Pippin, where there is a short overture at the beginning of the opening act, giving the audience the signal to be quiet and start paying attention
Ya know, PLAYBILL, I have been asking the same question! Throughout high school, I did and saw a lot of contemporary musicals and didn't really think about overtures all that often. During my senior year, however, we did Big Fish and Rodgers and Hammerstien’s Cinderella, which had an overture (or, in the case of Big Fish, a “Prologue”,) and entr'acte that were pretty long. Over the last summer, I also saw Funny Girl which had a reeeeally long overture (so long that I didn’t know when it was going to end, like I thought something was wrong.) From a purely subjective artistic standpoint, I think overtures can be really helpful in setting a tone for the audience before a production. It can give viewers/listeners insight into what style of music they are getting into, what some of the songs may sound like, and can gently guide them into the opening scene (and can be really fun to call light cues to from an SM perspective.)
I am pretty neutral about overtures - yes, when I hear one I do sigh contentedly, because as they fizzle out, experiencing one is almost comforting, if that makes sense. The article is right that if you’re putting story immersion first, coming straight into a world in motion from the first sound is arguably more effective. Now, Phantom actually manages to do both - the show opens with the auction, and then the overture plays as the chandelier rises. Mary Poppins has a great overture, too - clean, short, and visceral, creating magic without overstaying its welcome. The article mentions Sondheim pioneering the lack of an overture - Into the Woods exemplifies why an overture isn’t always needed. The beginning of the Prologue is iconic, and as Sondheim has said, the first strike of the orchestra after “once upon a time” is intended to wake the audience up as the story unfolds immediately - no time to waste.
We still use overtures at theme parks. Every "spectacular" has a loop that starts about 15 min before the show that announces the name of the show (and it's sponsor) along with safety messages and themed music. I can't think of any that use music from the actual show, but it's always a way to get people into the right mood; which given that our shows are only 20 min long, makes sense not to repeat the same songs. EPCOT even has outro music for your walk out of the park.
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