This new edition of Swain's classic award-winning text reveals how a musical drama achieves plot movement, character development and conflict through strategic placement of music in twenty impressive productions. Included is the latest research and viewpoints of contemporary critics, highlighting the various styles of important composers including Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Jerry Bock, Stephen Sondheim, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. This new edition also includes a previously unpublished essay on <i>Les Misérables</i>. An expanded epilogue offers insight into the phenomena behind <i>Miss Saigon</i> and <i>Phantom of the Opera</i>, "megamusicals" which seemingly popularized the Broadway tradition. For people interested in Broadway musicals, theater, popular music, American music, opera and/or twentieth-century music.