As early as the fifth century B.C., the Greeks incorporated song into onstage theatrical performances. The Romans who invaded Greece became very enamored with the Greek theater, and they began to adopt the Greek style of comedy. By the second century B.C., comedic theater regularly incorporated song and dance routines as a method of developing major characters. These dance performers attached "scabilla," small pieces of metal, to the bottom of their shoes so that the dance steps were audible throughout the auditoriums, which seated thousands of people.
On Feb. 8, 1735, "Flora," a ballad opera that was brought to the colonies from England, was preformed in a Charleston, South Carolina, courtroom. In 1752, a company of 12 actors from England established themselves at Williamsburg Virginia. There they performed a combination of traditional plays from William Shakespeare and his contemporaries as well as more modern ballad operas. In 1753, they moved to New York. They were New York's first known theatrical group.
In the mid-19th century, minstrel shows, in which white actors painted their faces to look black, became popular. Actors performed a series of skits that included both song and dance. African-American dance techniques used in these skits were the precursors to modern tap dance and included hard shoe, shuffle, soft shoe and cakewalk. Minstrel shows were significant because they were the first form of theater that was truly American. Previous to their development, the theater produced in America was imported from Europe. During the minstrel show period, the first theater opened on Broadway; it was at Niblo's Gardens.
Pairing musical theater and dance was not uncommon. It had been done in ballets and in burlesque theater for some time. In the early 1900s, though, American musical theater made a significant change. Men began to sing and dance. Just after the turn of the century, in 1904, George M. Cohan, who had grown up in vaudeville, wrote "Little Johnny Jones" and brought American comedy to the legitimate theater.
The modern American musical made its debut in 1927 with the production of "Show Boat." This was the first Broadway show that integrated the thought and plot line of a traditional play with song and dance numbers. Authors and musicians would toy with this new genre for nearly two decades before producing a smash hit. "Oklahoma," originally performed in 1943, was the first of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's musicals. It was a blockbuster, and it was the first of a series of American Broadway hits. Its success solidified the American musical genre, making it a pattern for those that followed.