"At one time musical theater, particularly in the '40s and '50s, was a big source of pop songs. That's how musical theater started, really - it was just a way of linking several pop songs for the stage"

Musical theater has long played a pivotal role in shaping popular music, especially notable during the 1940s and 1950s when hit songs often originated on Broadway before permeating the broader cultural landscape. Shows of this era, like those by Rodgers and Hammerstein or Lerner and Loewe, produced melodies that transcended the stage, becoming radio staples and standards, sung by renowned performers far removed from the world of theater. The central notion is that musical theater didn't always exist as a distinct or isolated genre. Instead, in its nascent stages, the musical functioned as a platform for presenting popular music, intertwined with narrative and staging, to create a new kind of entertainment that bridged the world of song and storytelling.

By linking popular songs through a stage narrative, early musicals offered audiences both familiarity and novelty. These productions were crafted so that the tunes could stand alone as individual pieces, instilling them in the wider public consciousness even outside the theatrical context. As radio and recordings became dominant, the pipeline from Broadway to pop charts became quite direct. Many of the songs considered “standards” today, from “Some Enchanted Evening” to “My Funny Valentine”, originated in musicals, chosen as much for their expected popularity as for their story-serving role within the show. This era fostered a cyclical relationship: musical theater borrowed from prevailing musical trends, while at the same time heavily influencing the direction of popular taste.

Eventually, as popular music diversified, ushering in rock, R&B, and later styles, the direct connection between pop songs and the musical stage weakened. Contemporary musical theater often stands apart from mainstream popular song. Tennant’s reflection thus highlights an era when the boundaries between musical and pop song were blurred; where musical theater’s primary task was not to create rarefied art, but to encapsulate and circulate the catchiest, most current music via live storytelling, cementing its place in the broader fabric of cultural life.