Changing function of plays with music in our national theater

The formation process of plays with music and the changing function of music in our national theatre are examined in this thesis study. Writing methods chosen by the playwrights when creating a text with music are evaluated in relation to their periods. In this way, forms of plays with music modeled by the playwrights in their own writing processes are determined and the process of writing plays with music is discussed in a historical framework. In the introduction part, theater forms with music in the Western sense, which are presumed to be modeled by the playwrights of our theater, are presented in a theoretical framework. In the light of this theoretical framework, the first chapter covers the first plays with music in our national theater which developed under the influence of westernization during the Tanzimat Reform Era and the Constitutional Period, and provides an evaluation of two plays with music from the period in terms of the functionality of the music. In the second chapter, the position of plays with music in the cultural policies of the Republic Period is investigated. This section includes an assessment of the relationship between the creation process of plays with music and the cultural policies of the government. However, the function of music in the plays with music belonging to this period is emphasized. In the third chapter, the search for new expressions in national theater in the 1960s and the reflection of these new expressions to plays with music are evaluated. In this thesis, it is explored how the writing styles of plays with music follow a path by means of the texts of plays with music which are examined in a historical sequence. The question of whether or not the writing styles of plays with music form a certain method of writing is one of the points that the thesis aims to discuss. Based on this discussion, how the writing styles of plays with music have developed in our national theater and how its reflection to the contemporary playwriting are evaluated.