To compare Raphiphon's musical plays with Phanbun's, and to study the development of Raphiphon's musical plays from 1953 to 1995 in sources, stories, songs and performance. The research shows that Raphiphon's and Phanbun's musical plays have both similarities and differences. They are similar in their use of songs as medium for narrating stories. The differences lie in characters and stories. In Phanbun's plays, there are three major kinds of characters: the hero, the heroine and the joker. While the hero in Phanbun's plays was performed by a woman, Raphiphon's plays employed a male actor for the role and had no joker. Most Phanbun's stories were purely of his own invention whereas Raphiphon's were created from various sources-his own imagination, folk legends, famous stories of the past, and Hollywood film. The development of Raphiphon's musical plays can be divided into two periods: the "golden age" of the musical play (1953-1963) and the musical play's conservation period (1993-1995). During the first period, Raphiphon's musical plays were employed as intermezzos in film showings. They are pure love stories or love stories with some Buddhist philosophical ideas. During the conservation period, Raphiphon's plays were written to be performed on three different occasions: the 1993 and 1994 celebration in honor of H.M. the Queen, in the music festival "The Westernized Thai songs during the Five Reigns," and on the 84th anniversary of Ua Sunthonsanan. These plays still maintain the love theme although some of them also have the themes of nature conservation and politics.
