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Approaches to the American Musical by Robert Lawson-Peebles Pdf
This new analysis of American film and stage musicals puts forward the argument that productions such as Kiss Me Kate were popular because they dealt with important issues such as ethnicity, rather than because of their value as escapism.
The Oxford Handbook of The American Musical by Raymond Knapp,Mitchell Morris,Stacy Wolf Pdf
The Oxford Handbook of The American Musical offers new and cutting-edge essays on the most important and compelling issues and topics in the growing, interdisciplinary field of musical-theater and film-musical studies. Taking the form of a "keywords" book, it introduces readers to the concepts and terms that define the history of the musical as a genre and that offer ways to reflect on the specific creative choices that shape musicals and their performance on stage and screen. The handbook offers a cross-section of essays written by leading experts in the field, organized within broad conceptual groups, which together capture the breadth, direction, and tone of musicals studies today.Each essay traces the genealogy of the term or issue it addresses, including related issues and controversies, positions and problematizes those issues within larger bodies of scholarship, and provides specific examples drawn from shows and films. Essays both re-examine traditional topics and introduce underexplored areas. Reflecting the concerns of scholars and students alike, the authors emphasize critical and accessible perspectives, and supplement theory with concrete examples that may be accessed through links to the handbook's website.Taking into account issues of composition, performance, and reception, the book's contributors bring a wide range of practical and theoretical perspectives to bear on their considerations of one of America's most lively, enduring artistic traditions. The Oxford Handbook of The American Musical will engage all readers interested in the form, from students to scholars to fans and aficionados, as it analyses the complex relationships among the creators, performers, and audiences who sustain the genre.
The Secret Life of the American Musical by Jack Viertel Pdf
A New York Times Bestseller For almost a century, Americans have been losing their hearts and losing their minds in an insatiable love affair with the American musical. It often begins in childhood in a darkened theater, grows into something more serious for high school actors, and reaches its passionate zenith when it comes time for love, marriage, and children, who will start the cycle all over again. Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical? In The Secret Life of the American Musical, Jack Viertel takes them apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, marvels at their unflagging inventiveness, and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he invites us to fall in love all over again by showing us how musicals happen, what makes them work, how they captivate audiences, and how one landmark show leads to the next—by design or by accident, by emulation or by rebellion—from Oklahoma! to Hamilton and onward. Structured like a musical, The Secret Life of the American Musical begins with an overture and concludes with a curtain call, with stops in between for “I Want” songs, “conditional” love songs, production numbers, star turns, and finales. The ultimate insider, Viertel has spent three decades on Broadway, working on dozens of shows old and new as a conceiver, producer, dramaturg, and general creative force; he has his own unique way of looking at the process and at the people who collaborate to make musicals a reality. He shows us patterns in the architecture of classic shows and charts the inevitable evolution that has taken place in musical theater as America itself has evolved socially and politically. The Secret Life of the American Musical makes you feel as though you’ve been there in the rehearsal room, in the front row of the theater, and in the working offices of theater owners and producers as they pursue their own love affair with that rare and elusive beast—the Broadway hit.
Stephen Sondheim and the Reinvention of the American Musical by Robert L. McLaughlin Pdf
From West Side Story in 1957 to Road Show in 2008, the musicals of Stephen Sondheim and his collaborators have challenged the conventions of American musical theater and expanded the possibilities of what musical plays can do, how they work, and what they mean. Sondheim's brilliant array of work, including such musicals as Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, and Into the Woods, has established him as the preeminent composer/lyricist of his, if not all, time. Stephen Sondheim and the Reinvention of the American Musical places Sondheim's work in two contexts: the exhaustion of the musical play and the postmodernism that, by the 1960s, deeply influenced all the American arts. Sondheim's musicals are central to the transition from the Rodgers and Hammerstein-style musical that had dominated Broadway stages for twenty years to a new postmodern musical. This new style reclaimed many of the self-aware, performative techniques of the 1930s musical comedy to develop its themes of the breakdown of narrative knowledge and the fragmentation of identity. In his most recent work, Sondheim, who was famously mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II, stretches toward a twenty-first-century musical that seeks to break out of the self-referring web of language. Stephen Sondheim and the Reinvention of the American Musical offers close readings of all of Sondheim's musicals and finds in them critiques of the operation of power, questioning of conventional systems of knowledge, and explorations of contemporary identity.
The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity by Raymond Knapp Pdf
The American musical has achieved and maintained relevance to more people in America than any other performance-based art. This thoughtful history of the genre, intended for readers of all stripes, offers probing discussions of how American musicals, especially through their musical numbers, advance themes related to American national identity. Written by a musicologist and supported by a wealth of illustrative audio examples (on the book's website), the book examines key historical antecedents to the musical, including the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, nineteenth and early twentieth-century American burlesque and vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley, and other song types. It then proceeds thematically, focusing primarily on fifteen mainstream shows from the twentieth century, with discussions of such notable productions as Show Boat (1927), Porgy and Bess (1935), Oklahoma! (1943), West Side Story (1957), Hair (1967), Pacific Overtures (1976), and Assassins (1991). The shows are grouped according to their treatment of themes that include defining America, mythologies, counter-mythologies, race and ethnicity, dealing with World War II, and exoticism. Each chapter concludes with a brief consideration of available scholarship on related subjects; an extensive appendix provides information on each show discussed, including plot summaries and song lists, and a listing of important films, videos, audio recordings, published scores, and libretti associated with each musical.
The Oxford Handbook of The American Musical by Raymond Knapp,Mitchell Morris,Stacy Wolf Pdf
This text presents keywords and critical terms that deepen analysis and interpretation of the musical. Taking into account issues of composition, performance, and reception, the book's contributors bring a range of practical and theoretical perspectives to bear on their considerations of American musicals.
Although almost neglected in research and studies on American Literature, the American Musical is certainly the most interesting and the most popular genre of American theater and drama. It has been influenced by the necessities of a self-funding commercial theater system of a democratic country. The fact that it has developed in a country of democracy means that it should be a genre for everyone: the intellectual and the common man. Broadway has provided all these. In his study, Marc Bauch analyzes three American Musicals, namely South Pacific (1949) by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, West Side Story (1957) by Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim as well as Sunday in the Park with George (1984) by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. Special attention is paid to the themes and topics, the literary means and the dramatic dodges of the aforementioned American Musicals. The three analyses are extended with historical overviews of the American Musical. Marc Bauch is also the author of Themes and Topics of the American Musical after World War II (2001) also published by Tectum Verlag.
African American Musical Heritage by Lenard C. Bowie Pdf
LENARD C. BOWIE, DMA ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MUSIC, RETIRED THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH FLORIDA JACKSONVILLE , FLORIDA Dr. Lenard C. Bowie has developed an enviable reputation as a consummate musician. He is a classical trumpet artist, accomplished band director, effective music administrator, skilled lecturer and publi shed author. As an author, Bowie's expertise in several fields of endeavor has been documented through the following subjects, as published in the professional music journals indicated: "Solving Problems of Young Trumpet Players, " published in the Music Educators National Journal (December, J979) , a critical review of "Black University Marching Bands in the 80's." published by The Marching Band (January, 198 1), and the Proceedings of an Informal Research Conference whose mission was to document the extent to which African American music courses were offered in Florida's Public Schools was published by the Florida Music Educator (June, 2002). As an undergraduate, Bowie was plagued bymany questions concerning the absence of formal instruction in the music of his people, especially when considering the fact that there were only two authentic types of American music -- that of the American Indians and that of African Americans, with African American Music being the most important of the two. Bowie's search for answers to his probing questions began when he enrolled in Professor Willie Ruffs course in Black Music as a graduate student at Yale University in 1974. This course opened Bowie's eyes, ears and mind to many of his here-to-fore unanswered questions; including the extent to which African music traditions are practiced in African American Music today, and the impact that African American Music has made on the social, political, economic, and religious climates of modern American Society. After graduating from Yale with a Master of Musical Arts Degree in 1976, Bowie struck out on a mission to enlarge on what he had learned about African American Music.This mission brought him in contact with a wealth of information through independent study of numerous publications and documentaries; lectures, festivals, concerts; and personal contacts with scholars who were, or have become, major players in the research, dissemination, performance and composition of African American Music. Some of these scholars include former colleagues Dr.Oily W. Wilson, composer and Chair of Composition at UCLA , Berkeley, Samuel Floyd, Founder and Director of the Center for Black Music Research, found at Fisk University, now housed at ColumbiaCollege,Chicago,Dr. AaronHorne,AfricanAmericanMusic Biographer and Dean of Fine Arts, Winston Salem Unive rsity, North Caro lina, Aramentha Adams - Hummings, Founder and Director ofthe Gateways Music Festival , initiated at the North Carolina School of the Arts, now housed at the East man School of Music in Rochester,New York, Operatic Tenor and Music Educator, the late Dr. William A, Brown. Others include Dr. Portia Maultsby, Professor of Music at Indiana University, Dr. Dena Epstein, Retired Music Librarian, Archival Researcher and Author, Chicago, Dr. Rene Boyer-White, Professor of Music Education, College-Conservatory of Music, The University of Cincinnati, and Dr. John Smith, Dean of Fine Arts, The Univers ity of South Florida at Tampa. During the first of Dr. Bowie's two terms as Music Department Chair at The University of North Florida, he was afforded an opportunity to apply and distribute his long sought know ledge. The opportunity came in the form ofa Mill ion Dollar Endowment from the Koger Company to develop programs of study in American Music. The response of the faculty to the endowmentwas to institute two programs: a Jazz Studies Program and a program in African American Music. The Jazz Studies Program has become nationally recognized for outstanding achievements in jazz theory, history and performance. The latter program , designed and developed by Bowie, was chall
Author : Jackson R. Bryer,Richard Allan Davison Publisher : Rutgers University Press Page : 332 pages File Size : 43,7 Mb Release : 2005 Category : Art ISBN : 0813536138
The Art of the American Musical by Jackson R. Bryer,Richard Allan Davison Pdf
Musical theater has captivated American audiences from its early roots in burlesque stage productions and minstrel shows to the million-dollar industry it has become on Broadway today. What is it about this truly indigenous American art form that has made it so enduringly popular? How has it survived, even thrived, alongside the technology of film and the glitz and glamour of Hollywood? Will it continue to evolve and leave its mark on the twenty-first century? Bringing together exclusive and previously unpublished interviews with nineteen leading composers, lyricists, librettists, directors, choreographers, and producers from the mid-1900s to the present, this book details the careers of the individuals who shaped this popular performance art during its most prolific period. The interviewees discuss their roles in productions ranging from On the Town (1944) and Finian's Rainbow (1947) to The Producers (2001) and Bounce (2003). Readers are taken onto the stage, into the rehearsals, and behind the scenes. The nuts and bolts, the alchemy, and the occasional agonies of the collaborative process are all explored. In their discussions, the artists detail their engagements with other creative forces, including such major talents as Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, Jule Styne, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, Alan Jay Lerner, Zero Mostel, and Gwen Verdon. They speak candidly about their own work and that of their peers, their successes and failures, the creative process, and how a show progresses from its conception through rehearsals and tryouts to opening night. Taken together, these interviews give fresh insight into what Oscar Hammerstein called "a nightly miracle"--the creation of the American musical.
The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity by Raymond Knapp Pdf
The American musical has long provided an important vehicle through which writers, performers, and audiences reimagine who they are and how they might best interact with the world around them. Musicals are especially good at this because they provide not only an opportunity for us to enact dramatic versions of alternative identities, but also the material for performing such alternatives in the real world, through songs and the characters and attitudes those songs project. This book addresses a variety of specific themes in musicals that serve this general function: fairy tale and fantasy, idealism and inspiration, gender and sexuality, and relationships, among others. It also considers three overlapping genres that are central, in quite different ways, to the projection of personal identity: operetta, movie musicals, and operatic musicals. Among the musicals discussed are Camelot, Candide; Chicago; Company; Evita; Gypsy; Into the Woods; Kiss Me, Kate; A Little Night Music; Man of La Mancha; Meet Me in St. Louis; The Merry Widow; Moulin Rouge; My Fair Lady; Passion; The Rocky Horror Picture Show; Singin' in the Rain; Stormy Weather; Sweeney Todd; and The Wizard of Oz. Complementing the author's earlier work, The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity, this book completes a two-volume thematic history of the genre, designed for general audiences and specialists alike.
Irving Berlin's American Musical Theater by Jeffrey Magee Pdf
Irving Berlin's songs have been the soundtrack of America for a century, but his most profound contribution to the nation is to Broadway. Award-winning music historian Jeffrey Magee's chronicle of Berlin's theatrical career is the first book to fully consider the songwriter's immeasurable influence on the Great White Way.
Author : John Bush Jones Publisher : Brandeis University Press Page : 420 pages File Size : 42,7 Mb Release : 2011-04-17 Category : Performing Arts ISBN : 9781611682236
Our Musicals, Ourselves is the first full-scale social history of the American musical theater from the imported Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas of the late nineteenth century to such recent musicals as The Producers and Urinetown. While many aficionados of the Broadway musical associate it with wonderful, diversionary shows like The Music Man or My Fair Lady, John Bush Jones instead selects musicals for their social relevance and the extent to which they engage, directly or metaphorically, contemporary politics and culture. Organized chronologically, with some liberties taken to keep together similarly themed musicals, Jones examines dozens of Broadway shows from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present that demonstrate numerous links between what played on Broadway and what played on newspapersÕ front pages across our nation. He reviews the productions, lyrics, staging, and casts from the lesser-known early musicals (the ÒgunboatÓ musicals of the Teddy Roosevelt era and the ÒCinderella showsÓ and Òleisure time musicalsÓ of the 1920s) and continues his analysis with better-known shows including Showboat, Porgy and Bess, Oklahoma, South Pacific, West Side Story, Cabaret, Hair, Company, A Chorus Line, and many others. While most examinations of the American musical focus on specific shows or emphasize the development of the musical as an art form, JonesÕs book uses musicals as a way of illuminating broader social and cultural themes of the times. With six appendixes detailing the long-running diversionary musicals and a foreword by Sheldon Harnick, the lyricist of Fiddler on the Roof, JonesÕs comprehensive social history will appeal to both students and fans of Broadway.
Puccini’s La fanciulla del West and American Musical Identity by Kathryn M. Fenton Pdf
On 10 December 1910, Giacomo Puccini’s seventh opera, La fanciulla del West, had its premiere before a sold-out audience at New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House. The performance was the Metropolitan Opera Company’s first world premiere by any composer. By all accounts, the premiere was an unambiguous success and the event itself recognized as a major moment in New York cultural history. The initial public opinion matched Puccini’s own evaluation of his opera. He called it "the best he had ever written" and expected it to become as popular as La Bohème. Yet the music reviews tell a different story. Marked by ambivalence, the reviews expose the New York City critics’ struggle to reconcile the opera they expected to see with the one they actually saw, and the opera itself became embroiled in controversy over the essence of musical Americanness and the nativist perception that a uniquely American national opera tradition continued to elude both American- and foreign-born opera composers. This book seeks to account for the differences between Puccini’s own assessments of the opera and those of its first audience. Offering transcriptions of the central reviews and of letters unavailable elsewhere, the book provides a historically informed understanding of La fanciulla del West and the reception of this European work as it intersected with both opera production and consumption in the United States and with the process of American musical identity formation during the very period that Americans actively sought to eradicate European cultural influences. As such, it offers a window into the development of nativism and "cosmopolitan nationalism" in New York City’s musical life during the first decade of the twentieth century.
Histories of the Musical by Raymond Knapp,Mitchell Morris,Stacy Wolf Pdf
The American musical is a paradox. On stage or screen, musicals at once hold a dominant and a contested place in the worlds of entertainment, art, and scholarship. Born from a mélange of performance forms that included opera and operetta, vaudeville and burlesque, minstrelsy and jazz, musicals have always sought to amuse more than instruct, and to make money more than make political change. In spite of their unapologetic commercialism, though, musicals have achieved supreme artistry and have influenced culture as much as if not more than any other art form in America, including avant-garde and high art on the one hand, and the full range of popular and commercial art on the other. Reflecting, refracting, and shaping U.S. culture since the early twentieth century, musicals converse with shifting dynamics of gender and sexuality, ethnicity and race, and the very question of what it means to be American and to be human. The chapters gathered in this book, Volume I of the reissued Oxford Handbook, explore the American musical from both the outside and the inside. This first volume concentrates in particular on large-scale, more philosophical issues of relevance to the genre, considering issues of historical situations and formal procedure as they bear on the narratives we make concerning productions and performers, artists and audiences, commerce and context. The first four essays discuss ways of defining histories and texts, and apprehending the formal choices of singers and dancers; the second group of four take up the subtle challenges of the genre's signal transformations out of minstrelsy and Tin Pan Alley to "integration" and beyond.
The American Musical by Ben West,Musical theatre artist West Pdf
"The American Musical is a comprehensive history of an American art form. It delivers a detailed and definitive portrait of the American musical's artistic evolution over the course of seven distinct, newly defined eras, with a unique perspective gleaned from research at more than twenty different archives across the United States. Individual in both its approach and coverage, The American Musical traces the form's creative journey from its 19th century beginnings, through its 20th century maturation, and to the turn of the 21st century, shedding new light on a myriad of authors, directors, and craftspeople who worked on Broadway and beyond. This book actively addresses the form's often overlooked female and African-American artists, provides an in-depth accounting of such outside influences as minstrelsy, vaudeville, nightclubs, and burlesque, and explores the dynamic relationship between the form and the consciousness of its country. The American Musical is a fascinating and insightful read for students, artists, and afficionados of the American musical, and anyone with an interest in this singular form of entertainment"--