Stephen Sondheim and the Reinvention of the American Musical

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. McLaughlin
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
The Self ◽  
Stephen Sondheim ◽  
Musical Play ◽  
West Side Story ◽  
Musical Comedy ◽  
Rodgers And Hammerstein ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Oscar Hammerstein Ii ◽  
Conventional Systems

From West Side Story in 1957 to Road Show in 2008, the musicals of Stephen Sondheim and his collaborators have challenged the conventions of the American musical theater and expanded the possibilities of what musical plays can do, how they work, and what they mean. Stephen Sondheim and the Reinvention of the American Musical places Sondheim’s musicals in two contexts: the exhaustion of the Rodgers and Hammerstein-style musical play that flourished after World War II; and the postmodernism that by the 1960s influenced all the U.S. arts. Sondheim’s musicals are central to the transition from the musical play that had dominated Broadway stages for twenty years to a new postmodern musical, one that reclaimed many of the self-aware, performative techniques of the 1930s musical comedy to develop its themes of the breakdown of narrative knowledge, the fragmentation of identity, and the problematization of representation. Sondheim, who was famously mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II, bridges the span between the musical play and the postmodern musical and, in his most recent work, 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; examines their dialogue, lyrics, musical themes, and structures; and finds in them their critiques of the operations of power, their questioning of conventional systems of knowledge, and their explorations of contemporary identity.

“For Broadway one must be clever and Catherine Littlefield is very clever.”

2020 ◽  
pp. 223-234
Author(s):  
Sharon Skeel
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War ◽  
Musical Play ◽  
Musical Comedy

Catherine earns Sonja Henie’s trust and helps make her skating more balletic. She also adapts ballets to ice for the Center Theatre shows. She moves to Manhattan and dates barrel jumper Jimmy Caesar for several years. She choreographs more Broadway shows, including Follow the Girls, a musical comedy starring Jackie Gleason and Russian ballerina Irina Baronova. Follow the Girls is a hit, but its revue-like formula will soon be eclipsed in popularity by the musical play genre as represented by Agnes de Mille’s Oklahoma! In 1944, Ballet Theatre revives Barn Dance. It is not successful, as the vogue for ballet Americana has begun to fade. The Littlefields open a studio in New York, where Dorothie teaches. Carl flies seventy combat missions as a pilot in World War II and receives medals for his heroism.

as Experimental Theater

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Savran
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Experimental Music ◽  
Experimental Theater ◽  
Stephen Sondheim ◽  
Musical Comedy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Anyone Can Whistle ◽  
Cultural Contradictions ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Liberal Individualism

Stephen Sondheim and his critics usually ascribe the failure ofAnyone Can Whistle, Sondheim’s most revered flop, to the volatile social and political context in the United States, claiming that it was ahead of its time. This chapter argues, in contrast, that it is very much of its time and that no other musical of the period epitomizes the social and cultural contradictions of the mid-1960s as vividly asWhistle. Attempting to bring the kind of theatrical and political provocation that was flourishing Off-Off-Broadway to Broadway audiences unfamiliar with experimental idioms,Whistlerepresents a determined hybrid: part satire, part romance, part musical comedy, part Broadway razzle-dazzle, part political polemic. It is also symptomatic of the contradictions inherent in the dominant political philosophy of the 1960s, liberal individualism, in its opposition to standardization and conformism and its inclination toward an arrogant egocentrism. ThatWhistlehad to wait decades to find an audience is a tribute less to Sondheim’s prescience than to his ascendency since the 1970s as his generation’s preeminent architect of experimental music theatre.

Fosse & Verdon and Kander & Ebb

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan Mordden
Keyword(s):  
West Side ◽  
Musical Play ◽  
West Side Story ◽  
Musical Comedy ◽  
Show Boat ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Kander And Ebb ◽  
Bob Fosse

This chapter chronicles the rise of Gwen Verdon and Bob Fosse as well as John Kander and Fred Ebb in the theatre industry. Their careers reveal how much the musical was transforming itself by the late 1940s, and how comfortably it moved between musical comedy and the musical play, uncovering ways of aligning them in innovative mutations. Moreover, the musical had come to amalgamate the responsibilities of director and choreographer and make the rise of the naturalistic actor not only possible but necessary. In a way, one could say that a Chicago musical was unthinkable until the liberation of Fosse and Verdon and the evolution of Kander and Ebb, out of musical comedy into the commentative show. Like Show Boat, Oklahoma!, and West Side Story, Chicago is an exhibition piece in the development of the elite yet populist and idealistic yet subversive national art form, the musical.

Sustaining Labor Politics in Hard Times: Race, Labor, and Coalition Building in Racine, Wisconsin

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-63
Author(s):  
Naomi R Williams
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
Labor Politics ◽  
Working People ◽  
Hard Times ◽  
The 1960S

Abstract This article explores the shifting politics of the Racine, Wisconsin, working-class community from World War II to the 1980s. It looks at the ways Black workers’ activism influenced local politics and how their efforts played out in the 1970s and 1980s. Case studies show how an expansive view of the boundaries of the Racine labor community led to cross-sector labor solidarity and labor-community coalitions that expanded economic citizenship rights for more working people in the city. The broad-based working-class vision pursued by the Racine labor community influenced local elections, housing and education, increased the number of workers with the power of unions behind them, and improved Racine's economic and social conditions. By the 1980s, Racine's labor community included not only industrial workers but also members of welfare and immigrants’ rights groups, parents of inner-city students, social workers and other white-collar public employees, and local and state politicians willing to support a class-based agenda in the political arena. Worker activists’ ability to maintain and adapt their notion of a broad-based labor community into the late twentieth century shows how this community and others like it responded to the upheaval of the 1960s social movements by creating a broad and relatively successful concept of worker solidarity that also incorporated racial justice.

Compositional Stasis and Flexibility in American Indian Tribes

Ethnohistory ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-213
Author(s):  
Raymond I. Orr ◽  
Yancey A. Orr
Keyword(s):  
American Indian ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Governance Systems ◽  
Indian Tribes ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Tribal Politics ◽  
Traditional Governance

Abstract American Indian tribal power has typically expanded since the 1960s. During this period, often referred to as the Self-Determination Era, tribes have regained much of their earlier political centrality. One rarely addressed limitation during this period is the inability of tribal polities to break into smaller units while maintaining recognition as legitimate. This essay identifies the inability of tribes to exercise what the authors call compositional flexibility and fracture to form new polities discrete of the previous tribe. The authors argue the absence of compositional flexibility shapes tribal politics and is at odds with many forms of traditional governance systems.

scholarly journals SPACE AS A CONTEXT IN DANIEL BUREN’S ART

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 301-322
Author(s):  
Tuğba RENKÇİ TAŞTAN
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Conceptual Art ◽  
World Order ◽  
Art World ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Innovation Development ◽  
Traditional Art ◽  
The Social ◽  
Art Scene ◽  
The 1960S

20th century; it is a period in which two world wars took place and a new world order in human history occurred in many areas of innovation, development and transformation. After the war, the meaning, content and boundaries of art and the artist have been discussed, expanded and gained a new dimension and acceleration with the deep changes in the social, economic, political and cultural fields with the crisis brought on by the war. This complex period also manifested itself in the traditional art scene in France. The French artist Daniel Buren (b. 1938) has witnessed this process; by adopting the innovations in art with his productions, he has demonstrated his space-oriented conceptual works dating back to the present day in a period in which daily life accelerates with the mechanization of art practice and conceptual art movements are in succession. In this article, in order to comprehend the point of the artist and his productions from the beginning until today; the cultural environment in France after the World War II, the developments in the art world, the changes in the social field and the artistic dimensions of these changes are mentioned. The development and practices of the French artist Daniel Buren's artistic practice, policy, artistic attitude and style for the place, architecture, workshop and museum in the period from the second half of the 1960s to the present day are examined with examples with certain sources. In this context, the views and concepts that the artist advocates with his original productions are included. Finally, in the research, the evaluations were made in line with the sources and information obtained about the art adventure and development of the artist, and the innovations, contributions and different perspectives he offered about the art are discussed.

scholarly journals Postwar Canadian Academic Libraries, 1945–60

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Lorne D. Bruce
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Academic Libraries ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Historical Survey ◽  
World War ◽  
National Review ◽  
Gradual Evolution ◽  
Academic Librarianship ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
College Library

This article undertakes a historical survey of university and college library developments in Canada between 1945 and 1960. It examines contemporary accounts in relation to library architecture, the acquisition and organization of collections, administrative library structures and staffing, services for faculty and students, and efforts by librarians to realize professional standing. A national review of academic libraries and librarianship expands our knowledge beyond the typical themes applied to this era: "growth" and "progress." The architectural redefinition of libraries, the impetus to establish research collections, the maturation of academic librarianship, and the increasing complexity of library operations were prominent features in the postwar period. The gradual evolution of academic libraries towards more-uniform organizational purposes and structures on a national basis following World War II can be considered a period of “midcentury modernization” that preceded the more memorable and better documented decades of the 1960s and later.

scholarly journals The Revival of Comparative Law in a Socialist Country: The Impact of Imre Szabó and Gyula Eörsi on the Development of Hungarian Comparative Law

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-52
Author(s):  
Balázs Fekete
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Socialist Country ◽  
Comparative Law ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
World War ◽  
International Trends ◽  
Legal Thinking ◽  
International Comparative ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Impact

This article discusses the revival of comparative law in Hungarian Socialist jurisprudence. Prior to World War II, the development of comparative law generally had followed international trends; however, it was disrupted at both a personal and an institutional level at the end of the 1940s due to the Marxist-Leninist turn of legal thinking that accompanied the introduction of a Communist regime in the country. Nonetheless, this rejection of comparative law was gradually replaced by a more open attitude that strongly supported participation in the international comparative-law movement from the 1960s. Imre Szabó and Gyula Eörsi played a prominent role in this transformation. They legitimized the use of comparative methods in Socialist jurisprudence and, also, created a plausible conceptual framework for Socialist comparative law.

Religion and the Spread of Human Capital and Political Institutions

2011 ◽  
pp. 110-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D. Woodberry
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Global South ◽  
Christian Missions ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Capital Development

Although often ignored, religion has profoundly shaped political and economic conditions around the world. This claim is suggested by three historical divergences: a divergence between Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim regions of Europe (these differences emerged after the Reformation and began to dissipate only after World War II); a divergence between Protestant and Catholic settler colonies in Oceania and the Americas; and a divergence between the impacts of Protestant and Catholic missionaries on societies throughout the global South prior to Vatican II (which ended in 1965). This article discusses religion and the spread of human capital and political institutions, focusing on Christian missions as a quasi-natural experiment. It argues that both in Europe and in the global South, Protestants shaped human capital development (mass education and mass printing) and institutional development (civil society, colonial rule of law, and market economics)—especially prior to the 1960s. Together, these shaped elites' incentives and thus long-term prospects for economic development and political democracy.

Stelsels van sociale zekerheid : Na-oorlogse regelingen in West-Europa

Res Publica ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-137
Author(s):  
Theo Berben ◽  
Joop Roebroek ◽  
Göran Therborn
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Expenditure ◽  
Social Security Systems ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Security Systems ◽  
Sociale Zekerheid ◽  
The 1960S

Social security systems differ not only in size, hut also in form. These forms have often been more controversial than the size of social expenditure. Different social forces have different conceptions of social security.Here is looked into the post-World War II settlements with regard to social security in Austria, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, with a further glance at Denmark, Italy, Norway and Sweden. It is argued, that the labour movement had a particular vision of social security, which was carried through where the labour had the political majority and was defeated where it was a minority. Postwar developments derive form this settlement, which is more visible in the current crisis than in the 1960s - early 1970s period of expansion.

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