Broadway Musical as Supertext

2021 ◽  
pp. 74-76
Author(s):  
Edna Ferber
Keyword(s):  
Broadway Musical

Oklahoma!

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Carter
Keyword(s):  
Musical Theater ◽  
Final Shape ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
History Of ◽  
Rodgers And Hammerstein ◽  
Theatre Guild

Oklahoma! premiered on Broadway on 31 March 1943 under the auspices of the Theatre Guild, and today it is performed more frequently than any other Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. When this book was first published in 2007, it offered the first fully documented history of the making of the show based on archival materials, manuscripts, journalism, and other sources. The present revised edition draws still further on newly uncovered sources to provide an even clearer account of a work that many have claimed fundamentally changed Broadway musical theater. It is filled with rich and fascinating details about the play on which Oklahoma! was based (Lynn Riggs’s Green Grow the Lilacs); on what encouraged Theresa Helburn and Lawrence Langner of the Guild to bring Rodgers and Hammerstein together for their first collaboration; on how Rouben Mamoulian and Agnes de Mille became the director and choreographer; on the drafts and revisions that led the show toward its final shape; and on the rehearsals and tryouts that brought it to fruition. It also examines the lofty aspirations and the mythmaking that surrounded Oklahoma! from its very inception, and demonstrates just what made it part of its times.

Dance of Death

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Winkler
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Heart Surgery ◽  
Open Heart Surgery ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Open Heart ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
Musical Comedy ◽  
Dance Of Death ◽  
Nonlinear Fashion

This chapter looks at Bob Fosse’s most ambitious film, the autobiographical All That Jazz. All That Jazz follows Joe Gideon, a director and choreographer very much like Fosse who is at a personal and professional crossroads as he prepares to direct a Broadway musical much like Chicago while simultaneously editing a film that looks a lot like Lenny. Following graphic footage of open-heart surgery and a series of metaphoric musical comedy turns by the women in his life, All That Jazz concludes with Gideon presiding over a combined funeral and wake for himself: a glamorous, high-energy floor show to end all floor shows. Here Fosse took the movie musical further than anyone had dared—not only in subject matter, but also in structure and pacing. Fosse tells this “putting on a show” musical in nonlinear fashion, with surprising juxtapositions, fragments, and time leaps.

History Has Its Eyes on You

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Maslon
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Technological Advance ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Generational Change ◽  
Personal Preference ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Consumer Habits

A generational change at the beginning of the twenty-first century intersected with the technological advance of the Internet to provide a renaissance of Broadway music in popular culture. Downloading playlists allowed the home listener to become, in essence, his/her own record producer; length, narrative, performer were now all in the hands of the consumer’s personal preference. Following in the footsteps of Rent (as a favorite of a younger demographic), Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton emerged as the greatest pop culture/Broadway musical phenomenon of the twenty-first century; its cast album and cover recording shot up near the top of music’s pop charts. A rediscovery of the power of Broadway’s music to transform listening and consumer habits seems imminent with the addition of Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen to a devoted fan base—and beyond.

Carol Burnett and the Ends of Variety

2019 ◽  
pp. 541-567
Author(s):  
Robynn J. Stilwell
Keyword(s):  
Broadway Musical ◽  
Tv Show ◽  
Small Screen

This chapter examines Hollywood’s great rival, television, in a study of how television adapted the Broadway musical. Rather than looking at conventional stage-to-small-screen adaptations, however, the chapter focuses on how Carol Burnett’s TV show provided adaptations of another kind, that is, parodies of famous musicals. For example, the chapter explains how ‘Hold Me, Hamlet’ can be read as a parody/adaptation of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate, even retaining the doubling of the onstage/backstage musical format of the latter. Meanwhile, The Wiz is the clearest referent for ‘Cinderella Gets it On.’ These Burnett shows approach poesis because they take the form of the musical, and they often do comment upon it, but they are also genuine expressions of the form and the creators’ deep love and understanding of it.

Christopher Wheeldon

2021 ◽  
pp. 735-753
Author(s):  
Rachel Straus
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
The Press ◽  
Michael Jackson

In 2000, English-born Christopher Wheeldon became the first artist-in-residence at New York City Ballet (NYCB). The press compared his choreography to George Balanchine’s. This chapter discusses Wheeldon’s critically acclaimed NYCB ballet Polyphonia (2001) in relation to the “thick narrative” of the company’s history. It argues that Wheeldon’s collaborations with NYCB dancers Wendy Whelan and Jock Soto, in Polyphonia and other works, produced a unique aesthetic, one that transcended Balanchine’s neoclassical legacy. The chapter ends by considering how Wheeldon’s controversial decision to direct the Broadway musical about Michael Jackson is not out of character, but emblematic of his propensity to embrace the role of an outsider, who works to understand the unfamiliar and who surpasses what is expected of him.

‘Waving through a window’: Nostalgia and prosthetic memory in Dear Evan Hansen

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsey R. Barr
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Musical Theatre ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
Dramaturgical Analysis ◽  
American Musical Theatre

Dear Evan Hansen, a popular Broadway musical whose narrative centres on connectivity and the protagonist’s social anxiety, offers a disruptive potential to the otherwise standard nostalgic leanings of the contemporary American musical. Operating dramaturgically, nostalgia offers the audience an opportunity to recall an idealized past that imbues the musical they are witnessing with their own positive affect. Dear Evan Hansen’s use of prosthetic memory disrupts the nostalgic tradition of the contemporary musical. Using dramaturgical analysis to identify the narrative operation of nostalgia and prosthetic memory, this article situates the disruptive potential of Dear Evan Hansen as an intervention into the American musical theatre canon writ large.

No people like #showpeople : Broadway performers' ethnographic social media

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jennifer Spitulnik
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Musical Theater ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Group I ◽  
Multiple Audiences

The occupational folk group of Broadway musical theater performers uses folklore in public spaces as a kind of representational strategy for the group as a whole. This strategy is significant in representing the group’s identity to itself as well as to outsiders who are invested in knowing more about them, such as Broadway enthusiasts. That is, the group can and does tell the story of itself, representing itself ethnographically, by way of its individual members. Social media technologies provide a platform for Broadway performers to present these native ethnographies both to the public and to other members of the folk group. I argue that these native, self-conscious ethnographic works by musical theater performers are both concerned with representing themselves as individuals, and with representing the cultural group of musical theater performers as a whole. Exploring the folklore and folk identities performed by members of this group in online social media suggests new ways of understanding the politics and practices of ethnography, particularly on social network sites in our postmodern global economy of attention. In this project, the first in any field to consider musical theater performers as a cultural or folk group, I investigate actors’ recognition of and group use of vernacular creative expressionsâ€"folkloreâ€"as a representational strategy. Through this work, I explore the ways in which self-representation on the part of the ethnographic participants claims voice and authority for the group, while simultaneously performing group membership and identity for multiple audiences.

Kindness Makes a Difference

2020 ◽  
pp. 109-147
Author(s):  
Nava R. Silton ◽  
Patrick Riley ◽  
Amanda Anzovino
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
High School ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Quantitative Study ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Mental Health Disorders ◽  
Book Series ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
Extended Contact ◽  
Health Disorders

High quality interventions, which employ an extended contact model, wherein stories, roleplaying, and other appealing informational media are used to promote more positive intergroup attitudes, tend to be effective at enhancing the attitudes, intentions, and interests of typical children toward their peers with differences. The following four studies assess the efficacy of The Realabilities comic book series and the Addy & Uno off-Broadway musical, which promote kindness, empathy, and a stop-bullying platform while teaching about disabilities and/or mental health disorders. The studies include 1) a qualitative study of 19 fourth grade students from an elementary school in Paramus, NJ, who viewed the Addy & Uno off-Broadway musical and participated in the full Realabilities educational comic book series intervention; 2) a qualitative study of 20 high school students with diverse disabilities, who participated in the full Realabilities comic book series intervention; 3) a quantitative study of 76 students from a high school in Long Island City, NY, who read the first mental health-based Realabilities comic book; and finally, 4) a quantitative study of 66 students from a high school in Long Island City, NY, who read the first and second mental-health based Realabilities comics. The researchers used a coding system to find principal themes in the qualitative data and used modified versions of the adjective checklist (ACL) and shared activities questionnaire (SAQ), along with a knowledge measure, to assess quantitative changes from pre to post-testing of the comic book series. Study findings help support the efficacy of an extended contact model and suggest that programs like these may serve as useful antidotes to counter negative attitudes of children and adolescents towards disabilities and mental health disorders, respectively.

City of Women

2021 ◽  
pp. 71-96
Author(s):  
Kevin Winkler
Keyword(s):  
Race And Class ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
Run Off ◽  
Sketch Comedy ◽  
Meaningful Connections

Two consecutive projects confirmed Tommy Tune’s vision and versatility. In 1981, Tune directed the American premiere of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9, his first non-musical. This “comedy of multiple orgasms,” as it was billed, featured a first act set in colonial Africa in 1880 and a second act in contemporary London a century later. Tune staged the first act with sketch-comedy speed and vaudeville humor, as the characters played out their sexual frustrations and transgressed boundaries of race and class. Once again, he used performance tropes of earlier eras to communicate a contemporary viewpoint. His direction of the second act was more somber and thoughtful as the characters, liberated from patriarchal oppression and allowed to express their sexuality freely, search for meaningful connections. While Cloud 9 was enjoying a long and successful run off-Broadway, Tune embarked on Nine, based on Federico Fellini’s film 8½, about a celebrated but creatively stalled Italian filmmaker. Tune insisted that the show be peopled by an all-female cast surrounding the filmmaker. On a stunning white-tiled spa setting made up of stationary boxes, the women—each dressed in black—were summoned from his mind and memories to comment upon and take part in the action. With Nine, Tune established a pattern of staging an entire show around a stationary obstacle (in this case, the boxes)––an obstacle he consistently overcame through imagination and daring. Nine was a stunning directorial achievement that solidified Tune’s stature as a creative mastermind of the Broadway musical.

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