Women in American Musical Theatre

Women in American Musical Theatre PDF Author: Bertram E. Coleman
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
These essays examine the history of women in musical theatre, providing biographical descriptions; interpretations of their productions; and several accounts of how being a woman affected their careers.

Women in American Musical Theatre

Women in American Musical Theatre PDF Author: Bertram E. Coleman
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
These essays examine the history of women in musical theatre, providing biographical descriptions; interpretations of their productions; and several accounts of how being a woman affected their careers.

Women in American Musical Theatre

Women in American Musical Theatre PDF Author: Bud Coleman
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476607273
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 709

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Book Description
Throughout the twentieth century women have made significant contributions to the creation of American musical theatre. Directing, choreographing, writing, arranging, producing and designing musicals in a variety of venues throughout America, women have played a significant role in shaping the development of musical theatre both on and off Broadway and in regional, educational, and community venues. The essays in this book examine the history of women in musical theatre, providing biographical descriptions of the women themselves; analyses and interpretations of their productions; and several accounts of how being a woman affected the artists' careers. Topics include the similarities among the careers of successful but neglected lyricists Rida Johnson Young, Anne Caldwell, and Dorothy Donnelly; the Depression-era productions of Hallie Flanagan and Cheryl Crawford; the transformation of the classic "showgirl" image through the dances and stage movement created by prominent female choreographers; and a survey of numerical data highlighting the discrepancy between the number of men versus the number of women hired to direct professional musical productions in various venues across the United States.

A Problem Like Maria

A Problem Like Maria PDF Author: Stacy Ellen Wolf
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472067725
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
The Broadway tomboys, rebel nuns, and funny girls, who upset the 1950s gender norms: Mary Martin, Ethel Merman, Julie Andrews, and Barbra Streisand

Changed for Good

Changed for Good PDF Author: Stacy Wolf
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195378245
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
From Maria in "West Side Story" to Tracy Turnblatt in "Hairspray" and Elphaba in "Wicked," female characters in Broadway musicals have belted and crooned their way into the American psyche. In this lively book, Stacy Wolf illuminates the women of American musical theater—performers, creators, and characters—from the start of the cold war to the present day, creating a new, feminist history of the genre, which finds often overlooked moments of empowerment for female audience members. Moving from decade to decade, Wolf first highlights the assumptions that circulated about gender and sexuality at the time, and then looks at the leading musicals, stressing the key aspects of the plays as they relate to women. The musicals discussed here are among the most beloved in the canon—"West Side Story," "Guys & Dolls," "Cabaret," "Phantom of the Opera," and many others—with special emphasis on the blockbuster "Wicked." Along the way, Wolf demonstrates how the musical since the mid-1940s has actually been dominated by women—women onstage, women in the wings, and women offstage as spectators and fans.

The Musical

The Musical PDF Author: Richard Kislan
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9781557832177
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
(Applause Books). This revised and expanded edition of Kislan's acclaimed study of America's musical theater includes a new section on "Recent Musical Theater: Issues and Problems." "The ancient union of drama and song, known as musical theater, comes in many forms vaudeville, burlesque, comic opera, minstrels, etc. The author reviews these and other highlights of American musicals ... with a fascinating background on the elements that contribute to the success of a Showboat ." King Features * "Worth study by anyone who still thinks that the musical is a collection of songs." The Stage

Her Turn on Stage

Her Turn on Stage PDF Author: Grace Barnes
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786498617
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Audiences for musical theater are predominantly women, yet shows are frequently created and produced by men. Onstage, female characters are depicted as victims or sex objects and lack the complexity of their male counterparts. Offstage, women are under-represented among writers, directors, composers and choreographers. While other areas of the arts rally behind gender equality, musical theater demonstrates a disregard for women and an authentic female voice. If musical theater reflects prevailing societal attitudes, what does the modern musical tell us about the place of women in contemporary America, the UK and Australia? Are women deliberately kept out of musical theater by men jealously guarding their territory or is the absence of women a result of the modernization of the genre? Based on interviews with successful female performers, writers, directors, choreographers and executives, this book offers a unique female viewpoint on musical theater today.

Our Musicals, Ourselves

Our Musicals, Ourselves PDF Author: John Bush Jones
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
ISBN: 1611682231
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
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.

Changed for Good

Changed for Good PDF Author: Stacy Wolf
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195378237
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
In this lively book, Stacy Wolf illuminates the women of American musical theater--performers, creators, and characters--from the start of the cold war to the present day, creating a new feminist history of the genre. Moving from decade to decade, Wolf highlights the assumptions that circulated about gender and sexuality at the time and then looks at the leading musicals, stressing the aspects of the plays that relate to women. The musicals discussed here are among the most beloved in the canon--"West Side Story," "Guys & Dolls," "Cabaret," and many others--with special emphasis on "Wicked."

The Secret Life of the American Musical

The Secret Life of the American Musical PDF Author: Jack Viertel
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374711259
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
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.

Little Women

Little Women PDF Author: Louisa May Alcott
Publisher: Collector's Library
ISBN: 9781904633273
Category : Family life
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Chronicles the joys and sorrows of the four March sisters as they grow into young women in mid-nineteenth-century New England.