The idea of musical theatre conjures up images of bright lights and big city, but its lifeblood is found in local and amateur productions at schools, community theatres, summer camps, and more.
In this course based on her book, Beyond Broadway: The Pleasure and Promise of Musical Theatre Across America, Stacy Wolf considers the widespread presence and persistence of musical theatre in American culture, and examines it as a live, pleasurable, participatory experience of creating, watching, and listening. Why does local musical theatre flourish in America? Why do so many people passionately engage in a century-old artistic practice that requires intense, person-to-person collaboration? Why do audiences flock to see musicals in their hometowns? How do corporations like Disney and Music Theatre International enable musical theatre’s energetic movement through American culture? For her research, Wolf traveled from Maine to California, visiting elementary schools, a middle school performance festival, afterschool programs, high schools, summer camps, state park outdoor theatres, community theatres, and dinner theatres, and conducted over 200 interviews with practitioners and spectators, licensors, and Disney creatives. In this course, Wolf shares stories of musical theatre's abundance and longevity as a thriving, joyful activity that touches millions of lives.
This class will take place live online with an opportunity to interact with the instructor and be recorded for later viewing by patrons.
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Stacy Wolf is Professor of Theater and American Studies and Director of the Program in Music Theater at Princeton University. She is the author of A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical, Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical, and Beyond Broadway: The Pleasure and Promise of Musical Theatre Across America, which was a finalist for the Best Book of 2020 Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education …
Stacy Wolf is Professor of Theater and American Studies and Director of the Program in Music Theater at Princeton University. She is the author of A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical, Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical, and Beyond Broadway: The Pleasure and Promise of Musical Theatre Across America, which was a finalist for the Best Book of 2020 Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. She also co-edited The Oxford Handbook of the American Musical and has written about women in The Hunchback of Notre Dame for Disney Theatrical Group’s Study Guide and about gender in the smash hit Hamilton. She is currently co-writing articles about Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, disability in musical theatre, Broadway divas on television, and Disney musicals in high schools.
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