How does a feminist spectator navigate misogynist representations of women?Musicals have always appealed to women as audience members and fans, even as most artists and producers were (and are) men.Feminist Approaches in Musical Theatre untangles these contradictions that are woven into the very fabric of this beloved, unapologetically commercial art form. This book offers a concise history of feminism's encounter with musicals and outlines methods...

From Adelaide in "Guys and Dolls" to Nina in "In the Heights" 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 theatre - 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 first highlights the assumptions that circulated about gen...

The idea of American musical theatre often conjures up images of bright lights and big city, but its lifeblood is found in amateur productions at high schools, community theatres, afterschool programs, summer camps, and dinner theatres. In Beyond Broadway, author Stacy Wolf looks at the widespread presence and persistence of musical theatre in U.S. culture, and examines it as a social practice--a live, visceral experience of creating, watching, and listening. Why does local musica...

From Adelaide in "Guys and Dolls" to Nina in "In the Heights" 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 theatre - 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 first highlights the assumptions that circulated ab...

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 ha...

Issues of identity have always been central to the American musical in all its guises. Who appears in musicals, who or what they are meant to represent, and how, over time, those representations have been understood and interpreted, provide the very basis for our engagement with the genre. In this third volume of the reissued Oxford Handbook of the American Musical, chapters focus on race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, regional vs. national identity, and the cultural and class...

For the past several years, the American musical has continued to thrive by reflecting and shaping cultural values and social norms, and even commenting on politics, whether directly and on a national scale (Hamilton) or somewhat more obliquely and on a more intimate scale (Fun Home). New stage musicals, such as Come from Away and The Band's Visit, open on Broadway every season, challenging conventions of form and content, and revivals offer audiences a ...

The idea of American musical theatre often conjures up images of bright lights and big city, but its lifeblood is found in amateur productions at high schools, community theatres, afterschool programs, summer camps, and dinner theatres. In Beyond Broadway, author Stacy Wolf looks at the widespread presence and persistence of musical theatre in US culture, and examines it as a social practice—a live, visceral experience of creating, watching, and listening. Why does local musical t...

The renowned philosopher and political theorist presents a summation of his influential work in this series of Columbia University lectures.A pioneer in the fields of modern linguistics and cognitive science, Noam Chomsky is also one of the most avidly read political theorist of our time. In this series of lectures, Chomsky presents more than half a century of philosophical reflection on all three of these areas.In precise yet accessible language, Chomsky e...

New York Times Bestseller: "Both revelatory and entertaining . . . Along the way, Viertel provides some fascinating Broadway history." — The New York Times Book ReviewAmericans invented musicals—and have a longstanding love affair with them. But what, exactly, is a musical? In this book, longtime theatrical producer and writer Jack Viertel takes them apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, and occasionally despairs over their more emba...

A Theory of Adaptation explores the continuous development of creative adaptation, and argues that the practice of adapting is central to the story-telling imagination. Linda Hutcheon develops a theory of adaptation through a range of media, from film and opera, to video games, pop music and theme parks, analysing the breadth, scope and creative possibilities within each.This new edition is supplemented by a new preface from the author, discussing both new adaptive forms/p...

B. Ruby Rich designated a brand new genre, the New Queer Cinema (NQC), in her groundbreaking article in the Village Voice in 1992. This movement in film and video was intensely political and aesthetically innovative, made possible by the debut of the camcorder, and driven initially by outrage over the unchecked spread of AIDS. The genre has grown to include an entire generation of queer artists, filmmakers, and activists.As a critic, curator, journalist, and scholar, Rich ...