The Oxford Handbook of The American Musical

by Knapp, Raymond; Morris, Mitchell; Wolf, Stacy

• ISBN13: 9780195385946
• ISBN10: 0195385942
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-11-04
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The American musical, though one of the United States' most popular and emblematic musical genres, has long been neglected as a topic for academic study. Only recently have scholars taken up the serious study of musicals, and serious criticism and commentary available to non-professionals is still sparse.The Oxford Handbook of the Amreican Musicalis designed to be used by students in all disciplines concerned with the genre, as well as non-academic listeners who want to enrich their experience as audience members. Taking the form of a "keywords" book, it introduces readers to important concepts and terms that shape the history of the musical as a genre, and offers ways to reflect on the specific choices that shape the musicals and their performance. TheHandbookoffers ways of thinking about musicals that will be of interest to scholars and students as well as performers of all kinds.

Author Biography

Raymond Knapp is Professor of Musicology at UCLA. His books include Symphonic Metamorphoses: Subjectivity and Alienation in Mahler's Re-Cycled Songs (2003), The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity (2005), The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity (2006), and Musicological Identities: Essays in Honor of Susan McClary (2008, co-edited with Steven Baur and Jacqueline Warwick).

Mitchell Morris is Associate Professor of Musicology at UCLA; among his research interests are Russian & Soviet Music; 20th century American music; opera; gender & sexuality; psychoanalysis; problems of musical ethics; and ecocriticism. In addition to his scholarly work, he is also a frequent collaborator with the Los Angeles Opera.

Stacy Wolf is Professor in the Program in Theater and the Director of the Princeton Atelier in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. She is the author of A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical (2002) and Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical (2011).

Table of Contents

Contributors	p. ix
About the Companion Website	p. 2
Introduction	p. 3
Historiography
Narratives and Values	p. 9
Texts and Authors	p. 20
Musical Styles and Song Conventions	p. 33
Evolution of Dance in the Golden Age of the American "Book Musical"	p. 45
Transformations
Minstrelsy and Theatrical Miscegenation	p. 65
Tin Pan Alley Songs on Stage and Screen before World War II	p. 81
Integration	p. 97
After the "Golden Age"	p. 111
Media
Theater	p. 127
The Filmed Musical	p. 136
The Television Musical	p. 152
The Animated Film Musical	p. 167
The Evolution of the Original Cast Album	p. 179
Identities
Race, Ethnicity, Performance	p. 197
Gender and Sexuality
The Politics of Region and Nation in American Musicals	p. 225
Class and Culture	p. 239
Performance
The Institutional Structure of the American Musical Theater	p. 253
Orchestration and Arrangement: Creating the Broadway Sound	p. 266
Musical Theater Directors	p. 281
Sets, Costumes, Lights, and Spectacle	p. 294
Acting	p. 309
Singing	p. 320
Dance and Choreography	p. 335
Audiences
Box Office	p. 351
Audiences and Critics	p. 365
Stars and Fans	p. 378
Knowing Your Audience	p. 392
Performance, Authenticity, and the Reflexive Idealism of the American Musical	p. 408
Bibliography	p. 423
Index	p. 449
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