From films ranging from An American in Paris and Flying Down to Rio to such Broadway landmarks as Oklahoma and West Side Story and television hits such as Cinderella and High School Musical, the American musical has thrilled audiences around the world. Now, in The Oxford Companion to the American Musical, readers have at last an engaging and authoritative reference to this highly popular genre-the only such book to cover stage, film, and television musicals in one volume. With more than two thousand entries, this book offers a wealth of information on musicals, performers, composers, lyricists, producers, choreographers, and much more. There are biographical entries on stars ranging from Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby to Mary Martin and Mae West as well as such contemporary show-stoppers as Nathan Lane, Savion Glover, and Kristin Chenowith; on composers ranging from Irving Berlin and George Gershwin to Richard Rodgers and Andrew Lloyd Webber; and on choreographers such as Bob Fosse, Tommy Tune, and Debbie Allen. The plays and films covered range from modern hits such as Mamma Mia! and Moulin Rouge to timeless classics such as Yankee Doodle Dandy and Show Boat. Also, many musicals written specifically for television are included, and many entries follow a work (such as Babes in Toyland) as it moves across genres, from stage, to film, to television. The Companion also includes cross references, a comprehensive listing of recommended recordings, and a useful chronological listing of all the musicals described in the book. Whether you are curious about Singin in the Rain or Spamalot, The Wizard of Oz or Grease, this well-researched and entertaining resource is the first place to turn for reliable information on virtually every aspect of the American musical. "Everything you ever wanted to know about the American musical-at your fingertips. What could be better, or more useful?" -Marvin Hamlisch "Kudos to Thomas Hischak for The Oxford Companion to the American Musical. Resources such as these are extremely important, not only as historic and academic records, but for future generations of artists who need to understand the legacy they have inherited." -Carol Channing

The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies offers a series of cutting-edge essays on the most important and compelling topics in the growing field of Sondheim Studies. Focusing on broad groups of issues relating to the music and the production of Sondheim works, rather than on biographical questions about the composer himself, the handbook represents a cross-disciplinary introduction to comprehending Sondheim in musicological, theatrical, and socio-cultural terms. This collection of never-before published essays addresses issues of artistic method and musico-dramaturgical form, while at the same time offering close readings of individual shows from a variety of analytical perspectives. The handbook is arranged into six broad sections: issues of intertextuality and authorship; Sondheim's pioneering work in developing the non-linear form of the concept musical; the production history of Sondheim's work; his writing for film and television; his exploitation and deployment of a wide range of musical genres; and how interpretation through key critical lenses (including sociology, history, and feminist and queer theory) establishes his position in a broader cultural context.

As the composer/lyricist for Godspell, Pippin, Wicked, and other musicals, Stephen Schwartz has enjoyed one of the most significant careers in American musical theater for more than four decades. Schwartz has also achieved success on the big screen, contributing to such films as Enchanted, The Prince of Egypt, and Pocahontas. For his work, he has received six Tony nominations, three Grammys, and three Academy Awards. The Musical Theater of Stephen Schwartz: From Godspell to Wicked and Beyond is a detailed examination of Schwartz s various projects throughout his career. Musicologist Paul R. Laird discusses at length Schwartz s major shows and also considers his other ventures, such as the music and lyrics for animated features from Disney and Dreamworks. The book focuses on two major aspects of Schwartz s creations: the process of collaboration resulting in a project s completion and a descriptive analysis of his music and lyrics. Laird also describes each show s critical reception and its place in the larger history of musical theater. Based on extensive interviews with Schwartz and a number of his major collaborators, this book provides a rare look into the creation of the composer and lyricist s shows and films. The Musical Theater of Stephen Schwartz is intended for fans as well as students and professional researchers in music, theater, and the musical theater."

The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia is the first reference volume devoted to the works of this prolific composer and lyricist. The encyclopedia's entries provide readers with detailed information about Sondheim's work and key figures in his career, including his apprenticeship with Oscar Hammerstein II, his early work with Leonard Bernstein, and his work on television. Entries include all of his major works and key songs from such musicals as Assassins, Company, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Gypsy, Into the Woods, A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd, and West Side Story. Additional entries focus on his key collaborators, from lyricists to directors.

(Vocal Selections). Now available Our deluxe songbook features piano/vocal arrangements of 14 songs by Elton John and Tim Rice from this beloved Tony -winning musical: Be Prepared * Can You Feel the Love Tonight * Chow Down * Circle of Life * Endless Night * Hakuna Matata * He Lives in You (Reprise) * I Just Can't Wait to Be King * King of Pride Rock * The Madness of King Scar * The Morning Report * Nants' Ingonyama * Shadowland * They Live in You. Includes a special section of fantastic full-color photos from the Broadway production

Today's musical theatre world rocks. Now that rock 'n' roll music and its offshoots, including pop, hard rock, rap, r&b, funk, folk, and world-pop music, are the standard language of musical theatre, theatre singers need a source of information on these styles, their origins, and their performance practices. Rock in the Musical Theatre: A Guide for Singers fills this need. Today's musical theatre training programs are now including rock music in their coursework and rock songs and musicals in their repertoires. This is a text for those trainees, courses, and productions. It will also be of great value to working professionals, teachers, music directors, and coaches less familiar with rock styles, or who want to improve their rock-related skills. The author, an experienced music director, vocal coach, and university professor, and an acknowledged expert on rock music in the theatre, examines the many aspects of performing rock music in the theatre and offers practical advice through a combination of aesthetic and theoretical study, extensive discussions of musical, vocal, and acting techniques, and chronicles of coaching sessions. The book also includes advice from working actors, casting directors, and music directors who specialize in rock music for the stage.

A shocking crime divides the nation. Fingers are pointed, sides are drawn, facts are hard to come by. Why did this happen? How do we move on? What must we remember? It's easy to have an opinion online, safe behind the anonymity of a keyboard, just like, share and subscribe. But as the digital mob polish their pitchforks, the world starts to question just how free should free speech be? The Assassination of Katie Hopkins is a smart, witty new musical by Chris Bush and Matt Winkworth about truth, celebrity and public outrage.

She said, "I became a singer because I couldn't get work as an actress," but Barbra Streisand not only became both but revolutionized the two professions. Her music transformed the smooth, uninflected style of the Frank Sinatras and Ella Fitzgeralds into an engine of dramatic vocalism in which each song is like a miniature three-act play. And Streisand's films changed forever the ideal of how a movie star chooses roles, going from musicals to dramas to comedies, from period fare to ultra-modern tales, from Funny Girl to The Way We Were to Yentl. mainstream show-business principal to deconstruct an artist On Streisand begins with a broad year-by-year outline of the landmark achievements and a few of her more whimsical escapades, as when Rex Reed apologizes for an oafish interview piece and she responds with "I had more respect for him when he hated me." This is followed by a long essay on how Streisand's idiosyncratic self-realization marks her as a unique national treasure, an artist without limits. Then comes the major part of the book, a work-by-work analysis. This section is broken down into separate chapters, each organized chronologically: the stage shows, then the television shows and concerts, then the movies, and last (because longest) the recordings. Throughout, Mordden follows Streisand's independence, which he sees as her central quality. Throughout all of the chapters on Streisand's shows, concerts, films, and recordings, Mordden illustrates how she was exercising individualistic control of her career from her very first audition, and how the rest of her professional life unfolded from that point. pioneered an intense and even passionate singing style at A book written by an opinionated expert whose prose is consistently full of flair and wit, On Streisand: An Opinionated Guide will appeal to general readers in all aspects of American life that Streisand has touched, from film to television to popular music to stardom. Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. Further, like Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson she was one of the new wave actors of the 1960s who broke away from the standard models for movie stars. But Streisand has much greater range than others of this kind, as comfortable in musical comedy as in serious drama. Thus, she has moved from the madcap roles of Hello, Dolly! and What's Up, Doc? to the tale of a young woman at war with patriarchal religious fundamentalism (in Yentl) and the insanity hearing of a prostitute who has killed (in self-defense) and whose parents want to put her away to keep her from revealing that her step-father has preyed on her sexually. Further, Streisand has directed three of her films, rare enough for an actor but perhaps especially for a woman. An American Original, Streisand is controversial as well, as all Originals are. Mediocrities may be dull, but they never get bad reviews; Streisand has irritated many a sensibility. As she herself has said, "I'm a liberal, opinionated Jewish feminist-I push a lot of buttons." There is as well the "I'm so wonderful" vanity that has haunted some of her later work, as when she records duets with the rich and famous but isolates herself from them, letting the editing of the tapes bring them together, as if she were an ice princess who might melt upon human contact. Streisand, as her own movie producer, has also been accused of recutting the director's final version to flatter her shots over those of her colleagues. And The Mirror Has Two Faces seems designed to let Streisand direct her own Cinderella tale, not unlike the old Hollywood romances in which the secretary takes off her glasses and the boss cries, "Miss Johnson!...Clarice... Why, you're... you're beautiful!" Nevertheless, Streisand has been, in all, an invigorating artist, not only unique but extraordinary. It would be impossible to imagine what American culture would have been like without her.

Cultural Writing. Music. Through manifestos, scores, interviews, notes and critical papers, contributors to this in-depth anthology address composing, playing, improvising, teaching, and thinking in and through music. Rather than attempting to distill or define musician's work, ARCANA illuminates it with personal vision and experience. "A remarkable book. Challenging and original. ARCANA is a vibrant testimony to the continuing vitality of new music. These exciting young composers are as idiosyncratic and eloquent with words as they are with music" -- Meredith Monk, composer/singer.

Everyone has heard the songs from The Sound of Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein. The stage show was a roaring success in New York and London, and the much-loved feature film, directed by Hollywood veteran Robert Wise, continues to be a staple of television schedules 50 years after its release in 1965. In this fascinating and wide-ranging book, Paul Simpson explores the incredible story of the Von Trapp family and their escape from the Third Reich in all its incarnations, from real-life adventure, to book, to stage, to award-winning film to cultural phenomenon. He discusses the stage show, the many differences that were incorporated into the fictionalisation of the tale, and how that story was brought to the screen. He also looks at the numerous other ways in which the Von Trapp's story has been told, including the two West German movies from the 1950s and the extensive forty-part Japanese anime series from the 1990s, to explain why the story of the Von Trapp family has appealed to so many generations. Praise for A Brief Guide to Stephen King: 'The best book about King and his work I have ever read' Books Monthly

There's "western", and then there's "Western" - and where history becomes myth is an evocative question, one of several questions posed by Josh Garrett-Davis in What Is a Western? Region, Genre, Imagination. Part cultural criticism, part history, and wholly entertaining, this series of essays on specific films, books, music, and other cultural texts brings a fresh perspective to long-studied topics. Under Garrett-Davis's careful observation, cultural objects such as films and literature, art and artifacts, and icons and oddities occupy the terrain of where the West as region meets the Western genre. One crucial through line in the collection is the relationship of regional "western" works to genre "Western" works, and the ways those two categories cannot be cleanly distinguished - most work about the West is tinted by the Western genre, and Westerns depend on the region for their status and power. Garrett-Davis also seeks to answer the question "What is a Western now?" To do so, he brings the Western into dialogue with other frameworks of the "imagined West" such as Indigenous perspectives, the borderlands, and environmental thinking. The book's mosaic of subject matter includes new perspectives on the classic musical film Oklahoma!, a consideration of Native activism at Standing Rock, and surprises like Pee-wee's Big Adventure and Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. The book is influenced by the borderlands theory of Gloria Anzaldua and the work of the indie rock band Calexico, as well as the author's own discipline of western cultural history. Richly illustrated, primarily from the collection of the Autry Museum of the American West, Josh Garrett-Davis's work is as visually interesting as it is enlightening, asking readers to consider the American West in new ways.

But is it a musical? This question is regularly asked of films, television shows and other media objects that sit uncomfortably in the category despite evident musical connections. Musicals at the Margins argues that instead of seeking to resolve such questions, we should leave them unanswered and unsettled, proposing that there is value in examining the unstable edges of genre. This collection explores the marginal musical in a diverse range of historical and global contexts. It encompasses a range of different forms of marginality including boundary texts (films/media that are sort of/not quite musicals), musical sequences (marginalized sequences in musicals; musical sequences in non-musicals), music films, musicals of the margins (musicals produced from social, cultural, geographical, and geopolitical margins), and musicals across media (television and new media). Ultimately these essays argue that marginal genre texts tell us a great deal about the musical specifically and genre more broadly.