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Gives a truly comprehensive breadth of coverage of every aspect of
musical theatre, from its history to how it is produced to how it
is experienced. This makes for an ideal primer for any aspect of
the subject. Takes a deliberately global approach, citing at least
one non-Western case study in each chapter, in keeping with the
global outlook of much contemporary teaching and scholarship.
Musical Theatre is one of the main growth areas in Theatre and
Performance, with dedicated conservatories, departments and a core
place on all performing arts degrees.
Broadway has body issues. What is a Broadway Body? Broadway has
long preserved the ideology of the "Broadway Body": the hyper-fit,
exceptionally able, triple-threat performer who represents how
Broadway musicals favor certain kinds of bodies. Casting is always
a political act, situated within a power structure that gives
preference to the Broadway Body. In Broadway Bodies, author Ryan
Donovan explores how ability, sexuality, and size intersect with
gender, race, and ethnicity in casting and performance. To
understand these intersectional relationships, he poses a series of
questions: Why did A Chorus Line, a show that sought to individuate
dancers, inevitably make dancers indistinguishable? How does the
use of fat suits in musicals like Dreamgirls and Hairspray
stigmatize fatness? What were the political implications of casting
two straight actors as the gay couple in La Cage aux Folles in
1983? How did deaf actors change the sound of musicals in Deaf
West's Broadway revivals? Whose bodies does Broadway cast and whose
does it cast aside? In answering these questions, Broadway Bodies
tells a history of Broadway's inclusion of various forms of
embodied difference while revealing its simultaneous ambivalence
toward non-conforming bodies.
Broadway has body issues. What is a Broadway Body? Broadway has
long preserved the ideology of the "Broadway Body": the hyper-fit,
exceptionally able, triple-threat performer who represents how
Broadway musicals favor certain kinds of bodies. Casting is always
a political act, situated within a power structure that gives
preference to the Broadway Body. In Broadway Bodies, author Ryan
Donovan explores how ability, sexuality, and size intersect with
gender, race, and ethnicity in casting and performance. To
understand these intersectional relationships, he poses a series of
questions: Why did A Chorus Line, a show that sought to individuate
dancers, inevitably make dancers indistinguishable? How does the
use of fat suits in musicals like Dreamgirls and Hairspray
stigmatize fatness? What were the political implications of casting
two straight actors as the gay couple in La Cage aux Folles in
1983? How did deaf actors change the sound of musicals in Deaf
West's Broadway revivals? Whose bodies does Broadway cast and whose
does it cast aside? In answering these questions, Broadway Bodies
tells a history of Broadway's inclusion of various forms of
embodied difference while revealing its simultaneous ambivalence
toward non-conforming bodies.
Queer Approaches in Musical Theatre introduces readers to a facet
of musicals often assumed but misunderstood: how queer approaches
in musical theatre extend deeper than fabulosity. Queerness in
musicals challenges their typical heteronormativity but also
sometimes simultaneously reinforces it. Featuring four case studies
centered around musicals such as The Book of Mormon, Cabaret, Fun
Home, La Cage aux Folles and Rent, this concise study examines the
stakes of representation in the theatrical genre most often
presumed to be openly queer. Providing readers with an
understanding of the historically-shifting terminology of
queerness, this foundational book offers a brief overview of how
queer studies informs the analysis of musicals themselves, and
introduces histories of queerness in musicals as well as methods of
how to examine the historical context, text, staging and reception
of these works.
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