Musical Theater and American Culture
Editorial Reviews
Review
“[U]seful in collections serving beginning undergraduates and general readers.”–
“[A] must read for the musical theater scholar, hitherto starved of academically oriented musical theater texts, and both are useful for the theater and/or musical theater history professor, as they explore the niche the musical carved for itself in the larger context of American culture and popular entertainment....Provides a solid foundation for the scholarly study of the American musical.”–
“[i]t is a book to love, because Walsh himself loves and believes in American musicals for the best of reasons, that in establishing themselves in the third and fourth decades of the 20th century they 'prevented an avant-garde pretentiousness [and] made for a vernacular American theater that both reflected and was reflexive upon contemporary American society'”–
Book Description
Though there have been many histories of the theater and specifically the theatrical musical, none has done quite what this book achieves: it explores how the musical emerged in the late-18th and 19th centuries as a specifically American form of entertainment and went on to become a powerful medium of popular and political collective expression, articulating the tensions and reconciliations of everyday relations between individuals and society. Intimately related to the forging of social, cultural, and political American identities, the musical--often dismissed as "merely" entertainment--is tied inextricably to America's sense of itself as a New World, a land of opportunity, and above all, the emblem of modern culture. Including material on genres ranging from minstrel shows to melodrama to the development of the contemporary book musical and the "megamusical," the book delves into such important shows as Anything Goes, West Side Story, Evita, and Rent. It represents the first sustained analysis of this medium as a social and political vehicle.
Musical Theater and American Culture
Musical Theater and American Culture,Dave Walsh,Len Platt,Praeger Publishers,027598057X,Musicals,Performing Arts,Performing Arts/Dance,Popular Culture - General,Social aspects,Theater - General,United States,Performing Arts / Theater / General
Musical Theater and American Culture
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