Beginning from the passion musical theatre performances arouse and their ubiquity in London's West End and on Broadway this book explores the ways in which musical theatre reaches out to and involves its audiences. It investigates how pleasure is stimulated by vocal, musical and spectacular performances. Early discussions centre on the construction of the composed text, but then attention is given to performance and audience response. In doing this, the book challenges the conception of musical theatre as 'only entertainment'.
What is it about musical theatre that audiences find entertaining? What are the features that lead to its ability to stimulate emotional attachment, to move and to give pleasure? Beginning from the passion musical theatre performances arouse and their ubiquity in London's West End and on Broadway this book explores the ways in which musical theatre reaches out to and involves its audiences. It investigates how pleasure is stimulated by vocal, musical and spectacular performances. Early discussions centre on the construction of the composed text, but then attention is given to performance and audience response. Musical theatre contains disruptions and dissonances in its multiple texts, it allows gaps for audiences to read playfully. This combines with the voluptuous sensations of embodied emotion, contagiously and viscerally shared between audience and stage, and augmented through the presence of voice and music. A number of features are discovered in the construction of musical theatre performance texts that allow them to engage the intense emotional attachment of their audiences and so achieve enormous popularity. In doing this, the book challenges the conception of musical theatre as 'only entertainment'. Entertainment instead becomes a desirable, ephemeral and playful concept.
Gestures of Music Theater explores examples of Song and Dance as performative gestures that entertain and affect audiences. The chapters interact to reveal the complex energies of performativity. In experiencing these energies, music theatre is revealed as a dynamic accretion of active, complex and dialogical experiences.
This lively textbook provides a comprehensive overview of the history, theory and practice of this popular theatre form. Bringing critical theory and musical theatre together, Millie Taylor and Dominic Symonds explore the musical stage from a broad range of theoretical perspectives. Part 1 focuses on the way we understand musicals as texts and Part 2 then looks at how musical theatre negotiates its position in the wider world. Part 3 recognises the affiliations of various communities with the musical stage, and finally part 4 unravels the musical's relationship with time, space, intertextuality and entertainment. Written by leading experts in Musical Theatre and Drama, Taylor and Symonds utilise their wealth of knowledge to engage and educate the reader on this diverse subject. With its accessible and extensive content, this text is the ideal accompaniment to any study of musical theatre internationally: an essential tool for students of all levels, lecturers, practitioners and enthusiasts alike.
The Oxford Handbook of The American Musical offers new and cutting-edge essays on the most important and compelling issues and topics in the growing, interdisciplinary field of musical-theater and film-musical studies. Taking the form of a "keywords" book, it introduces readers to the concepts and terms that define the history of the musical as a genre and that offer ways to reflect on the specific creative choices that shape musicals and their performance on stage and screen. The handbook offers a cross-section of essays written by leading experts in the field, organized within broad conceptual groups, which together capture the breadth, direction, and tone of musicals studies today. Each essay traces the genealogy of the term or issue it addresses, including related issues and controversies, positions and problematizes those issues within larger bodies of scholarship, and provides specific examples drawn from shows and films. Essays both re-examine traditional topics and introduce underexplored areas. Reflecting the concerns of scholars and students alike, the authors emphasize critical and accessible perspectives, and supplement theory with concrete examples that may be accessed through links to the handbook's website. Taking into account issues of composition, performance, and reception, the book's contributors bring a wide range of practical and theoretical perspectives to bear on their considerations of one of America's most lively, enduring artistic traditions. The Oxford Handbook of The American Musical will engage all readers interested in the form, from students to scholars to fans and aficionados, as it analyses the complex relationships among the creators, performers, and audiences who sustain the genre.
What do we mean by entertainment? How does this concept relate to theatre? Should theatre be for pleasure or instruction? Can it not be both? In this stimulating book, Jim Davis examines the relationship between theatre and entertainment by assessing audience reception, political theatre and melodrama. He explores definitions of entertainment, arguing that it can be found embedded in all forms of theatre, not just the 'popular'. Davis concludes with a review of contemporary perspectives on the topic and questions the limits of entertainment in theatrical performance.
“Makes new sense of aspects of popular culture we have all grown up with and thought we knew only too well. Most bridges religious studies and theater, political theory and American studies, high criticism and middlebrow performance. Her book will help us see better how Jews and their Jewishness did not merely ‘enter’ American popular culture, but did so much to invent it.”—Jonathan Boyarin Leonard and Tobee Kaplan Distinguished Professor of Modern Jewish Thought, University of North Carolina For centuries, Jews were one of the few European cultures without any official public theatrical tradition. Yet in the modern era, Jews were among the most important creators of popular theater and film–especially in America. Why? In Theatrical Liberalism, Andrea Most illustrates how American Jews used the theatre and other media to navigate their encounters with modern culture, politics, religion, and identity, negotiating a position for themselves within and alongside Protestant American liberalism by reimagining key aspects of traditional Judaism as theatrical. Discussing works as diverse as the Hebrew Bible, The Jazz Singer, and Death of a Salesman—among many others—Most situates American popular culture in the multiple religious traditions that informed the worldviews of its practitioners. Offering a comprehensive history of the role of Judaism in the creation of American entertainment, Theatrical Liberalism re-examines the distinction between the secular and the religious in both Jewish and American contexts, providing a new way of understanding Jewish liberalism and its place in a pluralist society. With extensive scholarship and compelling evidence, Theatrical Liberalism shows how the Jewish worldview that permeates American culture has reached far beyond the Jews who created it.
How dull plays are killing theatre and what we can do about it. Had I become disenchanted with the form I had once fallen so madly in love with as a pubescent, pimple-faced suburban homo with braces? Maybe theatre was like an all-consuming high school infatuation that now, ten years later, I saw as the closeted balding guy with a beer gut he’d become. There were of course those rare moments of transcendencethat kept me coming back. But why did they come so few and far between? A lot of plays are dull. And one dull play, it seems, can turn us off theatre for good. Playwright and theatre director Jordan Tannahill takes in the spectrum of English-language drama – from the flashiest of Broadway spectacles to productions mounted in scrappy storefront theatres – to consider where lifeless plays come from and why they persist. Having travelled the globe talking to theatre artists, critics, passionate patrons and the theatrically disillusioned, Tannahill addresses what he considers the culture of ‘risk aversion’ paralyzing the form. Theatre of the Unimpressed is Tannahill’s wry and revelatory personal reckoning with the discipline he’s dedicated his life to, and a roadmap for a vital twenty-first-century theatre – one that apprehends the value of ‘liveness’ in our mediated age and the necessity for artistic risk and its attendant failures. In considering dramaturgy, programming and alternative models for producing, Tannahill aims to turn theatre from an obligation to a destination. ‘[Tannahill is] the poster child of a new generation of (theatre? film? dance?) artists for whom "interdisciplinary" is not a buzzword, but a way of life.’ —J. Kelly Nestruck, Globe and Mail ‘Jordan is one of the most talented and exciting playwrights in the country, and he will be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.’ —Nicolas Billon, Governor General's Award–winning playwright (Fault Lines)
Musical Theatre Education and Training in the 21st Century presents a wide range of viewpoints on the musical theatre profession. It brings together research from the UK, US, Australia, and beyond, providing an essential resource for educators, students, and all those involved in training for musical theatre. The research draws on best practice from creatives, producers, practising artists, and the academy to reveal a multiplicity of approaches and educational pathways for consideration by performers, educators, institutions, and the profession. The book goes beyond the key elements of performance training in singing, dancing, and acting to explore adjacent creative and business skills, along with some of the more recent and challenging aspects of the profession such as diversity of representation both on and off stage, building safe working environments, and managing mental and physical health and wellbeing. The authors incorporate information from over 100 interviews with everyone from emerging performers to leading professionals, and explore the practicalities of pre-professional training, skills development, and curricular design, alongside the broader attributes required in preparation for the profession. This book offers vital insights into how musical theatre practitioners can best be prepared to make their way in the field now and in the future.
Acting in Musical Theatre remains the only complete course in approaching a role in a musical. It covers fundamental skills for novice actors, practical insights for professionals, and even tips to help veteran musical performers refine their craft. Updates in this expanded and revised second edition include: A brand new companion website for students and teachers, including Powerpoint lecture slides, sample syllabi, and checklists for projects and exercises. Learning outcomes for each chapter to guide teachers and students through the book’s core ideas and lessons New style overviews for pop and jukebox musicals Extensive updated professional insights from field testing with students, young professionals, and industry showcases Full-colour production images, bringing each chapter to life Acting in Musical Theatre’s chapters divide into easy-to-reference units, each containing group and solo exercises, making it the definitive textbook for students and practitioners alike.
