Broadway bodies : a critical history, 1970-2020 / Ryan Donovan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Donovan, Ryan, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Musicals--Casting.

Musicals.

Musicals--Auditions.

Physical-appearance-based bias.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (337 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023]

Summary:

Broadway Bodies offers a new telling of Broadway history, exploring how ability, sexuality, and size intersect with gender, race, and ethnicity in casting and performance. Author Ryan Donovan unpacks Broadway's inclusion of various forms of embodied difference while exposing its simultaneous ambivalence toward non-conforming bodies.

"The Broadway Body. I lied about my height on my résumé the entire time I was a dancer, though in truth I don't think the extra inch ever actually made a difference. In the US, 5'6" still reads as short for a man no matter how you slice it. The reason for my deception was that height was often the reason I was disqualified: choreographers often wanted taller male dancers for the ensemble and listed a minimum height requirement (often 5'11" and up) in the casting breakdown. Being disqualified before I could even set foot in the audition because I possessed an unchangeable physical characteristic that often made me unemployable in the industry. I was learning an object lesson in Broadway's body politics-and, of course, had I not been a white cisgender nondisabled man, the barriers to employment would have been compounded even further. I wasn't alone in feeling caught in a catch-22. Not being cast because of your appearance, or "type" in industry lingo, is casting's status quo. The casting process openly discriminates based upon appearance. This truism even made its way into a song cut from A Chorus Line (1975) called "Broadway Boogie Woogie," which comically lists all of the reasons one might not be cast: "I'm much too tall, much too short, much too thin/Much too fat, much too young for the role/I sing too high, sing too low, sing too loud." Funny Girl (1964) put it even more bluntly: "If a Girl Isn't Pretty/Like a Miss Atlantic City/She should dump the stage/And try another route"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover Page

Half Title

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

Companion Website

Introduction: The Broadway Body

1. "I Saw What They Were Hiring": Casting and Recasting A Chorus Line

2. Dreamgirls, Size, and the Body Politics of Padding

3. "Must Be Heavyset": Casting Fat Women in Broadway Musicals

4. La Cage aux Folles and Playing Gay

5. "Keeping It Gay" on The Great White Way

6. Deaf West's Awakening of Broadway

7. Musicals, Physical Difference, and Disability

Epilogue: Recasting Broadway

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Donovan, Ryan. Broadway bodies

ISBN:

0-19-755111-4

0-19-755109-2