The Great White Way : Race and the Broadway Musical / Warren Hoffman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hoffman, Warren, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Music and race.

Music theater--Political aspects--United States--History--20th century.

Music theater.

Music theater--Political aspects--United States--History--21st century.

Music theater--Social aspects--United States--History--20th century.

Music theater--Social aspects--United States--History--21st century.

Race in musical theater.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (302 p.) : 20 b&w images

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press, [2020]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Broadway musicals are one of America’s most beloved art forms and play to millions of people each year. But what do these shows, which are often thought to be just frothy entertainment, really have to say about our country and who we are as a nation? Now in a new second edition, The Great White Way is the first book to reveal the racial politics, content, and subtexts that have haunted musicals for almost one hundred years from Show Boat (1927) to Hamilton (2015). This revised edition includes a new introduction and conclusion, updated chapters, as well as a brand-new chapter that looks at the blockbuster musicals The Book of Mormon and Hamilton. Musicals mirror their time periods and reflect the political and social issues of their day. Warren Hoffman investigates the thematic content of the Broadway musical and considers how musicals work on a structural level, allowing them to simultaneously present and hide their racial agendas in plain view of their audiences. While the musical is informed by the cultural contributions of African Americans and Jewish immigrants, Hoffman argues that ultimately the history of the American musical is the history of white identity in the United States. Presented chronologically, The Great White Way shows how perceptions of race altered over time and how musicals dealt with those changes. Hoffman focuses first on shows leading up to and comprising the Golden Age of Broadway (1927–1960s), then turns his attention to the revivals and nostalgic vehicles that defined the final quarter of the twentieth century. He offers entirely new and surprising takes on shows from the American musical canon—Show Boat (1927), Oklahoma! (1943), Annie Get Your Gun (1946), The Music Man (1957), West Side Story (1957), A Chorus Line (1975), and 42nd Street (1980), among others. In addition to a new chapter on Hamilton and The Book of Mormon, this revised edition brings The Great White Way fully into the twenty-first century with an examination of jukebox musicals and the role of off-Broadway and regional theaters in the development of the American musical. New archival research on the creators who produced and wrote these shows, including Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Stephen Sondheim, and Edward Kleban, will have theater fans and scholars rethinking forever how they view this popular American entertainment.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface to the Second Edition

Overture All Singin’! All Dancin’! All White People?

ACT ONE 1927–1957

1 Only Make Believe: Performing Race in Show Boat

2 Playing Cowboys and Indians: Forging Whiteness in Oklahoma! and Annie Get Your Gun

3 Trouble in New York City: The Racial Politics of West Side Story and The Music Man

ACT TWO 1967–2019

4 Carbon Copies: Black and Interracial Productions of White Musicals

5 A Chorus Line: The Benetton of Broadway Musicals

6 Everything Old Is New Again: Nostalgia and the Broadway Musical at the End of the Twentieth Century

7 Blockbuster Musicals in the Age of Obama: The Book of Mormon and Hamilton

Exit Music

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Permissions

Index

About the Author

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Aug 2024)

ISBN:

9781978807389

1978807384