The American Musical

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• The trajectory that brought the musical from the stage to the movie set and the reciprocal influences of these two media
• The ways in which the musical articulated contemporary political, social, economic and cultural issues
• The main musical, verbal, dramatic, and visual components of the Broadway and movie musical

A series of topics will be presented over the semester. Each topic examines a phase in the development of the genre of the American musical and addresses the broader social and cultural contexts in which specific works were created. Examples of questions/issues that may be explored include:

• Questions of genre: how does the American musical relate to opera and operetta and how is this question articulated within the genre itself?
• From literature to the stage: the relationship between the American musical and its literary sources.
• Questions of race and ethnicity: how does the American musical engage with questions of race and ethnicity, and how does the engagement with race and ethnicity make the American musical a unique genre?

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include:

• Lectures
• Discussion
• Sharing of ideas and materials via Blackboard and other electronic resources

Learning activities include:

• A wide range of reading
• Study of selected audio and video recordings
• Individual research
• Use of online resources

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Stempel, Larry. Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theater. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company.

Noonan, Ellen (2012). The strange career of Porgy and Bess: Race, Culture, and America's Most Famous Opera. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Porter, Susan L (1991). With an air debonair: Musical Theatre in America 1785-1815. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Smith, Helen (2011). There’s a Place for Us: The Musical Theatre Works of Leonard Bernstein. Burlinghton: Ashgate.

Carter, Tim (2007). “Oklahoma!” The Making of an American Musical. New Haven and London: Yale.

Bordman, Gerald (1981). American Operetta: from H.M.S. Pinafore to Sweeney Todd. New York: Oxford U.P..

Knapp, Raymond (2006). The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Most, Andrea (2004). Making Americans: Jews and the Broadway Musical. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Wolf, Stacy (2011). Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Knapp, Raymond (2005). The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Block, Geoffrey (1997). Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway Musical from “Show Boat” to Sondheim. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lovensheimer, Jim (2010). South Pacific: Paradise Rewritten. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External