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Showtime brings the history of Broadway musicals to life in a narrative as engaging as the subject itself. Beginning with the scandalous Astor Place Opera House riot of 1849, Larry Stempel traces the growth of musicals from minstrel shows and burlesques, through the golden age of Show Boat and Oklahoma!, to such groundbreaking works as Company and Rent.
Stempel describes the Broadway stage with vivid accounts of the performers drawn to it, and detailed portraits of the creators who wrote the music, lyrics, and stories for its shows, both beloved and less well known. But Stempel travels outside the theater doors as well, to illuminate the wider world of musical theater as a living genre shaped by the forces of American history and culture. He reveals not only how musicals entertain their audiences but also how they serve as barometers of social concerns and bearers of cultural values.
Showtime is the culmination of decades of painstaking research on a genre whose forms have changed over the course of two centuries. In covering the expansive subject before him, Stempel combines original research—including a kaleidoscope of primary sources and archival holdings—with deft and insightful analysis. The result is nothing short of the most comprehensive, authoritative history of the Broadway musical yet published.
''Not just a catalog or reference book, but a highly astute, integrative cultural history.'' -Kirkus Reviews
''Throughout, as Stempel traces the evolution with exhaustive archival research, he offers a penetrating and illuminating analysis of various musical forms and influences. Many of the 105 carefully selected black-and-white illustrations are surprising and revelatory. Theater buffs will be delighted to find that this scholarly, definitive work is also a hugely entertaining read.'' -Publishers Weekly
Illustrations | p. xi |
Preface | p. xv |
Introduction: Before The Curtain | p. 1 |
Out Of The Nineteenth Century | |
Transition Stages | p. 19 |
The Astor Place Riot | p. 27 |
Uncle Tom's Cabin, the Musical | p. 35 |
The Black Crook | p. 42 |
Variety Stages | p. 53 |
From Minstrelsy to Vaudeville | p. 56 |
Harrigan and Hart | p. 68 |
Weber and Fields | p. 77 |
Williams and Walker | p. 85 |
A Transatlantic Muse | p. 95 |
Operetta: The Golden Age | p. 98 |
Light Opera in America | p. 105 |
American Light Opera | p. 116 |
Into The Twentieth Century | |
The Native Wit | p. 131 |
Cohan and Times Square | p. 137 |
Berlin and Tin Pan Alley | p. 144 |
Bolton-Wodehouse-Kern: The Princess Theater | p. 159 |
The Cult Of Romance | p. 169 |
Operetta: The Silver Age | p. 174 |
Romberg and Friml | p. 180 |
Show Boat | p. 192 |
A Shadow Of Vulgarity | p. 203 |
Revues: Spectacular and Intimate | p. 208 |
Musical Comedy/Musical Farce Comedy | p. 222 |
Jazz-Age "Jazz" | p. 228 |
Broadway Songbook | p. 241 |
The Gershwins | p. 250 |
Cole Porter | p. 263 |
Rodgers and Hart | p. 275 |
The Script Angle | p. 289 |
A Musical Play | p. 293 |
Oklahomal: The Musical Play | p. 300 |
Literate Musical Comedy | p. 312 |
Musical Theater: The New Art | p. 329 |
Rodgers and Hammerstein | p. 334 |
Lerner and Loewe | p. 348 |
Harnick and Bock | p. 357 |
Opera, In Our Own Way | p. 367 |
Opera on Broadway | p. 374 |
Broadway Opera | p. 385 |
West Side Story | p. 397 |
The Great American Showshop | p. 409 |
The Abbott Touch | p. 419 |
Harburg's Circle | p. 425 |
A Loesser Orbit | p. 433 |
Comden and Green-and Styne | p. 445 |
Toward The New Millennium | |
Away From Broadway | p. 459 |
Early Alternative Musicals | p. 465 |
The Off Broadway Renaissance | p. 480 |
Farther "Off" and Coming Back | p. 497 |
The Metaphor Angle | p. 515 |
Cabaret and the Concept Musical | p. 522 |
Prince, Sondheim & Co. | p. 531 |
Sondheim After Prince | p. 543 |
A Dancing Place | p. 557 |
The Ballet-Directors: De Mille and Robbins | p. 564 |
The Hoofer-Directors: Champion and Fosse | p. 573 |
A Chorus Line and After | p. 585 |
Distancing Effects | p. 601 |
Rice, Lloyd Webber, and Rock Opera | p. 607 |
Mackintosh and the Megamusical | p. 617 |
Disney and the Movical | p. 629 |
Another Broadway... Another Show... | p. 643 |
Revivals | p. 645 |
Antimusicals | p. 656 |
Sondheim's Children | p. 668 |
Notes | p. 687 |
Works Cited | p. 745 |
Selected Historical Discography | p. 783 |
Credits | p. 787 |
Index | p. 795 |
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
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