American Musicals in Context
Subtitle: From the American Revolution to the 21st Century
By: Thomas A. Greenfield
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Greenwood
Published: 2023
Place of publication: Westport, CT
Language: eng
Number of pages: 352
ISBN-13: 9798400611377
Subjects: Popular culture
Description: American Musicals in Context: From the American Revolution to the 21st Century gives students a fresh look at history-based musicals, helping readers to understand the American story through one of the country's most celebrated art forms: the musical.  With the hit musical Hamilton (2015) captivating audiences and reshaping the way early U.S. history is taught and written about, this book offers insight into an array of musicals that explore U.S. history. The work provides a synopsis, overview of critical and audience reception, and historical context and analysis for each of 20 musicals selected for the unique and illuminating way they present the American story on the stage.  Specifically, this volume explores musicals that have centered their themes, characters, and plots on some aspect of America's complex and ever-changing history. Each in its own way helps us rediscover pivotal national crises, key political decisions, defining moral choices, unspeakable and unresolved injustices, important and untold stories, defeats suffered, victories won in the face of monumental adversity, and the sacrifices borne publicly and privately in the process of creating the American narrative, one story at a time. Students will come away from the volume armed with the critical thinking skills necessary to discern fact from fiction in U.S. history.
Table of contents: title: Acknowledgments Introduction Chronology Allegiance (2012) American Idiot (2009) Atomic (2013) Ben Franklin in Paris (1964) Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (2008) The Civil War (1999) The Cradle Will Rock (1937) Dearest Enemy (1925) Falsettos (1992) Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical (1967) Hamilton: An American Musical (2015) I'd Rather Be Right (1937) Newsies (2011) Parade (1998) Ragtime (1996) Raisin (1973) The Scottsboro Boys (2010) 1776 (1969, rev. 1997) Shenandoah (1974) War Paint (2016) About the Author and Contributors Index