Study of American musicals, focusing on the period from Show Boat to Sondheim with attention to poetics, aesthetics, and politics. Topics include: the dramaturgical use of music and orchestration; the origins of musical theatre in burlesque, minstrelsy, and operetta; the centrality of gender, race, sexuality, and national identity to the genre; the relationship of stage to film; and the transformations of the genre by Rodgers & Hammerstein and Sondheim. There is no performance requirement and students do not need to be able to sing or dance.
Department of Music