Over the last hundred years, musical theatre artists - from Berlin to Rodgers and Hammerstein to Sondheim - have developed a form that corresponds directly to the Americanization of the increasingly Jewish New York audience; and that audience's aspirations and concerns have played out in the shows themselves. Musicals thus became a paradigm which instructed newcomers in how to assimilate while correspondingly envisioning "American Dream" America as democratic and inclusive. Broadway musicals still continue to function today as "cultural Ellis Islands" for fringe populations seeking acceptance into the nation's mainstream - including women, blacks, Latinos, and gays - all essentially modeled upon the Jewish example. Stuart J. Hecht offers a fascinatingexamination of the relationship between Jews, assimilation, and the changing face of the American musical.
| ISBN: | 9780230113275 |
| Publication date: | 9th November 2011 |
| Author: | Stuart Joel Hecht |
| Publisher: | Palgrave Macmillan an imprint of Palgrave Macmillan US |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 240 pages |
| Series: | Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History |
| Genres: |
Judaism Theatre studies History of Performing Arts Performing arts |