Transposing Broadway: Jews, Assimilation, and the American Musical [Hardcover]

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.Introduction: Broadway as a Cultural Ellis Island?? Hello, Young Lovers: Assimilation and Dramatic Configurations?? The Melting Pot Paradigm of Irving Berlin?? How to Succeed?? Cinderellas?? Turns of the Century: Dreams of Progress, Dreams of Loss?? Fiddler's Children? Epilogue:?Loveable Monsters

Acknowledging the important role of Jews in developing the twentieth-century Broadway musical, Hecht argues that Jews shaped the musical 'to represent their grappling with the promise of the American Dream.' Summing Up: Recommended. Large collections supporting work by upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers, and professionals - CHOICE

Hecht's work is thorough and entertaining. If the play's the thing, then, like the stage director he is, Hecht brings just the right light and sound to illuminate and amplify the actors and their scripts, bringing us deeply into the work of great composers and lyricists who were the geniuses of the Broadway stage. To open the pages of this book is to raise the curtain for an important story, delightfully presented, which will leave the readerlƒ+