Identities and Audiences in the Musical

Issues of identity have always been central to the American musical in all its guises. Who appears in musicals, who or what they are meant to represent, and how, over time, those representations have been understood and interpreted, provide the very basis for our engagement with the genre. In this third volume of the reissued Oxford Handbook of the American Musical, chapters focus on race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, regional vs. national identity, and the cultural and class significance of the musical itself. As important as the question of who appears in musicals are the questions of who watches and listens to them, and of how specific cultures of reception attend differently to the musical. Chapters thus address cultural codes inherent to the genre, in particular those found in traditional school theater programs.

Raymond Knapp is Professor of Musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Mitchell Morris is Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Stacy Wolf is Professor in the Program in Theater and Director of the Princeton Atelier in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.

Introduction by Stacy Wolf
Part I. Identities
1. Race, Ethnicity, Performance
Todd Decker
2. Gender and Sexuality
Stacy Wolf
3. The Politics of Region and Nation in American Musicals
Chase A. Bringardner
4. Class and Culture
David Savran
Part II. Audiences
5. Box Office
Steven Adler
6. Audiences and Critics
Michelle Dvoskin
7. Stars and Fans
Holley Replogle-Wong
8. Knowing Your Audience
Jennifer Chapman
9. Performance, Authenticity, and the Reflexive Idealism of the American Musical
Raymond Knapp
Bibliography