Hard Times : The Adult Musical in 1970s New York City

In Hard Times , musical theater historian Elizabeth L. Wollman takes readers on a fascinating tour of the adult musical scene of New York City's rampant 1970s. After the success of Hair in 1968, the low-budget adult musical proliferated. The most famous was the long-running "Oh! Calcutta!", but countless more made it to stage: "Stag Movie," "Let My People Come," "The Faggot," and others. Structured like old-fashioned revues, with thematically interconnected songs and skits, they received little respect from critics, who either condemned them for going too far in the direction of hard-core pornography, or for not being erotic enough. The public thought otherwise, flooding the theaters and pouring cash into box-office tills. Wollman shows that adult musicals represented far more than a silly fad from a silly decade: they reflected experimentation with newfound sexual freedom, not to mention the rise of the women's and gay liberation movements. She examines the impact of the Stonewall riots on gay musicals; how feminism was reflected on stage; and how "porno chic" and hard-core porn influenced performances. Even the most middlebrow efforts brought into focus the debate between art and obscenity, and angst over New York City's socioeconomic status. By the early 1980s, as the city's economy recovered and society grew conservative, these musicals disappeared-an indicator of a larger transformation. Wollman reasserts the significance of this humble (if hardly modest) art form. Adult musicals, she shows, represented aspects of American culture at their messiest and most confused-and thus at their most honest. One legacy of the 1960s sexual revolution was the "adult" musical of the 1970s. Adult musicals distinguished themselves from other types of musicals in their reliance on strong sexual content, frequent nudity, and simulated sexual activity. Cheap to produce, adult musicals proliferated in New York's theatres at a time when the city was teetering toward bankruptcy and tourism was sharply declining. Influenced by the overwhelming success in 1968 of "Hair"--the first Broadway musical to feature nudity--as well as by a series of legal rulings about the nature of obscenity, adult musicals became faddish in part because they allowed theatre producers to attract audiences at a time of economic crisis while simultaneously slashing budgets typically allotted for scenery, props and, of course, costumes. Typically structured like old-fashioned revues, with thematically interconnected songs and skits, adult musicals like "Stag Movie," "Let My People Come," "The Faggot," and the long-running "Oh! Calcutta!" were reviled by theatre critics, who tended to dismiss them as either going too far in the direction of hard-core pornography or, conversely, of not being erotic enough. But critics, who could typically close a show with a single scathing review, were no match for the public appetite for sex and even the shows that got the worst reviews usually made money. Adult musicals disappeared almost entirely by the early 1980s, as the city's economy improved and the country grew more socio-politically conservative, and they have since been dismissed by writers and critics as a silly fad befitting a silly decade. The author finds a much richer story in adult musicals, illustrating how they both drew from and reflected aspects of American culture at a particularly tumultuous time: the country's rapidly changing sexual mores, the women's and gay liberation movements, New York City's socioeconomic status, and contemporary debates on the relationship between art and obscenity. She argues that because of their middlebrow appeal and their concentration in a city that experienced the 1970s in especially turbulent ways, adult musicals represent aspects of 1970s American culture at their messiest and most confused, and thus, perhaps, at their most honest In Hard Times, musical theater historian Elizabeth L. Wollman takes readers on a fascinating tour of the adult musical scene of New York City's rampant 1970s. After the success of Hair in 1968, the low-budget adult musical proliferated. The most famous was the long-running "Oh! Calcutta!", but countless more made it to stage: "Stag Movie," "Let My People Come," "The Faggot," and others. Structured like old-fashioned revues, with thematically interconnected songs and skits, they received little respect from critics, who either condemned them for going too far in the direction of hard-core pornography, or for not being erotic enough. The public thought otherwise, flooding the theaters and pouring cash into box-office tills. Wollman shows that adult musicals represented far more than a silly fad from a silly decade: they reflected experimentation with newfound sexual freedom, not to mention the rise of the women's and gay liberation movements. She examines the impact of the Stonewall riots on gay musicals; how feminism was reflected on stage; and how "porno chic" and hard-core porn influenced performances. Even the most middlebrow efforts brought into focus the debate between art and obscenity, and angst over New York City's socioeconomic status. By the early 1980s, as the city's economy recovered and society grew conservative, these musicals disappeared-an indicator of a larger transformation. Wollman reasserts the significance of this humble (if hardly modest) art form. Adult musicals, she shows, represented aspects of American culture at their messiest and most confused-and thus at their most honest. -- Book jacket One legacy of the 1960s sexual revolution was the “adult” musical of the 1970s. Influenced by the overwhelming success in 1968 of Hair , as well as by a series of rulings on the nature of obscenity, adult musicals proliferated in New York's theaters at a time when the city was teetering toward bankruptcy and tourism was on the decline. Typically structured like old-fashioned revues, shows like Let My People Come, The Faggot , and the long-running Oh! Calcutta! relied on nudity and simulated sex to attract audiences. Adult musicals disappeared almost entirely by the early 1980s, as the city's economy improved and the country grew more socially conservative; they have since been largely dismissed as a silly fad befitting a silly decade. Yet adult musicals reflect aspects of 1970s American culture at their messiest and thus at their most honest. Specifically, they emulate the country's rapidly changing, often contradictory attitudes about gender and sexuality at a time when the sexual revolution had given way to the gay and women's liberation movements. Hard Times examines adult musicals as reflective of the socioeconomic mood of New York City in the 1970s, the socio-sexual mores of the country in the decade following the sexual revolution, and contemporary debates about obscenity and art Frontmatter Acknowledgments (page ix) About the Companion Website, www.oup.com/us/hardtimes (page xi) Introduction (page 1) 1. Burlesque, Off Off Broadway, and the Birth of the Adult Musical (page 11) 2. The Birth of Modern Gay Theater and the Subtext of Company (page 39) 3. The Post-Stonewall (and Post-Company) Gay Musical (page 52) 4. The Adult Musical Meets Second-Wave Feminism: Mod Donna (page 88) 5. Not-So-Angry Feminist Musicals (page 109) 6. Obscenity, "Porno Chic," and Let My People Come (page 130) 7. Hell Freezes Over: The Hard-Core Musical on Stage and Screen (page 153) 8. Applying Contemporary Community Standards: Is It Obscene, or Merely Lewd? (page 177) 9. New York's Financial Crisis and the Adult Musical on Broadway (page 192) Conclusion (page 219) Notes (page 233) Bibliography (page 243) Index (page 255) This book tells the story of the adult musical in 1970s New York City. Featuring strong sexual content, frequent nudity, and simulated sexual activity, adult musicals were cheap to produce, and even the ones that got the most scathing reviews usually made money. Author Elizabeth Wollman illustrates how they both drew from and reflected aspects of American culture at a particularly tumultuous time.