Lying in the Middle: Musical Theater and Belief at the Heart of America (Music in American Life)

This book theorizes and conceptualizes the Middle space musical theater maintains in America--between professional and amateur, urban and rural, fact and fiction, fantasy and reality, truth and deception. It focuses on communities in the middle of America who, for various reasons, use homegrown musicals to distance themselves from truth. Musicals grant such communities space to engage belief and religion, to flex the tension musicals maintain between reality and unreality in order to imagine worlds unlike their own. This book makes the case that musicals are a particular form of lying. Building upon anthropologist Mary Douglas’s observation that dirt is simply “matter out of place,” this book promotes what might be called prosocial lies as no less than “stories out of place.” In this moment when truth and facts have lost currency, this book suggest lies have more to offer the world than is often admitted. Whereas musicals promote lying as a means of imagining worlds unlike our own, it concludes we must first fiercely embrace and commit to the Middle space of lying in order to jolt ourselves out of the current post-truth malaise and move toward building a world that is more in line with hopes of justice, reconciliation, and community. Whatever web of deception musicals spin for Americans, this book claims we desperately need more of it and now. The local and regional shows staged throughout America use musical theater's inherent power of deception to cultivate worldviews opposed to mainstream ideas. Jake Johnson reveals how musical theater between the coasts inhabits the middle spaces between professional and amateur, urban and rural, fact and fiction, fantasy and reality, and truth and falsehood. The homegrown musical provides a space to engage belief and religion—imagining a better world while creating opportunities to expand what is possible in the current one. Whether it is the Oklahoma Senior Follies or a Mormon splinter group's production of The Sound of Music , such productions give people a chance to jolt themselves out of today's post-truth malaise and move toward a world more in line with their desires for justice, reconciliation, and community. Vibrant and strikingly original, Lying in the Middle discovers some of the most potent musical theater taking place in the hoping, beating hearts of Americans. | Cover Title Copyright Contents A Brief History of this Book 1 Stories Out of Place 2 Re-Placing the American Musical 3 Fundamentalism, Produced 4 Biblically Accurate 5 Everything Old Is New Again 6 Mezza Voce 7 The Afterlives of Truth and Musicals Notes Bibliography Index Back cover |"This book is very well written. . . . Highly recommended." — Choice "With an unlikely cast of polygamists, conservative Christians, senior citizens, and aspiring stars who end up cookie cutter performers, Johnson's polemic for and against the Broadway musical (and how all of us use it) cuts to the heart of our post-truth moment."—Todd Decker, author of Show Boat: Performing Race in an American Musical "Refreshing and eye-opening . . . Lying in the Middle is an excellent exploration of what lies behind the musical and it is meant to be." — Kansas History | Jake Johnson is an associate professor of musicology at Oklahoma City University and the author of Mormons, Musical Theater, and Belonging in America . "For many people around the world, American musical theater and Broadway are one and the same. New York City remains, in both the popular imagination and in many critical studies, the most significant place where musicals happen. However, most people consume musicals not primarily as Broadway performances but rather through an astonishingly rich variety of musical productions found in national tours, cruise ships, film and television, and theme parks, or the amateur venues of high school plays, community theater, and regional pageants. This project thus seeks to "re-place" Broadway as the exclusive site for American Musical Theater Studies by highlighting the practice of musical theater in other locations and with purposes differing from those of Times Square. This book takes the position that musical theater is a genre that cuts across social groups and demographics in a way that few other genres do. Acknowledging the important yet understudied role musicals serve in communities large and small across America, this book shifts the focus of musical theater studies away from Broadway and investigates how people make use of musicals in everyday contexts. Johnson makes the case for the social importance of many forms of musical drama in shaping religious, political, familial, and other cultural formations. In a current political climate where consumers are fixated on the perceived urban-rural divide and U.S. international relations, it seems especially important now for popular music scholars to turn critical attention to musical and dramatic practices outside of recognized institutions and explore the ways that American musical theater matters to communities far removed from Broadway"-- Provided by publisher