Transposing Broadway: Jews, Assimilation, and the American Musical (Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History)

Hecht examines the relationship between Jewish assimilation and the changing face of the American musical though the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. 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 Front Matter....Pages i-vii Introduction: Broadway as a Cultural Ellis Island....Pages 1-13 Hello, Young Lovers: Assimilation and Dramatic Configurations in the American Musical....Pages 15-39 The Melting Pot Paradigm of Irving Berlin....Pages 41-59 How to Succeed....Pages 61-102 Cinderellas....Pages 103-129 Turns of the Century: Dreams of Progress, Dreams of Loss....Pages 131-177 Fiddler’s Children....Pages 179-200 Lovable Monsters: An Epilogue....Pages 201-204 Back Matter....Pages 205-240