Browsing by Subject "Broadway"

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Broadway Junior : musical theatre for youth performers
(2016-05) Streeter, Joshua Rashon; Schroeder-Arce, Roxanne; Wolf, Stacy
This MFA thesis identifies the junior musical as an umbrella term for commercial American musical theatre adapted for youth performers and explores the value of these adaptations in schools. Interviews and survey responses comprise this qualitative study that examines interest in and opportunities created by Broadway Jr., a specific musical theatre program for middle school students. Through an analysis of current practices and statistics in performance and education, this thesis positions the Broadway Jr. program as an educational theatre model that flexibly responds to the needs of the particular schools and communities it serves. Findings invite practitioners and scholars to consider what comprises quality musical theatre education for young people in schools in the twenty-first century.
Making the invisible visible : black women, Broadway, and post-blackness
(2014-05) Jackson, Kristen Bailey; Thompson, Lisa B., 1965-
Prior to the fall of 2011, only eight African American female playwrights had ever been produced on Broadway. In this context, the 2011-2012 Broadway season made theatre history when it featured the work of three black women playwrights: Stick Fly by Lydia Diamond, The Mountaintop by Katori Hall and an adaptation of The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess by Suzan-Lori Parks. This project, which focuses on Diamond’s Stick Fly and Hall’s The Mountaintop as Broadway debuts of new plays, seeks to situate these works within a post-black aesthetic that rejects narrow and limiting constructions of blackness. This project also recognizes the significance of Diamond and Hall as female African American playwrights whose texts allow for complex representations of black womanhood, and proposes that the relationship between post-blackness and black feminism is fluid and permeable, allowing us to better understand both the meanings of blackness and the experiences of black women.
The theatre of adaptation : cross-industrial exchange in postwar American culture
(2023-12) Hanson, Britta Marie; Schatz, Thomas, 1948-; Berg, Charles; Atwood, Blake; Fuller, Kathryn
The American theatre, film, and television industries were inextricably linked in the years following World War II. From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, the three industries were in constant collaboration, with the New York theatre community (a.k.a. Broadway) constantly selling the adaptation rights for its popular plays to the Hollywood studios and the young television networks, and (to a lesser extent) vice versa. This vibrant system of cross-industrial exchange caused all three industries to bloom both financially and artistically. The screen industries were desperate for content: particularly content with proven profitability in other mediums. By adapting successful Intellectual Property (IP) from Broadway as well as other sources, the television and film industries leveraged the prestige of “highbrow” culture and secured their own bottom line. In addition to doing its own share of adaptation, Broadway’s increased revenue from adaptation rights provided a much needed boost during a sudden and extended hike in its production costs. Thus, this system of cross-industrial exchange benefited all three of the involved industries. To prove these points, this dissertation will apply the legal concept of IP to this historical moment, demonstrating how that framework can more clearly illuminate the near-infinite ways in which industries exchange, reuse, and recycle content among themselves.