WRITING
Funny How It Ain’t So Funny: Casting, Funny Girl, and Broadway’s Body Issues | OUP Blog
Sometimes the meeting of an actor and a role produces a rare kind of alchemy that forever bonds the two… and sometimes the opposite happens. The former occurred when twenty-one-year-old Barbra Streisand was cast as famed comedienne Fanny Brice in the 1964 musical Funny Girl. The latter happened when Beanie Feldstein was cast as Brice in the 2022 Broadway revival of Funny Girl, which rather auspiciously opened on Streisand’s 80th birthday. Critics in 1964—and in 2022—hailed Streisand as Brice; her performance was the stuff of legend in a way that few match.
“The Joy Is in the Work”: Ann Reinking’s Unsung Legacy as a Teacher | Dance Teacher Now
Ann Reinking's performance career has rightfully been lauded and appraised since her sudden passing on December 12 at age 71. Largely left unsung has been another crucial aspect of her life's work: her devotion to teaching.
Her legacy as a dance educator has received comparatively little recognition, perhaps because she trained many of us who became chorus dancers but not stars. Along with thousands of other non–bold-faced names, Reinking was my teacher.
Re-membering the Canon: Sam Gold’s The Glass Menagerie | Howlround
What is at stake when disability in the text doesn’t match disability in the actor’s body? This is the question that came to mind after seeing the 2017 Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie and then reading the critical responses to it. Though Menagerie remains one of theatre’s most famous memory plays, many critics had trouble with the re-membering (some would argue dis-membering) of Sam Gold’s production and revealed themselves to be more comfortable with the playwright’s incorporation of disability than the director’s.
“Must Be Heavyset”: Casting Women, Fat Stigma, and Broadway Bodies | Journal of American Drama and Theatre
The casting of Broadway musicals reproduces aesthetic values from the dominant culture, especially the notion that thin bodies—ones that conform to these values—are superior to other bodies, especially fat ones. The aesthetic values placed on bodies are gendered, especially relative to size. Apart from a few roles (including Hairspray’s Tracy Turnblad), fat women are almost never cast in roles beyond the comedic sidekick or best friend in commercial theatre. Musicals embody how and where Broadway (and, by extension, U.S. society) expects fat women to sound, to move, to behave, and to labor; class, gender, race, and sexuality further impact these expectations.
Style as Star: Bob Fosse and Sixty Seconds That Changed Broadway | The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical
Pippin (1972) made Broadway history when it became the first Broadway musical to use a filmed live performance in its television commercial. In this essay, I trace the evolution of marketing Bob Fosse’s musicals prior to Pippin, and argue that Pippin’s commercial cannily sold Fosse’s style as the real star of the musical. Fosse made style substantive—and profitable.
Studies in Musical Theatre Special Issue: Musical Theatre Dance
Joanna Dee Das (Washington University in St. Louis) and I guest edited this special issue of Studies in Musical Theatre, the first academic journal to devote an entire issue to dance and musical theatre. Articles address a broad array of topics including the politics of transnational transmission, the role of the auteur, and dance and prosthesis.
Acts of Recognition: Gesture and National Identity in Agnes de Mille's “Civil War Ballet” | Studies in Musical Theatre
Through both her dances and writings Agnes de Mille explored what it means to be American. I argue that, in addition to the explicitly Americana-themed material de Mille chose, her choreography performs national identity through its use of gesture informed by de Mille’s interest in folk dance and the collective unconscious. When looking at much of de Mille’s choreography, one is visually struck by its Americanness. It is this act of recognition that begins this enquiry: how does one see de Mille’s choreography and recognize its intrinsic Americanness? How did de Mille’s choreographic process allow for the expression of national identity through gesture?