The Palgrave Handbook of Musical Theatre Producers

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xviii

   PDF

2. Overture

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. A Ballyhoo for Producers

      • Laura MacDonald, William A. Everett

      Pages 3-10

   3. Actors Act. Directors Direct. Producers … Produce? Mel Brooks’s The Producers and the Creation of an Archetype

      • Kathryn Edney

      Pages 11-17

3. Act 1. To the 1940s

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19

      PDF

   2. Tony Pastor: The Father of Vaudeville

      • Gillian M. Rodger

      Pages 21-28

   3. Adolf Philipp and the German American Musical Comedy

      • John Koegel

      Pages 29-37

   4. George Edwardes: The Guv’nor of Late Victorian Musical Theatre

      • William A. Everett

      Pages 39-45

   5. Charles Frohman: King of the Star-Makers

      • Brian D. Valencia

      Pages 47-57

   6. Aggressive, Beleaguered, Commercial, Defiant: Marc Klaw and Abraham Erlanger

      • Marlis Schweitzer

      Pages 59-68

   7. Did the Shuberts Save Broadway? The Corporate Producers

      • Anthony Vickery

      Pages 69-82

   8. Sam Harris: A Producing Patron of Innovation

      • Alisa Roost

      Pages 83-94

   9. Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.’s ‘Simple Idea’: Girls and Music in Tastefully Extravagant Settings

      • Todd Decker

      Pages 95-106

   10. Feather-Footed Impresario: The Scandals of George White

       • Maya Cantu

       Pages 107-118

   11. Alexander A. Aarons and Vinton Freedley: The Smart Sophisticates

       • Jennifer Ashley Tepper, William A. Everett

       Pages 119-125

   12. Coherency: Lew Fields, the Performer-Producer and Experimenter in Integration

       • Dominic Symonds

       Pages 127-135

   13. Firm Foundations: James Cassius Williamson and ‘The Firm’

       • Frank Van Straten

       Pages 137-144

   14. Japanese Women’s Popular Musicals: The Takarazuka Revue

       • Nobuko Anan

       Pages 145-150

4. Act 2. From the 1940s through the 1970s

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 151-151

      PDF

   2. Refining the Tastes of Broadway Audiences: The Theatre Guild and American Musical Theatre

      • Claudia Wilsch Case

      Pages 153-161

This handbook is the first to provide a systematic investigation of the various roles of producers in commercial and not-for-profit musical theatre. Featuring fifty-one essays written by international specialists in the field, it offers new insights into the world of musical theatre, its creation and its promotion. Key areas of investigation include the lives and works of producers whose work is part of a US and worldwide musical theatre legacy, as well as the largely critically-neglected role of the musical theatre producer in the making, marketing, and performance of musicals. Also explored are the shifting roles of producers in musical theatre and their popular portrayals, offering a reader-friendly collection for fans, scholars, students, and practitioners of musical theatre alike.

• Broadway
• West End
• theatre industry
• professional reputation
• popular portrayals
• musical comedy
• music hall
• vaudeville
• theatre traditions
• revue shows
• megamusicals
• theatre marketing
• revivals
• commercial theatre
• The Producers
• Gilbert and Sullivan
• Rodgers and Hammerstein
• Ziegfeld Follies
• Theatre Guild
• Public Theater

• School of Media and Performing Arts, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom

  Laura MacDonald

• Conservatory of Music and Dance, University of Missouri, Kansas City, USA

  William A. Everett

Laura MacDonald is Senior Lecturer in Musical Theatre at the University of Portsmouth, UK, where she teaches musical theatre, dramaturgy, and critical theory. Her articles and reviews have appeared in Studies in Musical Theatre, The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, New England Theatre Journal, Theatre Research International, the SDC Journal, Theatre Journal and Theatre Survey.

William A. Everett is Curators’ Professor of Musicology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance, USA, where he teaches courses on a variety of subjects, including musical theatre and nineteenth-century music.  He is author, editor, or co-editor of numerous books on musical theatre and various other topics.

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