Musical Theatre Studies

Oxford Conference on Fred Astaire

April 25th, 2008

Oxford is hosting a conference “devoted to an examination of Astaire’s life and legacy” from June 21 to 24, 2008. Read more hereкомпютри втора употреба.

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Published Proceedings on Music Theatre

March 29th, 2008

Michael Garber sends the following:

The complete published proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference on the Arts and Humanities are available for free on-line in a downloadable pdf format, here.

The papers published by this interdisciplinary conference offer a valuable resource to researchers of all levels. Among these five-to-ten thousand page documents are several interesting complete papers on musicals (as well as some short abstracts).
Complete papers, in chronological order, include:

James Gifford. “Introducing Creativity and the Arts into a New Technology-Centered Curriculum: A Report on a Work in Progress.” 2004 Proceedings. (Includes a discussion of using West Side Story as part of this technology-centered curriculum for a new degree program in Web and Media Development.)
Eleanor M. Johnston. “’Amor Vincit Omnia’: Love in Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Life and Works.” 2004 Proceedings. (A well-focused biographical essay about this composer of film scores, opera, and operetta.)
Laura Hanson. “The First Modernist Musical: Sondheim’s Company.” 2005 Proceedings. (An analysis of this musical’s relationship to preceding Broadway theatre and modernist art movements.)
Timothy P. Kinsella. “Strike Up the Band: War, Satire, Art, and Praxis.” 2005 Proceedings. (A history and analysis of the Gershwin brothers’ 1930 Broadway musical.)
Candace Pfefferkorn. “America’s Transformation from Vaudeville Theater to Movie House: The Mass Dissemination of Movie Sound Technology.” 2006 Proceedings. (This historical account of the coming of Vitaphone extensively discusses the 1927 movie of The Jazz Singer.)
Ronald N. Bukoff. “’Here Am I, Your Special Island’: Pan-Asia on the Western Musical Stage.” 2007 Proceedings. (A survey and analysis of images of Asia and Polynesia in American, British, German, and Hungarian musical theatre.)
Lisa Campbell Albert, Christine Knoblauch-O’Neal, and Annamaria Pileggi. “Musical Theatre as Liberal Inquiry: The Pathway to Craft.” 2007 Proceedings. (Describes in some detail their approach to teaching musical theatre craftsmanship within a liberal arts context.)
David Goldblatt. “The Spiritual Violist: The Use of Improvisatory Viola in Jewish and Christian Liturgical Contexts.” 2007 Proceedings.( Discusses Fiddler on the Roof in a sub-section called “The Jewish Connection to Stringed Instruments: A Powerfully Socially Constructed Image.”)
Laura Hanson. “’I Could Have Danced All Night’: The Choreographic Scenery of Oliver Smith.” 2007 Proceedings. (Describes how Smith approached musical theatre set design, using My Fair Lady as a specific, in-depth example.)

Short abstracts (in chronological order):

Betsy Cooper. Abstract, “The Hollywood Musical and Censorship: The Dancing Body’s Subversion of the Production Code.” 2004 Proceedings.
Daphne Lamothe. Abstract: “Cultural Memory and the Staging of Blackness.” 2004 Proceedings. (A discussion of Katherine Dunham’s choreography, using the movie musical Stormy Weather as one of two main examples.)
Barbara Parisi. Abstract: “Critical Reaction to Feminism in the Off-Broadway American Musical Theatre (1970-1990).” 2005 Proceedings.
Paula Marie Seniors. Abstract: “The Red Moon: The Interconnections Between Theater and History and the Black and Native Americanization Program at Hampton Institute.” 2005 Proceedings.
Rod Hernandez. Abstract: “The Spoiled Fruit of Carmen Miranda.” 2006 Proceedings.

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AHRC Funded PhD studentship, University of Leeds with Opera North

March 17th, 2008

An AHRC-funded PhD studentship is available from 1 October 2008 for a
collaborative research project between Opera North, the School of Music
and the School of Performance and Cultural Industries (PCI) at the
University of Leeds.

Opera North is a national company with an ambitious and innovative
programme. It is the leading producer of large-scale opera in the north
of England. In November 2006, the University of Leeds and Opera North
entered a formal collaborative partnership aimed at engaging new
participants in creativity and academic activity, and building
connections between the classical and contemporary arts, and between the
arts and contemporary society. The AHRC collaborative project (2 PhD
studentships over 4 years) is concerned with the interaction between the
two major components of opera - words and music - centring on the
adaptation process. Research will encompass the study of practice (both
historical and contemporary) in operatic production, underpinned by
theory and major debates in the fields of opera and adaptation studies.
Ideally, it will juxtapose musical and textual dramaturgy in order to
assess an operatic work as a totality.

PhD 2: working title: Adaptation, Source, and Musical Realisation, to
start Oct 2008
This project will investigate the relationship between the composer and
the source/libretto/librettist. Research questions may consider musical
and textual adaptations that result from creative intersections that
occur between composer and source, composer and librettist, composer and
libretto. This may encompass historical, institutional, and documentary
studies, including research into commissioned works. Conventional and
practice-led applications are welcome.
The following working questions could contribute towards the research
project: What are the essential features of successful collaboration
between composer and librettist? How does musical structure and
dramaturgy respond to literary structure and narrative style of both
source and libretto? How do ideas of narrative or literary voice relate
to musical voice and characterisation?
Other foci of the project could be:
* work centring on the emergence of the score for a new opera
* the working relationship between a particular author/librettist
and composer
* the working practices of a composer who produces/adapts his/her
own libretto
* a series of operas produced by a composer working with various
authors/librettists
* settings of the same libretto, or libretti based on the same
source(s) by different composers

The project will be supervised by Dr Rachel Cowgill (School of Music),
Dr Kara McKechnie (School of PCI) and a member of the Opera North music
staff. The closing date for applications for the studentship is 21st
April, 2008. Interviews will take place between 12th and the 17th of
May. Enquiries and requests for further details may be directed to Dr
Kara McKechnie, email: k.mckechnie AT leeds.ac.uk
Application forms are available from Linda Smith, School of
Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT,
UK, email: pculs AT leeds.ac.uk tel: 0113 343 8713.

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Music on Stage conference: Rose Bruford College

March 17th, 2008

Call for Papers:
Music on stage
An international interdisciplinary conference at Rose Bruford College,
Sidcup, Kent, UK
October 18th and 19th, 2008

This conference topic is intentionally wide in its appeal as it is
hoped papers will cover all aspect of performance as well as the
creation of the music and its composers. The following strands are
anticipated: historic performance practices; design; production;
individual composers and works. The conference organisers are working
closely with Studies in Musical Theatre, and papers presented at the
conference will be invited for submission to the journal and possible
publication.

Further details to follow.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Papers are invited of 20 minutes duration (plus question time) and
abstracts of 200 words should be sent to Dr F Jane Schopf at
Fiona.schopf AT bruford DOT ac DOT uk or Rose Bruford College, Burnt Oak Lane,
Sidcup, Kent DA15 9DF, England
Deadline May 31st 2008

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CFP: Sweeney Todd Conference

March 5th, 2008

‘Attend the tale’…new contexts for Sweeney Todd

Saturday 31 May 2008
Lincoln School of Performing Arts
Centre for Innovation in Performing Arts, University of Lincoln

In the wake of Tim Burton’s recent film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s musical, Sweeney Todd, this symposium seeks to investigate how the legend has been variously re-configured and re-contextualised through a variety of media since its inception as an urban myth. Since George Dibdin-Pitt’s 1847 stage melodrama based on the novel, The String of Pearls, the story of ‘the Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ has been adapted and appropriated in various live performances, cinematic and televisual contexts. This symposium aims to explore how and why the legend has captured the popular imagination for over a hundred and fifty years and invites papers that will consider topics such as: the process of adaptation, the relationship between urban legend and performance as manifest in selected versions of the tale, and the place of the story in the melodramatic imagination.

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Stacy Wolf featured in ATHE news

February 24th, 2008

Michael Garber sends this news:

“Those who have enjoyed Stacy Wolf’s writings on musical theatre, including A Problem Like Maria (2002), might enjoy the online article about her in ATHE News (Feb. 22, 2008), “Scholar Spotlight: Stacy Wolf.” (http://www.athe.org/newsletter/080222-fa2z.html)”

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CFP: The Sagacious Stephen Sondheim

October 22nd, 2007

A STEPHEN SONDHEIM SYMPOSIUM
The Sagacious Stephen Sondheim, 14 - 15 February 2008
http://www.wpunj.edu/SondheimSymposium
William Paterson University
Wayne, New Jersey (20 miles from Manhattan)

CALL FOR PAPERS
-and-
INVITATION TO REGISTER

Exciting news! William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey (20 miles from Manhattan), will host a Stephen Sondheim symposium, The Sagacious Sondheim, on February 14 and 15. Sondheim will speak on Friday evening. Open to all, the Symposium is also a regional conference for the International NETWORK of Schools for the Advancement of Arts Education.

Call for Papers information is located at:
http://www.wpunj.edu/SondheimSymposium/papersstudies.html

This Symposium is designed for academics, theatre professionals, as well as music, theatre and musical theatre aficionados. Highlights and options include:

Opportunity to hear Stephen Sondheim (He’s bringing Anthony Rapp of Rent and Sean Patrick Flahaven, associate editor of the Sondheim Review)
Panels, Presentations, Performances – two days of Sondheim-related academic activities
Opportunity to see a preview performance of the Broadway revival of Sondheim’s Pulitzer-Prize winning musical, Sunday in the Park with George
Continuing Education Credits available
College Credit available
President’s Day holiday on the following Monday – Extend your trip into a long NYC weekend

A significant discount is automatically available to those registering prior to December 1, 2007.

Please look over the information at http://www.wpunj.edu/SondheimSymposium. If you have questions, please feel free to e-mail me.

-Phillip Sprayberry, convener

sprayberryp AT wpunj.edu

William Paterson University Media Relations Coordinator

-Diane Nottle, convener
Assistant to the editor, culture news, The New York Times

The Sagacious Stephen Sondheim
William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey

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Safari bug

October 16th, 2007

The Mac users of this site may have experienced some truncated pages and weird layouts over the last couple weeks if they visited it using Safari. I think it should be fixed now, but please do email me (dreside AT umd.edu) if you notice any problems with the site.

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CFP: 2008 National Popular Culture & American Culture Associations

October 16th, 2007

National conference, proposals due Nov. 9, 2007
http://www.pcaaca.org/conference/national.php

CALL FOR PAPERS
2008 National Popular Culture & American Culture Associations
Conference: March 19 – 22, 2008
San Francisco Marriott
55 Fourth Street
San Francisco, California
The National PCA/ACA invites submissions and abstracts for its 2008 Conference, to be held at the San Francisco Marriot.
Paper topic areas are broad and many, encompassing business, entertainment, fashion, gender, the body, ethnography, technology, science fiction, and many more. Political, historical, literary—essentially all approaches are welcome. See http://www.pcaaca.org/areas/areas.php for a list of all subject areas and the area chairs’ contact information.
For more specific and detailed information about the conference and the organization, please visit www.pcaaca.org
If you have further questions, please contact Delores Rauscher, the Conference Coordinator, at rausche5 AT msu DOT edu

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