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Chapter 2 - Bridging the Gap

Broadway and the Experimental from the 1960s to 2020

from Part I - Commercial and Mainstream Theatre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 August 2021

Julia Listengarten
Affiliation:
University of Central Florida
Stephen Di Benedetto
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Summary

Rosenthal provides a critical history and analysis of the connections between mainstream and experimental theatre in New York, from the 1960s to 2020, with a focus on Broadway. She argues that Broadway and mainstream theatre underwent multiple and significant transformations during the 1960s and in the decades that followed. Rosenthal analyzes the work of playwrights, directors, composers, choreographers, and designers who made art both downtown in experimental theatres and uptown on Broadway. The concept of the “mainstream experimental” is used as a descriptor for Broadway throughout the following half century, as commercial theatre continued to push and shape US society and culture at large. Alongside artists, pathbreaking producers off and on Broadway are the focus of this chapter, along with the prominence of ensemble-based musicals and dramatic works and the success of solo performances on Broadway. The contributions and legacies of LGBTQ artists such as Tony Kushner, Larry Kramer, and Lisa Kron, and Black artists including August Wilson, George C. Wolfe, Ntozake Shange, Anna Deavere Smith, and Jeremy O. Harris, are central to Rosenthal’s argument and critique.

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Chapter
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

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Harding, J. M., and Rosenthal, C. (eds.). The Sixties Center Stage: Mainstream and Popular Performances in a Turbulent Decade. University of Michigan Press, 2017.Google Scholar
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Riedel, M. Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway. Simon and Schuster, 2015.Google Scholar
Sell, M. Modern American Drama: Playwriting in the 1960s, Voices, Documents, New Interpretations. Bloomsbury Methuen, 2018.Google Scholar
Stempel, L. Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theater. W. W. Norton, 2010.Google Scholar
Wolf, S. Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the American Musical. Oxford University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Wollman, E. Hard Times: The Adult Musical in 1970s New York City. Oxford University Press, 2012.Google Scholar

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