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Full-Text Articles in Musicology
"Voices In My Head:" Representations Of Mental Illness In Contemporary American Musical Theater, Mckay Perry
"Voices In My Head:" Representations Of Mental Illness In Contemporary American Musical Theater, Mckay Perry
Masters Theses
In the years since 2010, themes of mental illness on the musical theater stage have increased dramatically, most notably with the Broadway premiere of Dear Evan Hansen in 2016, which quickly became a popular and critical success, winning six Tony Awards the following season. Despite scope and reach of the modern American musical, relatively little musicological scholarship has explored this area, and of that literature, even less has examined contemporary musicals. In this thesis, I will begin to fill this gap in the literature through the application of emerging critical musicological lenses to modern musical theater, both on and off …
Laughing At Ourselves: Music And Identity In Comedic Performance, Peter Trigg
Laughing At Ourselves: Music And Identity In Comedic Performance, Peter Trigg
Masters Theses
Standup comedy actively performs and engages with constructions of self and social identity, especially in terms of ethnic difference and the negotiation of American race relations. Musical comedy, wherein standup comedians perform song onstage, represents one facet of this expression that configures musical texts and expectations in the service of cultural observation and critique. Bo Burnham and Reggie Watts characterize two disparate approaches to the practice based on their aesthetic tastes, existential anxieties, and racial experiences. The two present their respective identities onstage in relation to a changing American political landscape of the early 21st century that has seen widespread …