The story of the development of Jelly’s Last Jam (1992) stands uniquely at the intersection of racial politics, intellectual property, the power of storytelling and the authority of those who tell stories and present them on the stage. By the time the show opened on Broadway, Alan Lomax had been trying for nearly three decades to get his book Mister Jelly Roll (1950) adapted for the stage or screen. Now the story of Ferdinand ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton had become a musical, with a book by George C. Wolfe and music and lyrics by Luther Henderson and Susan Birkenhead, and Wolfe’s script ensured that Morton’s story linked up firmly with the history of jazz and race in America. But Lomax’s name and book title were nowhere to be found in the show’s credits, nor in interviews and other commentary about the show. Although musicologist Lawrence Gushee referred to Mister Jelly Roll as ‘the point of departure for all subsequent biographical writing on Morton’, George C. Wolfe stated only that ‘the stories of black people’ are ‘not stored in the history books […] they’re stored in the music’. In this study, I offer new evidence that explains the curious misdirection in Wolfe’s public utterances based on a close study of archival sources in the Library of Congress’s Alan Lomax Collection, of the complete and unedited recordings of Lomax’s interview with Morton released for the first time in 2005 and of press coverage of the producers’ efforts to bring Morton’s story to the musical stage. This article synthesizes the public and private legacy of the show’s development to provide perspectives on a larger racial reckoning that resonates offstage as well as onstage.
《果冻最后的果酱》(Jelly 's Last Jam, 1992)的发展故事独特地站在种族政治、知识产权、讲故事的力量以及讲故事并在舞台上呈现故事的人的权威的交叉点上。这部剧在百老汇上演的时候，艾伦·洛马克斯(Alan Lomax)已经花了将近30年的时间，想把他的书《果冻先生》(1950)搬上舞台或银幕。现在，费迪南德·“Jelly Roll”莫顿的故事已经变成了一部音乐剧，乔治·c·沃尔夫写了一本书，路德·亨德森和苏珊·伯肯黑德为其配乐和作词。沃尔夫的剧本确保了莫顿的故事与美国爵士乐和种族的历史紧密相连。但是洛马克斯的名字和书名却没有出现在该剧的演职员表中，也没有出现在对该剧的采访和其他评论中。尽管音乐学家Lawrence Gushee将mr . Jelly Roll称为“后来所有关于莫顿的传记写作的起点”，但George C. Wolfe只是说“黑人的故事”“没有被储存在历史书中[…]他们被储存在音乐中”。在这项研究中，我提供了新的证据来解释沃尔夫公开言论中奇怪的误导，这些证据是基于对国会图书馆艾伦·洛马克斯收藏的档案资料的仔细研究，对2005年首次发布的洛马克斯采访莫顿的完整和未经编辑的录音，以及对制片人努力将莫顿的故事带到音乐舞台的新闻报道。这篇文章综合了该节目发展的公共和私人遗产，提供了一个更大的种族清算的视角，在舞台上和舞台下都能引起共鸣。
{"title":"‘Honor the source’: Race, representation and intellectual property in Jelly’s Last Jam","authors":"Jeffrey Magee","doi":"10.1386/smt_00121_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/smt_00121_1","url":null,"abstract":"The story of the development of Jelly’s Last Jam (1992) stands uniquely at the intersection of racial politics, intellectual property, the power of storytelling and the authority of those who tell stories and present them on the stage. By the time the show opened on Broadway, Alan Lomax had been trying for nearly three decades to get his book Mister Jelly Roll (1950) adapted for the stage or screen. Now the story of Ferdinand ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton had become a musical, with a book by George C. Wolfe and music and lyrics by Luther Henderson and Susan Birkenhead, and Wolfe’s script ensured that Morton’s story linked up firmly with the history of jazz and race in America. But Lomax’s name and book title were nowhere to be found in the show’s credits, nor in interviews and other commentary about the show. Although musicologist Lawrence Gushee referred to Mister Jelly Roll as ‘the point of departure for all subsequent biographical writing on Morton’, George C. Wolfe stated only that ‘the stories of black people’ are ‘not stored in the history books […] they’re stored in the music’. In this study, I offer new evidence that explains the curious misdirection in Wolfe’s public utterances based on a close study of archival sources in the Library of Congress’s Alan Lomax Collection, of the complete and unedited recordings of Lomax’s interview with Morton released for the first time in 2005 and of press coverage of the producers’ efforts to bring Morton’s story to the musical stage. This article synthesizes the public and private legacy of the show’s development to provide perspectives on a larger racial reckoning that resonates offstage as well as onstage.","PeriodicalId":41759,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Musical Theatre","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135056321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pick a Pocket or Two, Ethan Mordden (2021)","authors":"Faye Rigopoulou","doi":"10.1386/smt_00122_5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/smt_00122_5","url":null,"abstract":"Review of: Pick a Pocket or Two , Ethan Mordden (2021) New York: Oxford University Press, 248 pp., ISBN 978-0-19087-795-8, h/bk, $22.99","PeriodicalId":41759,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Musical Theatre","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135056324","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Since its debut in 2010, Matilda the Musical has become a worldwide phenomenon, seen by over 11 million people in 91 cities. In the musical, Matilda’s love of reading and storytelling serves as a means of resistance and empowerment in the face of the oppressive forces of her parents and headmistress Miss Trunchbull, and she learns that the act of telling stories can help reshape reality. This article demonstrates that logotherapy, a branch of psychotherapy developed by Viktor Frankl, provides a valuable framework for analysing and understanding the themes of storytelling, identity formation and rebellion in the show. Logotherapy emphasizes the search for meaning as the key impetus in human life, and considers creativity and narrative determination as essential tools for realizing and claiming one’s purpose in society. This analysis of Matilda the Musical through the lens of Frankl’s logotherapy offers a unique perspective on the musical and opens up new insights into the importance of storytelling in the therapeutic process.
{"title":"‘A little bit naughty’: Storytelling and the logotherapeutic process in Matilda the Musical","authors":"Allan Kilner-Johnson","doi":"10.1386/smt_00120_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/smt_00120_1","url":null,"abstract":"Since its debut in 2010, Matilda the Musical has become a worldwide phenomenon, seen by over 11 million people in 91 cities. In the musical, Matilda’s love of reading and storytelling serves as a means of resistance and empowerment in the face of the oppressive forces of her parents and headmistress Miss Trunchbull, and she learns that the act of telling stories can help reshape reality. This article demonstrates that logotherapy, a branch of psychotherapy developed by Viktor Frankl, provides a valuable framework for analysing and understanding the themes of storytelling, identity formation and rebellion in the show. Logotherapy emphasizes the search for meaning as the key impetus in human life, and considers creativity and narrative determination as essential tools for realizing and claiming one’s purpose in society. This analysis of Matilda the Musical through the lens of Frankl’s logotherapy offers a unique perspective on the musical and opens up new insights into the importance of storytelling in the therapeutic process.","PeriodicalId":41759,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Musical Theatre","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135055924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
When Pete Townshend decided to call his band’s 1969 record Tommy a ‘rock opera’, he established a phrase equally easy to interrogate and to take for granted. And yet that provocation remains a remarkably fertile framing device that challenges conventional understandings of both ‘rock’ and ‘opera’. This article analyses Tommy as a conscious attempt to engage the conventions of the traditional opera medium and as a postmodern provocation that challenges the limitation for fixed media to inspire active engagement in its audience. As a work explicitly about the framing of entertainment, Tommy engages an ontological contradiction – between performed music and its conventions on the one hand, and the social signification of an ambitious story about liberation on the other – that is reflected in the work’s liminal connection to both the commercial and artistic worlds. The article considers the opera from several angles: as a libretto, meaning its structured story; as a score, meaning the recording which any subsequent performance is expected to reference if not reproduce; and as performance. I focus on Tommy ’s first stagings: The Who’s own during their album tour (which included a show at the Metropolitan Opera House), the 1971 Seattle Opera production and Ken Russell’s film. I suggest that the gambit of a ‘rock opera’ allows us to engage the essential question of whether an audience can ever be truly activated in a landscape where the slipperiness of meaning is too often codified into empty signifiers of the very activation it ostensibly wishes to produce.
{"title":"‘Nothing like it in any amusement hall!’: Opera, audacity and the audience in The Who’s Tommy","authors":"Stephen Cedars","doi":"10.1386/smt_00119_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/smt_00119_1","url":null,"abstract":"When Pete Townshend decided to call his band’s 1969 record Tommy a ‘rock opera’, he established a phrase equally easy to interrogate and to take for granted. And yet that provocation remains a remarkably fertile framing device that challenges conventional understandings of both ‘rock’ and ‘opera’. This article analyses Tommy as a conscious attempt to engage the conventions of the traditional opera medium and as a postmodern provocation that challenges the limitation for fixed media to inspire active engagement in its audience. As a work explicitly about the framing of entertainment, Tommy engages an ontological contradiction – between performed music and its conventions on the one hand, and the social signification of an ambitious story about liberation on the other – that is reflected in the work’s liminal connection to both the commercial and artistic worlds. The article considers the opera from several angles: as a libretto, meaning its structured story; as a score, meaning the recording which any subsequent performance is expected to reference if not reproduce; and as performance. I focus on Tommy ’s first stagings: The Who’s own during their album tour (which included a show at the Metropolitan Opera House), the 1971 Seattle Opera production and Ken Russell’s film. I suggest that the gambit of a ‘rock opera’ allows us to engage the essential question of whether an audience can ever be truly activated in a landscape where the slipperiness of meaning is too often codified into empty signifiers of the very activation it ostensibly wishes to produce.","PeriodicalId":41759,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Musical Theatre","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135055925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Review of: Unfinished Women Cry in No Man’s Land While a Bird Dies in a Gilded Cage , Aishah Rahman, directed by Chyna Michele Camden Repertory Theater, Camden, NJ, 25 February 2023
{"title":"Unfinished Women Cry in No Man’s Land While a Bird Dies in a Gilded Cage, Aishah Rahman, directed by Chyna Michele","authors":"Sloan Elle Garner","doi":"10.1386/smt_00123_5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/smt_00123_5","url":null,"abstract":"Review of: Unfinished Women Cry in No Man’s Land While a Bird Dies in a Gilded Cage , Aishah Rahman, directed by Chyna Michele Camden Repertory Theater, Camden, NJ, 25 February 2023","PeriodicalId":41759,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Musical Theatre","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135056313","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Review of: Attack of the Monster Musical: A Cultural History of Little Shop of Horrors, Adam Abraham (2022) London: Bloomsbury, 256 pp., ISBN 978-1-35017-931-8, p/bk, $24.95
{"title":"Attack of the Monster Musical: A Cultural History of Little Shop of Horrors, Adam Abraham (2022)","authors":"Peter C. Kunze","doi":"10.1386/smt_00116_5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/smt_00116_5","url":null,"abstract":"Review of: Attack of the Monster Musical: A Cultural History of Little Shop of Horrors, Adam Abraham (2022)\u0000 London: Bloomsbury, 256 pp.,\u0000 ISBN 978-1-35017-931-8, p/bk, $24.95","PeriodicalId":41759,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Musical Theatre","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49285662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Review of: El tiempo entre costuras, Espacio Ibercaja Delicias, Madrid, Spain, 19 May 2022
回顾：接缝之间的时间，伊比利亚美食空间，马德里，西班牙，2022年5月19日
{"title":"El tiempo entre costuras, Espacio Ibercaja Delicias, Madrid, Spain, 19 May 2022","authors":"Paul R. Laird","doi":"10.1386/smt_00115_5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/smt_00115_5","url":null,"abstract":"Review of: El tiempo entre costuras, Espacio Ibercaja Delicias, Madrid, Spain, 19 May 2022","PeriodicalId":41759,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Musical Theatre","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47528157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores how the pluralities of vocal behaviours and vocal aesthetics in present-day musical theatre are understood and manoeuvred in the context of teaching musical theatre voice. Transcribed interviews with six elite voice teachers in the Broadway community are analysed and placed into a conceptual framework of the ‘omnivorous voice’ (based on sociologist Richard Peterson’s writings on cultural omnivorousness and sociologist Antoine Hennion’s writings on tastes); the article also engages with Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis. Four central themes are generated and discussed: (1) understanding omnivorous code-switching and shape-shifting as a fundamental potential of the voice, (2) manoeuvring vocal omnivorousness by carefully attending to sonic information, (3) searching for authenticity in an omnivorous vocal world and (4) expanding and diversifying vocal aesthetics beyond musical styles and genres. This article contributes to the fields of performing arts pedagogy and voice training in musical theatre, and aims to provide insights into how vocal technique and vocal aesthetics are influenced by, taught in, and created in dialogue with the communities and societies in which our voices exist. The last is especially explored in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
{"title":"Musical theatre’s omnivorous voice: Interviews with elite voice teachers in the Broadway community","authors":"Guro von Germeten","doi":"10.1386/smt_00112_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/smt_00112_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores how the pluralities of vocal behaviours and vocal aesthetics in present-day musical theatre are understood and manoeuvred in the context of teaching musical theatre voice. Transcribed interviews with six elite voice teachers in the Broadway community are analysed and placed into a conceptual framework of the ‘omnivorous voice’ (based on sociologist Richard Peterson’s writings on cultural omnivorousness and sociologist Antoine Hennion’s writings on tastes); the article also engages with Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis. Four central themes are generated and discussed: (1) understanding omnivorous code-switching and shape-shifting as a fundamental potential of the voice, (2) manoeuvring vocal omnivorousness by carefully attending to sonic information, (3) searching for authenticity in an omnivorous vocal world and (4) expanding and diversifying vocal aesthetics beyond musical styles and genres. This article contributes to the fields of performing arts pedagogy and voice training in musical theatre, and aims to provide insights into how vocal technique and vocal aesthetics are influenced by, taught in, and created in dialogue with the communities and societies in which our voices exist. The last is especially explored in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.","PeriodicalId":41759,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Musical Theatre","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45519997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial","authors":"Elizabeth Wollman, J. Sternfeld","doi":"10.1386/smt_00111_2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/smt_00111_2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41759,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Musical Theatre","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42545496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The authors of this dialogue, two Millennial theatre scholars, spill the tea on the West End and Toronto productions of & Juliet on the eve of its transfer to Broadway. This conversation considers the successes and challenges of & Juliet as a contemporary jukebox musical, and includes analyses of the integration of Max Martin’s songbook and David West Read’s libretto. The authors discuss audience reception in London and Toronto while signalling why Millennial audiences might be drawn to the musical. This dialogue questions & Juliet’s role as a critical piece of popular culture, musical theatre history and Shakespearian adaptation, while considering what & Juliet offers to the canon of Shakespearean remixes.
{"title":"Aggressively Millennial: A dialogue on & Juliet","authors":"Trevor Boffone, Danielle Rosvally","doi":"10.1386/smt_00113_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/smt_00113_1","url":null,"abstract":"The authors of this dialogue, two Millennial theatre scholars, spill the tea on the West End and Toronto productions of & Juliet on the eve of its transfer to Broadway. This conversation considers the successes and challenges of & Juliet as a contemporary jukebox musical, and includes analyses of the integration of Max Martin’s songbook and David West Read’s libretto. The authors discuss audience reception in London and Toronto while signalling why Millennial audiences might be drawn to the musical. This dialogue questions & Juliet’s role as a critical piece of popular culture, musical theatre history and Shakespearian adaptation, while considering what & Juliet offers to the canon of Shakespearean remixes.","PeriodicalId":41759,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Musical Theatre","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43911254","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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