Fixing the Musical
How Technologies Shaped the Broadway Repertory
Douglas L. Reside(Author)
Oxford University Press Inc
Published on 12. December 2023
Book
Hardback
230 pages
978-0-19-007371-8 (ISBN)
Description
Thousands of shows have opened on Broadway. Why do we remember some and not others?
The musical theatre repertory is not composed of titles popular in the theatre but by those with successful cast recordings, movie versions, or even illegal bootlegs on YouTube. The shows audiences know, and the texts and music they expect to hear when they attend a production, are defined by media consumed at home more than by memories of performances witnessed in the theatre. For example, author Doug Reside shows that it is no accident that the serious book musical with a fixed score developed in the 1940s - when commercially pressed and marketed record albums made it possible to record most of the score of a new musical in a fixed medium. And Hamilton, a musical with dense lyrics and revolutionary musical style, would not have been as easily accessible to world audiences if most hadn't already had the opportunity to learn the score by listening to free digital streams of the original cast recording.
The technologies that made these media possible developed concurrently with and shaped the American musical as an art form. Reside uncovers how the affordances and limitations of these technologies established a repertory of titles that are most frequently performed and defined by the texts used in these performances. Fixing the Musical argues that the musicals we most remember are those which most effectively used their era's best recording and distribution technologies to document and share the work with those who would never see the original production on Broadway.
The musical theatre repertory is not composed of titles popular in the theatre but by those with successful cast recordings, movie versions, or even illegal bootlegs on YouTube. The shows audiences know, and the texts and music they expect to hear when they attend a production, are defined by media consumed at home more than by memories of performances witnessed in the theatre. For example, author Doug Reside shows that it is no accident that the serious book musical with a fixed score developed in the 1940s - when commercially pressed and marketed record albums made it possible to record most of the score of a new musical in a fixed medium. And Hamilton, a musical with dense lyrics and revolutionary musical style, would not have been as easily accessible to world audiences if most hadn't already had the opportunity to learn the score by listening to free digital streams of the original cast recording.
The technologies that made these media possible developed concurrently with and shaped the American musical as an art form. Reside uncovers how the affordances and limitations of these technologies established a repertory of titles that are most frequently performed and defined by the texts used in these performances. Fixing the Musical argues that the musicals we most remember are those which most effectively used their era's best recording and distribution technologies to document and share the work with those who would never see the original production on Broadway.
Reviews / Votes
Reside's combination of detailed archival work, interviews, and cultural analysis provides an engaging trip through the musical's journey from fleeting piece of ephemera to performances somewhat frozen in time-whether by industrial practices, new revenue streams, or shady dealings. * Kelly Kessler, Project Muse *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Illustrations
35
Dimensions
Height: 156 mm
Width: 235 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
463 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-007371-8 (9780190073718)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
11/2023
Oxford University Press Inc
€26.50
Shipment within 15-20 days

E-Book
08/2023
OUP eBook
€19.49
Available for download

E-Book
08/2023
OUP eBook
€19.49
Available for download
Person
Doug Reside is the Curator of the Billy Rose Theatre Division. He joined NYPL in 2011 first as the digital curator for the performing arts before assuming his current position in 2014. Prior to joining NYPL, Reside served on the directorial staff of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities at the University of Maryland. He has published and spoken on topics related to theater history, literature, and digital humanities, and has managed several large grant-funded projects on these topics. He holds a PhD in English from the University of Kentucky.
Author
Lewis and Dorothy Cullman CuratorLewis and Dorothy Cullman Curator, The Billy Rose Theatre Division
Content
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Printing the Musical
2. Picturing the Musical
3. Recording the Musical
4. The Musical as Moving Image
5. Bootlegging the Musical
6. Licensing the Musical
7. Fixing the Future
Index
Introduction
1. Printing the Musical
2. Picturing the Musical
3. Recording the Musical
4. The Musical as Moving Image
5. Bootlegging the Musical
6. Licensing the Musical
7. Fixing the Future
Index