MA Musical Theatre

The Case Study module is made up of two parts:

The first case study will employ a combination of workshops, lectures and seminars including some guest lectures by specialists from the industry (choreographer, conductor, producer, director, critics) that will equip you to comprehend methodological problems pertinent to artistic collaboration. You'll develop a critical approach to the production process, allowing you to act as an agent of change within the industry. Students will develop their own ability to analyse the structure of musical theatre texts by way of small group discussions and arguments led by experts in the field.

The second case study aims to give you a socio-historical understanding of individual musicals in their cultural context and to learn how to analyse musicals critically as popular cultural texts. In a succession of case studies representative of larger sociocultural issues, you'll read mainly 20th-century works from the canon of popular musical theatre as manifestations of their time. By comparing musical texts to each other and by relating them to theoretical approaches, the musicals emerge in their sociocultural and socio-political relevance as expressions of their cultural climate.

The class is taught chronologically alongside hallmark musicals from the beginnings of a European operetta tradition through early American musicals and Hollywood films to contemporary subversions, parodies and revivals of the genre. The historical component of this class is enriched by the introduction of a select number of cultural theory approaches surrounding the categories of race, class and gender, as well as more recent approaches indebted to spatial theory (e.g. Ecocriticism) and to constructions of the other (e. g. Orientalism). Thus, an overview of the social and cultural history of the musical is enriched with the practice of applied theoretical analysis of the musicals from a cultural studies perspective. We will also look at live performances of musical for this class. Two or three theatre excursions will be planned for this module.

Regular producers' classes in Autumn and Spring terms will develop your understanding of the social, economic, industrial and institutional factors involved in artistic production. By means of a combination of seminars and workshops, you'll learn about the interrelationship of various kinds of production techniques and scenographic technology insofar as these affect the dramaturgy of a musical.

You'll undertake a placement in the Easter vacation or the Summer term, which will be the subject of a short critical reflection. From the beginning of Spring term, each student will work as a producer on a 15-minute musical, being responsible for collaborating with a writer/composer in order to present a semi-staged production for a workshop presentation in Week 7 of the Spring term. In Summer term, the producers will begin planning the preparation of the 45-minute workshop presentations for production in mid-September. Late in June, you'll arrange experimental workshops to test draft material from a musical they are producing, which will then be presented to module tutors in producing and writing/composition. The producers will jointly have responsibility for organising a showcase 'festival' of new musicals and for supervising the budgeting, casting, design and direction of the showcase productions.

This module outlines the aesthetic development of the American musical as genre from Show Boat (1927) to Sweeney Todd (1979), and of the global proliferation of musicals from Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) to the present day. Specific topics include:

• The influence of nineteenth-century American entertainment forms, such as minstrelsy, burlesque and vaudeville
• English musical comedy, the 'Princess theatre' shows (Kern, Wodehouse and Bolton) and the Gershwins
• The rise of the integrated musical: from Show Boat to Oklahoma!
• Musical comedy as integrated show: Pal Joey, Kiss Me Kate; Guys and Dolls
• Experiment on Broadway: 1930s and 1940s (Strike Up the Band; Of Thee I Sing; Porgy and Bess; Lady in the Dark; On the Town)
• The director-choreographer as auteur: Robbins, Fosse, Michael Bennett (The Pajama Game; West Side Story; Sweet Charity)
• The non-linear musical: Cabaret; Company; Follies
• Brechtian aesthetics and backstage musicals: The Threepenny Opera; Chicago, A Chorus Line
• The through-sung musical: Jesus Christ Superstar and after    
• Pop music and the 'global' British musical: Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables
• The Disney musical on screen and stage
• Sondheim's later work: Sunday in the Park with George; Assassins  
• French, German and Scandinavian musicals: Notre Dame de Paris; Linea Eins; Kristina fran Duwemala
• Current musical theatre and stage to screen adaptations

The Case Study module is made up of two parts:

The first case study will employ a combination of workshops, lectures and seminars including some guest lectures by specialists from the industry (choreographer, conductor, producer, director, critics) that will equip you to comprehend methodological problems pertinent to artistic collaboration. You'll develop a critical approach to the production process, allowing you to act as an agent of change within the industry. Students will develop their own ability to analyse the structure of musical theatre texts by way of small group discussions and arguments led by experts in the field.

The second case study aims to give you a socio-historical understanding of individual musicals in their cultural context and to learn how to analyse musicals critically as popular cultural texts. In a succession of case studies representative of larger sociocultural issues, you'll read mainly 20th-century works from the canon of popular musical theatre as manifestations of their time. By comparing musical texts to each other and by relating them to theoretical approaches, the musicals emerge in their sociocultural and socio-political relevance as expressions of their cultural climate.

The class is taught chronologically alongside hallmark musicals from the beginnings of a European operetta tradition through early American musicals and Hollywood films to contemporary subversions, parodies and revivals of the genre. The historical component of this class is enriched by the introduction of a select number of cultural theory approaches surrounding the categories of race, class and gender, as well as more recent approaches indebted to spatial theory (e.g. Ecocriticism) and to constructions of the other (e. g. Orientalism). Thus, an overview of the social and cultural history of the musical is enriched with the practice of applied theoretical analysis of the musicals from a cultural studies perspective. We will also look at live performances of musical for this class. Two or three theatre excursions will be planned for this module.

The first term of small-scale class exercises will culminate in the writing/composition of a 15-minute segment of a musical for workshop performance after the Reading/Assessment week in Spring term. You'll work in pairs or singly according to your specialist skills in the creation of music, book and lyrics. Feedback on the piece will be given by tutors in order to inform the writing of the 45-minute musical project in Summer.

There will be no formal workshop classes in Summer term; instead, you'll work in your teams to create 45-minute musicals, based either on material from the workshop performance or on new ideas. You'll receive tutorial guidance in May and June, and will then have an opportunity to explore selected material with performers in sessions arranged by producers to provide a 'laboratory' in which to test and modify the work under rehearsal conditions. Twenty minutes of material will be shown to all tutors in an informal presentation at which writers/composers will receive feedback after which they will have five weeks to complete the musical in time for rehearsals for the showcase production season in mid-September.

This module outlines the aesthetic development of the American musical as genre from Show Boat (1927) to Sweeney Todd (1979), and of the global proliferation of musicals from Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) to the present day. Specific topics include:

• The influence of nineteenth-century American entertainment forms, such as minstrelsy, burlesque and vaudeville
• English musical comedy, the 'Princess theatre' shows (Kern, Wodehouse and Bolton) and the Gershwins
• The rise of the integrated musical: from Show Boat to Oklahoma!
• Musical comedy as integrated show: Pal Joey, Kiss Me Kate; Guys and Dolls
• Experiment on Broadway: 1930s and 1940s (Strike Up the Band; Of Thee I Sing; Porgy and Bess; Lady in the Dark; On the Town)
• The director-choreographer as auteur: Robbins, Fosse, Michael Bennett (The Pajama Game; West Side Story; Sweet Charity)
• The non-linear musical: Cabaret; Company; Follies
• Brechtian aesthetics and backstage musicals: The Threepenny Opera; Chicago, A Chorus Line
• The through-sung musical: Jesus Christ Superstar and after    
• Pop music and the 'global' British musical: Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables
• The Disney musical on screen and stage
• Sondheim's later work: Sunday in the Park with George; Assassins  
• French, German and Scandinavian musicals: Notre Dame de Paris; Linea Eins; Kristina fran Duwemala
• Current musical theatre and stage to screen adaptations