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Sondheim in Our Time and His offers a wide-ranging historical investigation of the landmark works and extraordinary career of Stephen Sondheim, a career which has spanned much of the history of American musical theater. Each author uncovers those aspects of biography, collaborative process, and contemporary context that impacted the creation and reception of Sondheim's musicals. In addition, several authors explore in detail how Sondheim's shows have been
dramatically revised and adapted over time. Multiple chapters invite the reader to rethink Sondheim's works from a distinctly contemporary critical perspective and to consider how these musicals are being
reenvisioned today. Through chapters focused on individual musicals, and others that explore a specific topic as manifested throughout his entire career, plus an afterword by Kristen Anderson-Lopez; by digging deep into the archives and focusing intently on his scores; from interviews with performers, directors, and bookwriters, and close study of live and recorded productions--volume editor W. Anthony Sheppard brings together Sondheim's past with the present, thriving existence of his musicals.
Sondheim in Our Time and His offers a wide-ranging historical investigation of the landmark works and extraordinary career of Stephen Sondheim, a career which has spanned much of the history of American musical theater. Each author uncovers those aspects of biography, collaborative process, and contemporary context that impacted the creation and reception of Sondheim's musicals. In addition, several authors explore in detail how Sondheim's shows have been
dramatically revised and adapted over time. Multiple chapters invite the reader to rethink Sondheim's works from a distinctly contemporary critical perspective and to consider how these musicals are being
reenvisioned today. Through chapters focused on individual musicals, and others that explore a specific topic as manifested throughout his entire career, plus an afterword by Kristen Anderson-Lopez; by digging deep into the archives and focusing intently on his scores; from interviews with performers, directors, and bookwriters, and close study of live and recorded productions--volume editor W. Anthony Sheppard brings together Sondheim's past with the present, thriving existence of his musicals.
Introduction: Our Sondheim
W. ANTHONY SHEPPARD
Part I. Early Stages
1. Williams College Before, During, and After Sondheim
STEVE SWAYNE
2. Fragments of Fairyland: Sondheim's Abandoned Adaptation of Mary
Poppins
DOMINIC McHUGH
3. "...nearly everything I wrote": Sondheim and the Actors
Studio
JEFFREY MAGEE
4. Breakout from the Asylum of Conformity: Sondheim, Laurents, and
the Dramaturgy of Anyone Can Whistle
JAMES O'LEARY
Part II. Staging Identities
5. Sondheim's Whiteness
TODD DECKER
6. Politics, Representation, and Collaboration in Pacific Overtures
(1976)
ASHLEY M. PRIBYL
7. Sexual Identity in Company, 1969-2019
ANDREW BUCHMAN
8. Students Performing Gender with Sondheim's Musicals in the Age
of #MeToo
STACY WOLF
Part III. Versions, Genres, and Collaborations
9. Sweeney's Identity Crisis and the Dynamic Potential of Generic
Hybridity
KIM H. KOWALKE
10. "A sad and listless affair": The Unsung Film Adaptation of
Sondheim's A Little Night Music
GEOFFREY BLOCK
Part IV. Reconceived Structures and Techniques
11. Time and Time Again: Temporal Structures in Sondheim's
Musicals
JIM LOVENSHEIMER
12. Sunday in the Park with Sondheim, Lapine, Seurat, and
Babbitt
LARA E. HOUSEZ
13. Sondheim and the 11 O'clock Principle
ELIZABETH A. WELLS
14. Finishing the Line: Wit, Rhythm, and Rhyme in Sondheim
W. ANTHONY SHEPPARD
Afterword: Moving on with Sondheim
KRISTEN ANDERSON-LOPEZ
W. Anthony Sheppard is Marylin and Arthur Levitt Professor of Music
at Williams College. His first book, Revealing Masks: Exotic
Influences and Ritualized Performance in Modernist Music Theater
received the Kurt Weill Prize, his article on Madama Butterfly and
film earned the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award, an article on World War
II film music was honored with the Alfred Einstein Award by the
American Musicological Society, and "Puccini and
the Music Boxes" received the AMS H. Colin Slim Award. His most
recent book, Extreme Exoticism: Japan in the American Musical
Imagination, received the AMS Music in American Culture Award and
the Society for American Music
Lowens Award. Sheppard's research has been supported by the NEH,
the American Philosophical Society, the ACLS, and the Institute for
Advanced Study, Princeton. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the
Journal of the American Musicological Society and is now Series
Editor of AMS Studies in Music.
To say I have put Sondheim on a pedestal would be an
understatement. He is the genius of all geniuses. The Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost of my chosen religion: musical theater. As has been
explored in multiple chapters in this book, Sondheim's monolithic
greatness—to my mind and in the Broadway community at large—is
connected to his ability to capture the nuanced paradoxes of the
human heart and mind.
*from the Afterword by Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Oscar and Grammy
award-winning songwriter*
All hail to a comprehensive collection representing the latest work
and thoughts by most of the big Sondheim players in the
musicological field! The quality of the contributions is high, and
several essays may become classics.
*Stephen Banfield, emeritus professor, University of Bristol*
Given the range of topics and the subject expertise from
contributors well established in the field, there will be something
in this collection for experienced academicians as well as the new
practitioners.
*John Snelson, Music & Letters*
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