Twenty-First Century Musicals

From Stage to Screen

George Rodosthenous

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138648906
• eBook ISBN: 9781317234050
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Twenty-First Century Musicals stakes a place for the musical in today's cinematic landscape, taking a look at leading contemporary shows from their stage origins to their big-screen adaptations. Each chapter offers a new perspective on a single musical, challenging populist narratives and exploring underlying narratives and sub-texts in depth. Themes of national identity; race, class and gender; the 'voice' and 'singing live' on film; authenticity; camp sensibilities; and the celebration of failure are addressed in a series of questions including:

• How does the film adaptation provide a different viewing experience from the stage version?

• What themes are highlighted in the film adaptation?
• What does the new casting bring to the work?
• Do camera angles dictate a different reading from the stage version?
• What is lost/gained in the process of adaptation to film?

Re-interpreting the contemporary film musical as a compelling art form, Twenty-First Century Musicals is a must-read for any student or scholar keen to broaden their understanding of musical performance.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 Drag, rock, authenticity and in-betweenness: Hedwig and the Angry Inch
• 2 All that jazz: the difficult journey of Chicago from stage to screen
• 3 Ready for his close-up: from horror to romance in The Phantom of the Opera
• 4 ‘Bohemia is dead’: Rent celebrating life in the face of death
• 5 Where did we go right (and wrong)?: success and failure in the adaptations of The Producers from and to the screen
• 6 ‘Big, as in large, as in huge’: Dreamgirls and difference in the performance of gender, blackness, and popular music history
• 7 At the Intersection of music, sexuality and race: Hairspray’s generic and aesthetic variances
• 8 ‘With a bit of rock music, everything is fine’: Mamma Mia! and the camp sensibility on screen
• 9 8½ to Nine to Nine: evolutions of a cinema classic
• 10 ‘You wanna hear the real story?’: (mis)remembering masculinity in Clint Eastwood’s adaptation of Jersey Boys
• 11 The ethical exculpation of moral turpitude: representations of violence and death in Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods
• 12 The Last Five Years: medium, mode and the making of Cathy
• 13 The trouble with ‘Little Girls’: Annie on the big (and small) screen
• 14 London Road: the ‘irruption of the real’ and haunting utopias in the verbatim musical
• Conclusions
• Index