Gender, Sex, and Sexuality in Musical Theatre: He/She/They Could Have Danced All Night - Paperback

by Kelly Kessler (Editor)

Established and emerging musical theater scholars wrestle with the complexities of the gendered and sexualized musical theater form.

Critics and fans alike often mistake theatrical song and dance as simplistic, heteronormative, and traditional. This collection troubles this over-idealized notion of musical theatre, tackling divas, chorus boys, and the Rockettes; hit shows such as Hamilton and Spring Awakening; and lesser-known but groundbreaking gems like Erin Markey's A Ride on The Irish Cream and Kirsten Childs's Bella: An American Tall Tale.

The book takes a broad look at musical theater across a range of intersecting lenses including race, nation, form, dance, casting, marketing, pedagogy, industry, stardom, politics, and platform. Undermining the musical form's conservative façade, scholars drive home the fact that gender and desire have long been at the heart of the musical. This exciting and vibrant collection of articles takes sex, sexuality, and gendered complexity out of the musical's liner notes and back above the marquee.

Author Biography

Kelly Kessler is professor of media and cinema studies at the College of Communication at De Paul University in Chicago. She has published widely
on television, film, and musical theater and is the author of Broadway in the Box: Television's Lasting Love Affair with the Musical.