Reconsidering the “Golden Age” Narrative for the American Musical in the New Millennium

This dissertation proposes that we consider Broadway’s history and genre development to be periodic rather than a singular trajectory of growth and inevitable decline. Situating the structural, musical, and aesthetic changes on Broadway within a periodic model, we begin to see phases of aesthetic cohesion and fragmentation emerge within a recurring pattern taking place every fifteen to twenty years. In reframing the evolution of Broadway as a model of continued regeneration, rather than a model of inevitable decay, we can see how various stylistic and structural elements from previous generations of musicals rematerialize in contemporary shows. More importantly, by removing the “Golden Age” as a fixed point of comparison in our analysis, we can come to understand the significance of shows often overlooked in more traditional analyses. Each chapter of this dissertation after the introductory chapter supports this view by offering a case study of a significant trend found on twenty-first century Broadway between 2000-2015 and situating that trend within the proposed periodic model. Chapter Two offers a close analysis of the scenographic practices in the output of the Disney Theatrical Group after 2000. I consider how the use of advanced stage technology in their musicals developed, and differs, from the pure technological spectacle of the megamusical. Chapter Three looks at the intersection between popular culture, camp, and the Broadway musical. The chapter traces the shift in camp sensibilities in self-reflexive musicals specifically developed to appeal to mainstream audiences, from being grounded in theater-related humor to being primarily popular culture-based. Chapters Four and Five explore productions from the post-millennium that more directly complicate the traditional “Golden Age” narrative. In Chapter Four, I provide a scenographic and socio-historical comparison of the concept musical with its post-millennium counterpart that I call the “neo-conceptual musical.” And, in Chapter Five, I compare how differently the work of Rodgers and Hammerstein and the work of Stephen Sondheim are approached and revived in recent years, and offer a reflection on how issues of nostalgia, “Golden Age” preferentialism, and politics of taste play out in the business of reviving (and revising) musicals in the post-millennium