Lectures: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:00–10:20 am
Section 1: Mondays, 1:10–2:00 pm [CRN: 73296]   
Section 2: Wednesdays, 12:10–1:00 pm [CRN: 73294]

This course explores the emergence of musical theater as one of America’s most distinctive cultural products. It features representative shows from the 1920s to the present day, focusing on their music, lyrics, choreography, and staging in live performances, cast recordings, and films. We will study how the genre’s composers draw from a wide variety of other American musical traditions—jazz, popular song, classical music, and rock—and consider Broadway musicals in dialogue with aspects of American culture, including class, race, gender, and sexuality.