Follow the Yellow Brick Road: Gender, Power, and the Megamusical in the Land of Oz. Part 2

8:07 AM Amanda Prahl 0 Comments

In the first part of this series, we looked at the female characters in Oz and what they symbolize, both on a dramatic and musical level and a theoretical level. Now, let's take a look at these women's relationships and the remarkable (and unusual) use of female friendship to structure the show. But first, just to wrap up the gendered character analysis, let's also take a quick look at the men of Oz, particularly the men of Wicked.

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Dear Broadway: Not Every Movie Needs To Be A Musical

12:30 PM Amanda Prahl 0 Comments

If you've been paying any attention to Broadway these days, you might have noticed a few familiar titles. Or more than a few. In recent seasons, the theater world has been overrun by "new" musicals that are based on existing stories, particularly films. Some (Once) have been great. Others (Ghost, anybody?), not so much. Now, adaptation has been the bread and butter of book musicals since Rodgers and Hammerstein adapted Green Grow The Lilacs, a play with 64 Broadway performances to its name, into one of the most popular and groundbreaking musicals in theater history: Oklahoma! The difference is, the adaptations we're seeing today are not true adaptations of a story into something new for the theater. Instead, it feels like producers go down a list of popular movies and try to shoehorn them into a milieu that simply doesn't work. I love musical theater, but here's the thing: not everything should be a musical.

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