Department of English

Wicked, Spring Awakening, Dear Evan Hansen, Hadestown. And of course, Hamilton. The innovations we see in Broadway musicals since 2000 are particularly fascinating in that they, so to speak, boldly go where no musicals have gone before—while at the same time honoring and building on the long-standing traditions of this beloved form. From the powerfully romantic Light in the Piazza, which nods to roots in European operetta, to the boundary-defying Black queerness of A Strange Loop... and everything in between. In this course, we will go year by through musical theater from the quarter-century, to see where the form has gone recently… and where it’s headed. In addition to the works already mentioned, we’ll look at Caroline or Change, The Color Purple, In the Heights, Fun Home, and more. This course will also consider some recent “revisals,” like director Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma!, and Marianne Elliott’s gender-reassigned Company: reinterpretations of classic American musicals that imagine them in more contemporary light.