Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
21
result(s) for
"Theater and society New York (State) New York History."
Sort by:
Blue-Collar Broadway
Behind the scenes of New York City's Great White Way, virtuosos of stagecraft have built the scenery, costumes, lights, and other components of theatrical productions for more than a hundred years. But like a good magician who refuses to reveal secrets, they have left few clues about their work. Blue-Collar Broadway recovers the history of those people and the neighborhood in which their undersung labor occurred.Timothy R. White begins his history of the theater industry with the dispersed pre-Broadway era, when components such as costumes, lights, and scenery were built and stored nationwide. Subsequently, the majority of backstage operations and storage were consolidated in New York City during what is now known as the golden age of musical theater. Toward the latter half of the twentieth century, decentralization and deindustrialization brought the emergence of nationally distributed regional theaters and performing arts centers. The resulting collapse of New York's theater craft economy rocked the theater district, leaving abandoned buildings and criminal activity in place of studios and workshops. But new technologies ushered in a new age of tourism and business for the area. The Broadway we know today is a global destination and a glittering showroom for vetted products.Featuring case studies of iconic productions such as Oklahoma! (1943) and Evita (1979), and an exploration of the craftwork of radio, television, and film production around Times Square, Blue-Collar Broadway tells a rich story of the history of craft and industry in American theater nationwide. In addition, White examines the role of theater in urban deindustrialization and in the revival of downtowns throughout the Sunbelt.
eBook
Broadway Goes to War
The American theater was not ignorant of the developments
brought on by World War II, and actively addressed and debated
timely, controversial topics for the duration of the war, including
neutrality and isolationism, racism and genocide, and heroism and
battle fatigue. Productions such as Watch on the Rhine
(1941), The Moon is Down (1942), Tomorrow the
World (1943), and A Bell for Adano (1944) encouraged
public discussion of the war's impact on daily life and raised
critical questions about the conflict well before other forms of
popular media.
American drama of the 1940s is frequently overlooked, but the
plays performed during this eventful decade provide a picture of
the rich and complex experience of living in the United States
during the war years. McLaughlin and Parry's work fills a
significant gap in the history of theater and popular culture,
showing that American society was more divided and less idealistic
than the received histories of the WWII home front and the
entertainment industry recognize.
eBook
Cafe Society
Set against the drama of the Great Depression, the conflict of American race relations, and the inquisitions of the House Un-American Activities Committee, Cafe Society tells the personal history of Barney Josephson, proprietor of the legendary interracial New York City night clubs Cafe Society Downtown and Cafe Society Uptown and their successor, The Cookery. Famously known as \"the wrong place for the Right people,\" Cafe Society featured the cream of jazz and blues performers--among whom were Billie Holiday, Big Joe Turner, Lester Young, Buck Clayton, Big Sid Catlett, and Mary Lou Williams--as well as comedy stars Imogene Coca, Zero Mostel, and Jack Gilford, the boogie-woogie pianists, and legendary gospel and folk artists. A trailblazer in many ways, Josephson welcomed black and white artists alike to perform for mixed audiences in a venue whose walls were festooned with artistic and satiric murals lampooning what was then called \"high society.\" In particular, he sought out and developed new performing talent, and he offered musicians and performers the rare security of continuous work for months and years. Spanning half a century from the 1930s to the 1980s, Josephson's narrative depicts both the business and the artistic sides of Cafe Society while exposing the tensions between the club's own progressive interracial openness and the more restrictive social and political climate in which it evolved. When his brother Leon was targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee, Barney was tarred by the same brush and forced to close Cafe Society. Now out of the limelight, Barney opened a hamburger restaurant, The Cookery, hiring unemployed dancers as waitresses. Featuring scores of photographs that illustrate the vibrant cast of characters in Josephson's life, this exceptional book tells Josephson's personal history in his own words and through illuminating anecdotes, personal interviews, and historical research. A concept ahead of its time, Cafe Society was acclaimed then and now for its revolutionary innovations and creativity, inspired by the vision of one remarkable man.
eBook
In the long run : a cultural history of Broadway's hit plays
\"In the Long Run: A Cultural History of Broadway's Hit Plays presents in-depth analysis of 15 plays that ran over 1,000 performances, examining what made each so popular in its time--and then, in many cases, fall into obscurity. Covering one hundred years of theatre history, it traces the long-running Broadway play as a distinct cultural phenomenon that rises and falls from 1918 to 2018. Each chapter focuses on the longest-running plays of a particular decade, synthesizing historical research and dramaturgical analysis to explain how they functioned as works of theatrical art, cultural commodities, and reflections of the values, conflicts, and fantasies of their times. At the heart of each play's history are the ideological contradictions often present in works of popular culture that appeal to diverse audiences, particularly around issues of gender, race, class, and sexuality. Suitable for anyone with an interest in Broadway and its history, In the Long Run explores the nature of time in this ephemeral art form, the tensions between commerce and art, between popularity and prestige, and the changing position of the Broadway play within American popular culture\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Gigs
Gigs provides a fascinating account of a unique victory for musicians against repressive entertainment licensing laws. It provides a much-needed study of the social, political, cultural and legal conditions surrounding a change in law and public attitudes toward vernacular music in New York City.
This second edition includes a new preface by Hamish Birchall and an introduction by the series editors, Guy Osborn and Steve Greenfield, as well as an afterword by the author, and it will be essential reading for all those interested in the history of social attitudes toward the popular arts and the use of constitutional litigation for social change.
Paul Chevigny is Professor of Law at New York University. He has a long-standing interest in jazz music and civil rights and has worked on problems of international human rights.
Preface Hamish Birchall Series Editors Introduction 1. Prelude 2. The Musicians Union 3. The Music in the Clubs 4. Regulation as Denigration 5. The Campaign to Change the Law: Lost in the Labyrinth 6. The Campaign to Change the Law: Free Expression 7. The Process of Change 8. The Lives of Musicians 9. Conclusion: Politics, Law and Music Afterword
eBook
Streets and Stages: Urban Renewal and the Arts after World War II
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in Manhattan and the revitalization of the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn offer insights into the intersection of arts and urbanization after World War II. This intra-city comparison shows the aggrandizing pull of the international arena in the shaping of Lincoln Center and the arts it featured in contrast to the local focus and debate that transformed how BAM fit into its Brooklyn neighborhood. The performing arts, bound as they are to a moment fused in space and time, reveal the making of place within grandiose formal buildings as well as outside on the streets that surround them—and it is, perhaps, that tensile connection between stages and streets that informs the relevancy of both the institution and the arts it features. At a time when the suburbs pulled more and more people, the arts provided a counterforce in cities, as magnet and stimulus. The arts were used as compensation for the demolition and re-building of a neighborhood in urban renewal, but they also exposed the more complex social dynamics that underpinned the transformation of the mid-20th century American city from a segregated to a multi-faceted place.
Journal Article