Beyond Broadway

The idea of American musical theatre conjures up images of bright lights and big city, but its lifeblood is found in local and amateur productions at schools, community theatres, summer camps, and more. In Beyond Broadway, author Stacy Wolf considers the widespread presence and persistence of
musical theatre in U.S. culture, and examines it as a live, pleasurable, participatory experience of creating, watching, and listening. Why does local musical theatre flourish in America? Why do so many Americans passionately engage in a century-old artistic practice that requires intense,
person-to-person collaboration? Why do audiences flock to see musicals in their hometowns? How do corporations like Disney and Music Theatre International enable musical theatre's energetic movement through American culture? Touring from Maine to California, Wolf visits elementary schools, a middle
school performance festival, afterschool programs, high schools, summer camps, state park outdoor theatres, community theatres, and dinner theatres, and conducts over 200 interviews with practitioners and spectators, licensors and Disney creatives. In Beyond Broadway, Wolf tells the story of musical
theatre's abundance and longevity in the U.S. as a thriving, joyful activity that touches millions of lives.


"...a valuable resource..." -- Laura MacDonald, Theatre Topics

"In Beyond Broadway, Stacy Wolf, one of the foremost scholars of Broadway musicals, takes a fascinating journey across America to explore how enthusiastic youth and adults put on shows all over the place: in schools, summer camps, community theaters, dinner theaters, and countless off-the-beaten
track venues. She reveals a vibrant amateur scene that runs parallel to -- and ultimately sustains -- top-flight Broadway productions. Lively, incisive, brimming with good will and brilliant commentary, this book will appeal to a span of readers as broad and inclusive as the productions it
chronicles." -- Carol J. Oja, author of Bernstein Meets Broadway: Collaborative Art in a Time of War

"Beyond Broadway takes us thousands of miles from New York City to the heartland of musical theatre in America. Surveying the work of dozens of amateur companies, schools, and summer camps, Stacy Wolf provides gorgeously detailed and revealing portraits of the many devotees across the country who
pour their hopes and dreams into the Broadway musical. Her rich analysis of this thriving industry is a model of engaged scholarship while her devotion to the countless people down in the trenches transmutes Beyond Broadway into an act of love." -- David Savran, The Graduate Center, City University
of New York