American Cinderellas on the Broadway Musical Stage: Imagining the Working Girl from Irene to Gypsy - Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History 1st ed. 2015 edition

Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Table of Contents: Introduction: Glass Slippers and Glass Ceilings in the Twenty-FirstCentury, or Cinderella Returns to Broadway1. "Who Are These American Cinderellas?: " Working Girls, Chorus Girls, and American Dreams for Women in the 1920s 2. Merman Was a Lady: The 1930s Cinderella-Broad and Burlesquing the Genteel Tradition3. "Make Up Your Mind: " Boss Ladies and Enchantresses in the 1940s Broadway Musical4. "Twentieth-Century Fairy Tales: " Princesses, Prostitutes, and the Feminine Mystique in the Broadway Musicals of the 1950s5. Coda: Rewriting the Broadway Cinderella Story Bibliography"Biographical Note: Maya Cantu is Dramaturgical Advisor at Off-Broadway's Mint Theater Company, USA. Her essays and reviews have been published in Theatre Journal, Studies in Musical Theatre, New England Theatre Journal, and as part of the New York Public Library's "Musical of the Month" series. She earned her DFA and MFA in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from Yale School of Drama, USA. Review Quotes:"What Maya Cantu has achieved is to link mid-twentieth-century Broadway and Hollywood's fascination with Cinderella imagery and plots to modern feminism, and to the shifting conditions of American women. This book opens a rich vein of musical theatre study not unearthed before. She has written a real gem: fresh, comprehensive, engaging - often even revelatory." Stuart Hecht, PhD, Associate Professor, Theatre, Boston College, USA and author of Transposing Broadway: Jews, Assimilation, and the American Musical "American Cinderellas on the Broadway Musical Stage convincingly argues for the Cinderella motif as crucial to American musical theatre. Instead of pre-modern waifs and princesses, however, Maya Cantu finds her Cinderellas among the working girls, gold diggers, broads, boss ladies, and prostitutes of modern American culture, reminding us of the centrality of spunky girls in the musical. An insightful and illuminating read." - Pamela Robertson Wojcik, Professor, Department of Film, TV, and Theatre, University of Notre Dame, USA "This book is not only a smart, fascinating, and entertaining celebration of Broadway's love of the working girl's rags-to-riches dream, but also an engaging, thoughtful and perceptive exploration of our cultural values and the theatre artists who shaped them. A joy!" Jack Sharrar, PhD, American Conservatory Theater, author of Avery Hopwood: His Life and Plays"Review Quotes: "What Maya Cantu has achieved is to link mid-twentieth-century Broadway and Hollywood's fascination with Cinderella imagery and plots to modern feminism, and to the shifting conditions of American women. This book opens a rich vein of musical theatre study not unearthed before. She has written a real gem: fresh, comprehensive, engaging - often even revelatory." Stuart Hecht, PhD, Associate Professor, Theatre, Boston College, USA and author of "Transposing Broadway: Jews, Assimilation, and the American Musical" ""American Cinderellas on the Broadway Musical Stage" convincingly argues for the Cinderella motif as crucial to American musical theatre. Instead of pre-modern waifs and princesses, however, Maya Cantu finds her Cinderellas among the working girls, gold diggers, broads, boss ladies, and prostitutes of modern American culture, reminding us of the centrality of spunky girls in the musical. An insightful and illuminating read." - Pamela Robertson Wojcik, Professor, Department of Film, TV, and Theatre, University of Notre Dame, USA "This book is not only a smart, fascinating, and entertaining celebration of Broadway's love of the working girl's rags-to-riches dream, but also an engaging, thoughtful and perceptive exploration of our cultural values and the theatre artists who shaped them. A joy!" Jack Sharrar, PhD, American Conservatory Theater, author of "Avery Hopwood: His Life and Plays""