So I am not Matthew Guterl, as you heard.
I am the chair of the American Studies department.
I am a professor of Africana studies, American studies,
Ethnic studies.
And I'm here to talk about American Studies 1500
or Broadway Modern, which is class really focused
on getting you to think critically,
in a deeply theorized way about a kind
of disposable, forgettable, American popular icon,
musical theater.
I think that most people don't think carefully or critically
about musical theater.
And I want to encourage this group
to think deep and hard about this material
object in front of you.
I am someone who teaches classes where
they are on American popular culture-- generally,
race, and popular culture and political culture.
More specifically, a few years ago
I taught a class called Global Macho, which
is a class on action movies, race, and class.
And in that class, we reproduced the entire Kill Bill,
Vol I as a unit and then showed it at the Providence Public
Library.
So I'm a believer both in thinking hard
about popular culture, and also in getting the class
to do collaborative work together, and doing
sort of interesting, artistically-based but again,
deeply theorized performance pieces.
Not like broadcast on YouTube so nothing
to be embarrassed about, but nevertheless,
sort of an interesting way to get class
to think hard about what is that's actually
accomplished in musical.
This class, Broadway Modern, has four objectives
that I want you to be aware of.
First, of course it's a kind of history of musical theater,
running from opera and rag time, right up to the present
and looking to the future.
And I think this too is a kind of history
that we need to understand and think about.
But, it makes no sense to think about the history
of musical theater without also attending
to the very specifics of individual performances
and individual musicals themselves.
So there will be much close and focus
as well off, for my second objective on thinking
hard about singing, about background,
about costume, about design, about narrative plot.
The third objective is to really to think
about the contemporary political context of any of the musicals
we might consider.
And that might range from looking
at the kind of blinding lightness of Momma Mia, which
I find fascinating, to the contemporary performance
of Hamilton, which I'll talk about more in a second.
And then third, I want us to think about political economy
of musical theater generally.
I want us to understand how a musical moves from conception
to production to consumption.
I want us to think about how Broadway
is different from Hollywood.
I want us to think about why and how in the age of Oscars
to White, we have a musical like Hamilton that's produced,
or a resurgence of something like Shuffle Along, briefly
on the Broadway stage.
As to why Wintersession.
I feel like this is an ideal class for Wintersession.
And I'm not just saying that because I'm pitching it
and I'm hoping that people take it.
Although that's part of the reason.
But I also recognize that musical theater is kind
of an immersive experience.
The lights go down.
You're sitting there.
It's you and the performance in front of you.
And you're meant to be sort of swept up in it.
Have your foot tap.
Sing the song.
Get lost in it.
It's hard to think critically about it,
because you're so deeply immersed in it.
It's easy to feel it because you're
so deeply immersed in it.
So I want to reproduce that experience
through an intense three week class, four days a week,
four hours a day, plus night time reading.
And I also want to try and build us
some critical distance outside the class
to really understand what musical theater is and does.
The centerpiece of the class, just
to give you an example of how this might work,
is a daylong trip in the third week
to go see Hamilton in New York City.
This is not just a get on the bus.
Get off the bus.
Get into the theaters.
And then get back on the bus and come home sort a thing.
But rather a real full day in New York City.
So this might include, critical karaoke on the bus
on the way down.
It might include lunch at Shake Shack.
It might include a trip to the New York Public Library
where there's an exhibit on Alexander Hamilton right now.
It might include going down to Wall Street
to see Trinity Church.
It would certainly include going t
the Ham4Ham, mid-day, matinee, cast
performance on the street, where free tickets are given away.
It should include a talk-back with a cast member
before the performance.
And then, on the way home, it should
include robust conversation about what we've just seen.
Because if you haven't seen the musical,
I assure you then when you leave,
you'll want to talk about it.
So that's the centerpiece of the class.
And I hope that, not just the centerpiece,
but the larger context of musical theater and the chance
to study popular culture, critically, theoretically
is something that draws students to the classroom.