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B.S. in Actuarial Science

Otterbein University Course Catalogs

2018-2019 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
    Mar 29, 2024  
2018-2019 Undergraduate Catalog [Archived Catalog]

FYS 1074 - History of Musical Theatre

Hours: 3
Musical theatre is a complex and absorbing art form that has existed since the creation of opera in the Italian Renaissance of the early 1600s. Three hundred years later, American musical theatre has drawn on the talents and sensibilities of creative and insightful composers, lyricists, directors, choreographers and performers throughout the twentieth century and into the present. In this course, we will survey the entire history of musical theatre, beginning with a unit on the current state of the art and Lin-Miranda’s Hamilton. We will then travel back to trace that history from the first operatic masterpiece, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo(1607) through the twentieth century. Instead of spending a few moments with many works, we will explore in some detail a series of epochal masterworks, which hold a mirror to American society, and provide a framework for discussion of race, class, gender, ethnicity and the American project.  Shows we will discuss and view in part include:  Show Boat, Porgy and Bess, Oklahoma!, West Side Story and Cabaret.