Carol Oja (Department of Music)
First-Year Seminar 34V 4 Credits (Fall Term) Enrollment: Limited to 12
Tuesday, 9:45-11:45 AM
NOTE: Ability to read music is desirable but not required. Student musicians and actors are welcome in the course, as are students who love to watch shows but do not necessarily view themselves as performers.
This seminar explores a group of canonical Broadway musicals, pairing historical and musical discussions with staging of individual scenes. The stagings will be done under the guidance of Allegra Libonati of the A.R.T. Institute. Throughout, there will be a strong emphasis on race – as embedded in the story lines of shows, their musical styles, and casting decisions. The seminar will touch on signal moments over the course of the “Golden Age” of the musical, stretching up to the present: Show Boat (1927), Oklahoma! (1943), On the Town (1944), South Pacific (1949), West Side Story (1957), A Chorus Line (1975), In the Heights (2008), and Hamilton (2016). This seminar is offered through the Harvard Radcliffe Institute and will draw on the resources of the Schlesinger Library, a major repository for the archives of women.