Musical Theatre Research Topics
Rescripting the Metaphysics of Musical Expression
My dissertation is about Serial Television Musical Episodes, which is when a non-musical serial narrative breaks into a Musical number while trying to maintain a coherent narrative. Basically, I am asking the question "How can Musical numbers be said to be part of a serial, when Musicals exist in a different metaphysical and diegetic space than the conventional, 'realist' or 'naturalist,' aesthetic of traditional narrative?" Using Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy and Slavoj Zizek as starting points, my hypothesis is that the growing trend of STMEs show evidence of cultural work concerning the production and communication of the Real by relying on the reflexive nature of Musicals to both support and deny sincerity in Modernism/Postmodernist modes of being. In times of crisis, such as the Depression, the World Wars, the Cold War, and 9/11, art has to rearticulate what it means to be human and what is real in order to get our bearings again - with Musicals being heralded as returning in 2001 with Moulin Rouge by none other than Hugh Jackman at the Oscars. STME's enact a clear metaphysical shift, but are coherent because the expressive nature of song in the new metaphysical paradigm (when life is a musical, you sing your heart out) is a progression of the 'realist' development of character. Emotion and expression, supported by a German Idealist metaphysics, become the inner world that both truthfully communicates and endangers the subject by revealing too much. This tragic combination is acted out in STMEs, most famously in Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "Once More, With Feeling" where the characters are cursed to sing their innermost thoughts and feelings and, when overcome, they spontaneously combust and die due to their excessive expression. This research has many ramifications about the status of Musical Theatre in our mode of entertainment, its evolution as a genre from stage to screen to small screen, and the political implications of the return of Musicals as a reflection of a society obsessed with crisis and apocalypse.
This research is generating many publications including a chapter in an edited collection on the series Fringe concerning the musical episode and representations of musical reality as another possible/parallel world in the metaphysics of the show's universe. These chapters combine many subsequent areas of research outside of the dissertation, but all serve the overriding theoretical apparatus I propose in analyzing Musical television.
Utopian Political Potentiality in the Musical Theatre Genre:
Why does musical theatre, with its heteronormative plotlines, exclusionary ideology, and its troublesome aesthetic of entertainment, hold a specialized place within American homosexual sensibilities? In other words, how and why is "Over the Rainbow" a gay anthem and musical theatre a haven for oppressed sexualities? This research is examining the aesthetics and formal qualities of musical theatre to examine the political potential of excess in understanding musicals as as politically engaged artform. My hypothesis is that the break between libretto and song shows a metaphysical break into expression that is coded as excessive. Music is coded as extreme gesture so, no matter the content of the song, its effect becomes coded as transcendent.
I am particularly interesting in the time frame of 1999-2005, as musical theatre reemerged as a dominant form in popular culture. Many of the shows during this time are meta-musicals, using self-reflexivity to a greater degree than the past. Currently, I am undergoing a study comparing "Urinetown," "Bat Boy: The Musical," "Book of Mormon," and "{title of show}." 4 quite different shows, each had a unique path and have complex relationships in balancing self-reflexivity for a Broadway audience, mainstream audiences, and other kinds of mediums other than the stage.
I am particularly interesting in the time frame of 1999-2005, as musical theatre reemerged as a dominant form in popular culture. Many of the shows during this time are meta-musicals, using self-reflexivity to a greater degree than the past. Currently, I am undergoing a study comparing "Urinetown," "Bat Boy: The Musical," "Book of Mormon," and "{title of show}." 4 quite different shows, each had a unique path and have complex relationships in balancing self-reflexivity for a Broadway audience, mainstream audiences, and other kinds of mediums other than the stage.
Representations of the American Dream & Assassinations in Art:
Stemming from my fascination with "Assassins" by Stephen Sondheim and "House of Yes" by Wendy MacLeod, I have begun collecting instances of presidential assassinations become topics of art. Given the nature of the position of President, many artists treat assassinations or assassination attempts as assaults on the American Dream. In doing so, the themes of trauma, abuse, nostalgia, and memorialization become major themes of how artists have represented the 'assassination.'