PMA 1164

FWS: Page to Stage to Kick-Ball-Change: Adapting Musical Theatre

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2021-2022.

Why tell the same story in a new way? More than half of all the shows nominated for the Tony Award for Best Musical are adaptations. From Hamilton and Hadestown to The Wizard of Oz and West Side Story, playwrights and composers have been recreating pre-existing plots for the all-singing, all-dancing stage for generations. How do adaptations reinvigorate stories for new audiences in an ever-changing society? How do they intersect and impact understandings of race, class, gender, sexuality, and politics? Students will watch various musical theatre adaptations and compare them alongside source materials including fiction, film, comics, biography and more. Through writing performance reviews, analytic essays, and imagining an original musical theatre adaptation, students will become triple threats in critical thinking, argumentation, and literary style.

When Offered Fall, Spring.

Satisfies Requirement First-Year Writing Seminar.

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