Broadway Bodies, A Critical History of Conformity
A Critical History of Conformity
Book •
Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity explores how ability, sexuality, and size intersect with gender, race, and ethnicity in casting and performance.
It tells a history of Broadway’s inclusion of various forms of embodied difference while revealing its simultaneous ambivalence toward non-conforming bodies.
The book poses questions such as: Why did A Chorus Line, a show that sought to individuate dancers, inevitably make dancers indistinguishable?
How does the use of fat suits in musicals like Dreamgirls and Hairspray stigmatize fatness?
What were the political implications of casting two straight actors as the gay couple in La Cage aux Folles in 1983?
How did deaf actors change the sound of musicals in Deaf West’s Broadway revivals?
Whose bodies does Broadway cast and whose does it cast aside?
It tells a history of Broadway’s inclusion of various forms of embodied difference while revealing its simultaneous ambivalence toward non-conforming bodies.
The book poses questions such as: Why did A Chorus Line, a show that sought to individuate dancers, inevitably make dancers indistinguishable?
How does the use of fat suits in musicals like Dreamgirls and Hairspray stigmatize fatness?
What were the political implications of casting two straight actors as the gay couple in La Cage aux Folles in 1983?
How did deaf actors change the sound of musicals in Deaf West’s Broadway revivals?
Whose bodies does Broadway cast and whose does it cast aside?
Mentioned by
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Mentioned by Pete Kunze as the topic of the podcast and written by the guest, ![undefined]()
Ryan Donovan
Ryan Donovan, "Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Mentioned as the book written by ![undefined]()
Ryan Donovan
Ryan Donovan, "Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity" (Oxford UP, 2023)
