Children, Childhood, and Musical Theater

Bringing together scholars from musicology, literature, childhood studies, and theater, this volume examines the ways in which children's musicals tap into adult nostalgia for childhood while appealing to the needs and consumer potential of the child.

List of contents

1. Children, Childhood, and Musical Theater: an Introduction
James Leve and Donelle Ruwe
2. Beginning with Do Re Mi: Childhood and The Sound of Music
Ryan Bunch
3. Walt Disney, Dr. Benjamin Spock, and the Gospel of Ideal Childrearing: Creating Superlative Nuclear Families in Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks
William A. Everett
4. Saving Mr. [Blank]: Rescuing the Father through Song in Children's and Family Musicals
Raymond Knapp
5. Dickensian Discourses: Giving a (Singing) Voice to the Child-Hero in Oliver! and Copperfield
Marc Napolitano
6. Ghetto Chic: Utopianism and the Authentic Child in The Me Nobody Knows (1970)
Donelle Ruwe
7. Little Girls, Big Voices: Annie
James Leve
8. Urchins, Unite: Newsies as an Antidote to Annie
Marah Gubar
9. Agency, Power, and the Inner Child: The "Revolting Children" of Matilda the Musical
Helen Freshwater
10. Children's Musicals for Educational and Community Settings
Lauren Acton
11. Broadway Junior
Stacy Wolf
Bibliography of Scholarly Sources

About the author

James Leve is a Professor of Musicology at Northern Arizona University.
Donelle Ruwe is Professor and Chair of English at Northern Arizona University.

Summary

Bringing together scholars from musicology, literature, childhood studies, and theater, this volume examines the ways in which children's musicals tap into adult nostalgia for childhood while appealing to the needs and consumer potential of the child.

Product details

• Authors: Donelle Leve Ruwe
• Assisted by: James Leve (Editor), Leve James (Editor), Donelle Ruwe (Editor), Ruwe Donelle (Editor)
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 29.08.2022
• EAN: 9781032400525
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3240052-5
• No. of pages: 278
• Series: Studies in Childhood, 1700 to the Present
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > General, dictionaries; LITERARY CRITICISM / General, Social & cultural history, LITERARY CRITICISM / Children's & Young Adult Literature, Opera, Theatre Studies, Social and cultural history, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Children's & teenage literature studies, Children’s and teenage literature studies: general