The Cats: A Trendsetter in Megamusicals - Essay Example

Running Head: The Cats The Cats: A Trendsetter in Megamusicals of Megamusicals have been probably the most successful, and audience attracting genre of music and theatre from the late twentieth century. There have been some outstanding performances and shows from the founders of the megamusicals Cameroon Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Most importantly the Cats; imported from London like most others; turned out to be probably the most successful and longest running show. The glossy, spectacular and mobile sets and stages, the most catchy advertisements and marketing techniques along with beautiful songs; all of these aspects resulted the Cats to continue to eighteen years. However, it received quite a lot of mixed comments from critics, reviewers and theater historians, then too it attracted audiences from not only the local New York populace but also from the foreign countries; resulting in about fifty million people around the world having watched it. Moreover, due to its immense fame people were willing to buy its expensive-then ticket of forty five dollars; this returned about six times of their investments to four of the investors in Cats, and had grossed about 2.2 billion dollars. The Cats: A Trendsetter in Megamusicals Introduction: Megamusical The notion of megamusical represents a reinvigoration of 19th century French magnificent opera. The music of the megamusical is as big as its plot; as actually in a megamusical there is no or slight switch over of conversations, somewhat it is sung all through its length, by means of an composition of songs, recitative items, intermediary and associated materials. As in the traditional musical comedy, characters do stop and sing numbers, but they sing everything else virtually, including their dialogues and in the background orchestra plays continuously. Thus is can be said that every aspect of a megamusical is tied and drawn by music runs dramatically fluent. Moreover as if the plot and the music are both majestic, it is usually the case that staging and set too are impressive. In fact the expensive, complicated and impressive sets turned out to became one of the essential features of a megamusical, particularly in the ostentatious 1980s, most of the megamusicals emphasized on the distraction, movement, details and impression of the sets rather than considering the actual story or plot and the music of the megamusical. Even though the most excellent megamusical stayed stranded in the rudiments of intrigue and composition as well, demonstration became essential to the creation of a megamusical; this explains that only concerned things that stimulated and glittered predisposed to be unproductive both as business enterprise and drama. Still some form of bodily hugeness was demanded by the style, so as to be compatible with enormity of music, plot and emotions. (Block, 1993) Apparently, Cameron Mackintosh was a born producer. At the age of eight, he had already developed the skills to persuade people to lend him money so that he could put up shows. He as a young man learned as many of the issues and tasks related to the theater and entertainment, for instance performing, stage management, advertising, bookings, program notes, tours and publicity. With the Side by Side by Sondheim, success came in by the year 1976. Knowing what a tough sell Cats would be, Lloyd Webber asked Mackintosh to produce it, this rose as a challenge for Mackintosh. And of course Cats was followed by another super hit the Les Miserables, which is regarded as the largest hit of all times. (Sternfeld, 2006) The Cats and the Birth of Megamusical Wolman et al. (2006) consider the making of “The Cats” as the birth of the megamusical. They state: Cats is thus remarkable not so much because of its artistry, but rather because it was the prototype for the kind of slickly performed and produced big-budget musical that would dominate Broadway through the 1980s and much of the 1990s. (p. 122) In 1978 Mackintosh met composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who was seeking a producer for his musical setting of T. S. Eliots Old Possums Book of Practical Cats. Mackintosh worked with the advertising agency Dewynters to create a cats-eye logo that would be used in an intensive marketing campaign, creating audience demand long before the London premiere, on May 11, 1981. In October 1982 it transferred to Broadway with a record box-office advance of $6.2 million, establishing Mackintoshs international reputation as a producer. With Cats, Mackintosh began his practice of opening satellite productions around the world; Cats played in up to 20 countries at once. The New York production would run 18 years, becoming the longest-running Broadway musical until 2006, when it was overtaken by the Mackintosh, produced. On the broadcasting, in newspapers and the commercials on television gained a new tag line “now and forever”, when the show passed the record for the greatest running megamusical in the past of the Broadway. Television advertisements continued to publicize “Cat. Now and forever at the Winter Garden Theater, until just a few months before it was finally stopped in September 2000. It always got a cackle when the humorists deduced the catchphrase as though it were an intimidation. Yet the show sustained to sell out for almost eighteen year, how is it that everybody in the know comprehends that anti-Cats jokes are humorous? And what was there to demonstrate that the Cats by comics and reviewers, and anyone trying to be trendy, love to detestation? Form it well revealed opening to the instant it broke the permanence record and ahead, surely it has acknowledged a great deal of consideration over the years. Cats has become an ethnically collective gag, due to both wild triumph and sustained scorn but more significantly it has become a artistic icon. Whether they have viewed it eighteen months or eighteen years ago, all who have seen the show or not, and many who have never seen it have a rather accurate representation in their minds of Cats: the song “Memory,” and the word “Cats” scrawled in white on black background with only two yellow cat’s eyes as beautification, a set full of illumination and things that move and smoke, and dancers in stiff flexible garments and full cat makeup. (Sternfeld, 2006) To the formation of this culturally unwritten thing, a number of issues have contributed. The essentials which went into creation of the Cats experience were there for the first time in this show, in most cases. A nation barely known for its hoofers, it was the first all-dancing show out of England. More so than Lloyd Webber’s preceding introductions, it acquired immense sensation in London before incoming in New York. Without Tim Rice as a rhymester, it was first megamusical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. With extraordinary sets that sparkled and stimulated, it took over a thoroughly redesigned Winter Garden Theater. While partaking in theatrical scenes and singing, it featured grown men and women clothed up like cats. Before it, there was not a single show which was marketed and advertised that profoundly. By some judgments that most booming song ever produced by a musical, it characterized a hit song of colossal extents. The Cats was the first true megamusical in short. (Sternfeld, 2002) Then, it is no wonder that Cats has become a generally understood joke. As expressed by Bruce Handy in following words: “It has transcended Broadway spectacle, taking on the added social burden of being as easy punch line. It is the reference of choice for conjuring up an especially redolent-of-the-80, beloved-by-Hoosiers brand of theatrical experience...” Especially the levitating tire at the end, the reference to Hoosiers implies that only simple minded farm folk of Indiana and other out of town visitors are impressed by the sets and staging in Cats. Yet when it opened, and not just by the sets, plenty of critics were impressed. Cats had come to seem almost quaint in its 1980s style “mega” qualities, by the end of its run. Plus sheer staying power as time marched on contributed to this change in perception, the arrival of newer and in many cases even more spectacular shows. When it arrived, it is hard to remember now how adult, how influential, how innovative Cats was, but the marketing, the concept and particularly the music, all of these helped to make Cats the cultural icon it has become. (Sternfeld, 2002) London Opening On the 11th of May 1981, the Cats opened at the New London Theater. The opening, already a high profile event, won extra publicity thanks to a bomb threat phoned in by a man with Irish accent. When Brian blessed interrupted and asked the cast and crowd to file out onto the street when he was playing Old Deuteronomy, the audience was in the middle of its standing ovation, and the performance just had ended. However no bomb was found. Even those who didn’t care for the show, almost every critic, championed it as a great event in British musical theater. No British company of dancers had ever impressed as much as this group, the mere fact that the cast pulled off the dancing was a victory in itself. As singers, dancers and actors, the whole cast was praised by the critics as being talented, convincing and energetic. Sheridan Morley went so far as to claim that the whole night really belonged to Lynn, in Punch magazine, who turned in the most impressive work of the entire creative team and who proved that the English could dance like Broadway while still remaining faithful to piece. (Morley, 1981) One of the many enthusiastic reviews were written by Morley; even those critics ended up by encouraging readers to go see the show who offered up moments with which they had problems. Morley didn’t seem to be bothered by the plot, even when he regarded it as unconvincing and thin. With some dramatic flavor, he accepted the show as celebration, which was showcased beautifully of Eliot’s poems. Moreover the Robert Cushman from the Observer of London, similarly to Morley, expressed the plot that went nowhere and somewhat a series of charming vignettes, rather he wanted it to go somewhere unlike Morley. Nor around the subplots involving the criminal kidnapping cat Macavity and disappearance of Old Deuteronomy, there was no suspense surrounding who would be chosen to ascend. According to him this was his only reservation, otherwise, he found the Ball and the special effects alone worth the price of admission. The only thing which he praised was the distinct musical style of the Andrew Lloyd Webber; this style gave every single cat a unique sound. He summarized that “Cats isn’t perfect, don’t miss it”. (Cushman, 1981) A pure rave review, however, was written by Michael Billington from the Guardian. The treatment of Eliot texts, the dancing, newly added plot and the mix of musical styles which defined each cats; all of these were perfectly successful. (Billington, 1981) Similarly the Derek Jewell form the Sunday Times was also dazzled. Analogous to other critics, Jewell agreed that the plot of the show was a little less than perfect, but he argued that thanks to the dancing, music and action, the required valleys and peaks of emotions were all in place. It was soon known to everyone that the positive reviews by the critics were far more than the negative ones, and moreover that it was obvious that the reviews weren’t of importance at all. The audience embraced it wholeheartedly, and the show was sold out for many months in advance, and it ran for twenty one years. After a month of the show’s opening, the “Memory” became a hit song in England, and the cast album reached the charts as well after three months of the opening of the show. And in the next year, the theme music for the BBC’s broadcasting of the World Cup of 1982 was based on the music for the Jellicle Ball. Isn’t The Curiosity Killing You? In contrast to the London, it was easier to find the finance in New York. Only four sources of finance were required by Mackintosh due to the fact that Cats has been a huge success in the England. These four were the Geffen Records, the Shubert Organization, the Metromedia Corporation, and the ABC Entertainment. Two of these, in conjunction with Mackintosh and Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Company, the Shubert and David Geffen were listed as the actual producers on the show, as the Really Useful Company, then, despite of its rapid growth wasn’t able to cater such a huge event. (Cats a Hit in London, Sets Broadway Dates, 1982) Now as quite a lot of money was coming into the show, the team, particularly Mackintosh, Nunn and Webber thought that some significant changes should be brought up in the newer version. To accommodate the Winter Garden’s shape but also to make the effects, technology and sets more impressive, they spent four times as money as in London. To allow for Grizabella’s ascension, a hole was cur into the roof of the theater and a dome was added. From top to bottom, front to back the theater was covered with junk. So that the audience wrapped around more than three quarters of the stage, the first seven rows of seats were removed and the stage was extended, and the pirate-boat-effect was given by opening the back section of the set. It boasted the highest ticket advance in history, when Cats opened in New York on the 7th of October, to $6.2 million. Indeed the hype was massive, any producer before him, neither Mackintosh, had ever advertised a show so heavily or so consistently. Wherever the advertisements were sent, across the country and eventually across the globe, the yellow pairs of cat’s eyes with vague images of dancers were instantly recognizable. As claims Michael Walsh that Cat was a product, a trademark. And whatever he could find, Mackintosh printed on it; form billboard to t-shirts. (Walsh, 1989) In June 1982, he started with a huge display on the theater itself, a full four months before opening. When the box office opened in August, print ads began running in newspapers as early as April, Mackintosh added the radio advertisements as well. While the prints ads featured the eyes, the radio ads had the song “Memory” playing in the background; one thing was common in all means advertisements that they featured one line of text “Isn’t the curiosity killing you?” The song “Memory” was already familiar to American listeners by this time. As the Barbara Streisand had had a hit with it and Johnny Mathis, Barry Mani low, and Judy Collins led the group of many other artists who could record it as well.1 Before it was actually opened the show in itself was a star. The curiosity was indeed getting to thousands of people, who then a record high, cheerfully paid a whopping $45, to witness this new phenomenon. Something every show did and which this one easily could have done, they also never carried quotes from critics. There were plenty of London accolades from which to choose, before the New York opening, and the American critics supplied dozens more. With record force, Mackintosh deemed it unnecessary he pushed only the idea of the show itself and Lloyd Webber’s name. He didn’t need to do anything more. However, if the marketing techniques and fate’s twists contributed to Cats as being a hit on its opening, then what made it endure for about next two decades? Some of the features that made it a hit in the 1982 are also responsible for keeping it through the 2000. There were always audiences who were attracted to and recognized those cat’s eyes. However, a large percentage of that audience in recent years consisted of foreign tourists. According to a report, about forty percent of the audience was from the foreign countries whereas about eighty percent of the audience was from out of town (Grimes, 1997).Since the dancing, set and action account for a great deal of the show’s effect, several critics argue that Cats particularly appealed to the non-English-speaking tourists. It is a decidedly child friendly show, also, although only in recent years it has been marketed as such. There are Cats dolls and toys now, children abound in the audience, and parents are kids are welcome to go up on the stage during intermission and meet Old Deuteronomy. Both at opening and over the long haul, all of these new methods of marketing, add up to the longest running musical in history. As expressed in New York Times in following words: “The show itself is a star, and like a certain kind of celebrity, it managed to become not only famous but also famous for being famous.” Other Recurring Musical Ideas Other motifs, themes and fragments recur throughout the show, but none with anything like the variation or frequency of the Jellicle theme or the music of “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats”. Rather than a generally Jellicle meaning, they usually have significance related to character or plot. The song “Old Deuteronomy” features to versus and is beautiful and simple; a refrain and a bridge, and the refrain find its way into later moments in the show. (Walsh, 1989) After one of the cats announces the Old Deuteronomy approaches, the song proper opens with the refrain. The first verse is sung by the Munkustrap and the second by the Rum Tum Tugger. Representing his sneaky and mysterious abilities and his habit of never being where he is thought to be Macavity also has his own music, like the Old Deuteronomy. (Kelly, 1982) The major part of the numbers in the show feature individual cats or the tale of a cat of ages past or a pair of cats, rather than to the group of the Jellicle cats. It was the preponderance of this kind of number which led many critics to complain that Cats was a series of songs strung together with a bare thread of plot and nothing more than revenue. These songs add up to less than half the running time of the show, though it is true that more than half the set pieces concern one cat or another. Showing his or her talent as described in the poem while singing and dancing about it in an appropriate style, most of the songs devoted to singular cat personalities feature that cat in question. Usually referred to as insult, it was in discussing these numbers that critics use the word “parody” or “lampoon”. Reviews in New York Frank Rich was the new chief drama critic of the New York Times. Eventually he would be openly hostile toward Lloyd Webber and music; he brought no admiration for Lloyd Webber to his new job. It was not that Rich didn’t care for Lloyd Webber’s style, but he had some aesthetic criteria for disliking Lloyd Webber. Though generally more positive then negative, Rich’s review was mixed. Rich’s review could have hurt the show, still had Lloyd Webber not been at the point in his career at which critics ceased to matter. He formed opinions about the show that changed little in New York as he had seen it already in London. He uses the word “bookless” to describe Cats, by which he means that continually sung through in the same breath thus leading to plotlessness, thus according to him it lacked the dramatic features. Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita were bookless according to him, but what makes for messy reading he compares them to Cats in terms of plotlessness. Along with the makeup and costumes, Rich wrote, the theatrical magic and transporting were aided greatly by Napier’s set. It was a world that never stopped overwhelming the audience and was a wholly cat driven. Eighteen years of Forever By all accounts, the opening night audience loved the show. Only after seventeen years, tickets continued to sell well in advance and began to flag significantly. Ticket price were raised to a then-record high for forty five dollars, after the first week of its run. Cats won the Tony Awards for the best musical for the 1982 season, for the best score (lyricist T.S. Eliot and composer Lloyd Webber) , book (T.S. Eliot), lighting (David Hersey), costumes (Napier, also nominated is scenic design category but lost) and featured actress (Betty Buckley) and direction (Nunn) (Baker, 1983).If that were possible, this impressive award sweep encouraged even more ticket sales. The show easily recouped this investment in forty one weeks, despite an enormous initial production cost of over four million dollars. The show would give out six times the amount each backer had invested within the decade (Rosenberg and Harburg, 992). Encouraged by sales of the imported London cast album in the United States, producer David Geffen produced the American version of the cast album and was rewarded with spectacular returns .(Bennetts, 1982). Despite the mixed reviews, Lloyd Webber had clearly triumphed beyond all expectations in the United States. As this was described by Walsh in following word: “Nothing, and no one, could stop him now, maybe he was critic proof”. (Walsh, 1989) Over the years, regarding the long running shows and Cats particularly, New York Times published articles. Injuries to dancers were focus in 1983 and the methods and techniques that kept the show fresh were hot topics in 1985. (Bennetts, 1983). For instance, most of the shows had one supervisor if there was any; Cats had two production supervisors, who were responsible for the continuous monitoring of the show on the Broadway and on the tour, which meant up till Toronto, Chicago and Los Angeles (Darnton, 1985). Still after three years, playing the Rum Tum Tugger, Terrence Mann was interviewed by the Times, and also Laurie Beechman, who previously was narrator on Broadway in Joseph, in Cats she was Grizabella. The same issues which swirled around Cats upon opening remained with it as was disclosed by the other follow-up articles. One reporter upon observing the enormous joy and excitement in the audience expressed “it’s accepted as spectacle” (Canby, 1994). Like several before it, an article in 1997 stated that although it was in goo shape still after fifteen years “..the Cats’ is still stuck being, ‘Cats.’ (Marks, 1997) A musical video of Rum Tum Tugger was released in 1984, which was the first rock video ever form a musical. The five piece band contributed to harden the ‘rock’ element instead of an orchestra (Lawson, 1982). Including the pounds of dry ice, use of yak hair for wigs and number of condoms gone through (used to protect body mikes) and also the revenue earned by the Eliot’s state; the Times enjoyed reporting Cats related issues and stats from time to time. Surprisingly a newsletter name The Cats Meow, was run by a passionate fan. (Handy, 1994) A whole series of records were smashed by Cats. Cats became the longest running musical in British history, in 1989 breaking the record held by Jesus Christ Superstar. To mark it “nine lives” to date, a celebration was thrown in honor of the ninth anniversary of the opening of the Cats on Broadway. A host of new musicals had opened on those nine years, most of them modeled in at least some ways on the Cats formula, determining its clear and strong influence. This had caused Lloyd to enter into many other projects and enables many other composers and lyricists to enter the profession. The Times looked back and with this perspective called Cats “the first of the British megamusicals”. Over the years there had been twenty one production runs most of which continued successfully. The show had grossed a billion dollars and thirty nine million people had seen it. On the tenth of its anniversary on the 7th of October 1992, a further six million people had seen it in New York. (Collins, 1992) When a woman sued the Rum Tum Tugger, the press had an opportunity to report one of the more bizarre stories associated with a musical in February 1997. Who had been in the audience a year earlier, Evelyn Amato, had been targeted by the Rum Tum Tugger for his mid song dance with an audience member. Actor David Hibbard had bounded out into the audience during the orchestral interlude in his number and persuaded Ms. Amato to dance with him, as was the Rum Tum Tugger’s custom. He did some bumping and grinding in close proximity to her face and pulled her hair, she claimed than when she would not. Thus claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault, negligence, battery, violation of civil rights, and invasion of privacy, she filed a lawsuit. Andrew Lloyd Webber, Hibbard, Cameron Mackintosh, the Shubert Organization and Trevor Nunn were the ones who were sued under her claim. Not bothering to hide its amusement, the New York Times added that the suit doesn’t name the T.S. Eliot whose poetry were used as lyrics for the show. Although she lost, she had asked for six million dollars. With 6,138 performances, Cats broke the record as the longest running musical in Broadway history, on 19th of June 1997. A theater writer for the Times, Peter Marks noted that seeing the show now was like going back in time to 1982, similar to seeing an artifact. He believed that no staging could look fresh even after only as few as five years, not due to the glance of the show but due to the cultural changes. The Times declared on its front page that Cats now had been seen by over fifty million people across the globe and about eight million in New York only. With it touring companies and regional reproductions, and almost single handedly revived the sagging road business, it has grossed about $2.2 billion. Thanks to tourism, more than three billion dollars had been injected in New York’s economy from Cats only. The 19th June was proclaimed as the Cats day by the Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. (Grimes, 1997) The impacts of Cats: “These Modern productions are all very well” Although some of the critics gave a mixed review about Cats; almost all of them credited the show of being innovative and unusual in some or the other aspects. In terms of the visual, there had never been a musical on quite so grand a scale. All of the unique features such as the garbage covered theater, the thoroughness sounding the audience and the dramatic moving set pieces all were splendid. It became obvious to even the grumpiest of the critics that Cats would be influential, there were factors for this upon which most of the critics agreed, as this atmosphere was then filled with an engaging and nonstop score performed by an excellent and expert cast. However, then it became considerable as if this influence was positive one. Perhaps best represented by Walter Kerr, members of an old school of thought resisted the newness of fancy spectacle on principle and longed for the less flashy musicals of ages past. Feingold had argued in Voice that spectacle automatically meant lack of emotional or intellectual depth. Where most critics could be found, between these poles, was the idea that although Cats indeed mostly focused on exciting spectacle instead of complex character development of personal drama, then too it didn’t necessarily make it a bad show. Most agreed that Cats indeed entertained, and necessarily there wasn’t anything wrong with it. In fact it really did produced wonderful theatrical magic. Refusing to see how its influence would flow into the next generation of musicals, however, many critics were unwilling or unable to ride with this transition and were stopped in their tracks by Cats. An opinionated theater historian with particular hostility towards the megamusicals, Flinn noted that “Wherein spectacle not only superseded by replaced drama, Cats marked the beginning of the megamusicals” (Flinn, 1997). According to him he didn’t turn out to observe drama in Cats, even when many critics and audiences did. Implying that it was due to the low quality of the show, the older audience disliked Cats. In fact there is no evidence that older theater goers resisted Cats, however anecdotal evidence suggest that it was quite popular among audience of all ages. William Grimes of the New York Times described the view of the resisters, when Cats became the longest running Broadway musical, in following words: “There are more than few who see the ‘Cats’ phenomenon as the theatrical equivalent of the rise of the mega-budget Hollywood action film. For them, ‘Cats’ is a soulless money machine.” Rightly, he concerned with more than money making and that Cats would never have been successful had it not been innovative in its time. Mark Steyn, a historian, writes in the flippant tone of many critics that “I can find no rational explanation for Cat,” but further goes on with which most of the critics agreed that Cats is a show apart from normality, it is an experience that is thoroughly entertaining and difficult to define. (Steyn, 1999) References Baker, R. (1983) “And His Mouth so Prim”, New York Times, May, p. A27 Bennetts, L. (1982) “Tickets to Cats”, The New York Times, Cultural Desk, October, p.23 Bennetts, L. (1983) “The Hazardous Lives of Cats on Broadway”, The New York Times, August, p. C11. Billington, (1981) “The Cats”, Guardian, May, p. 9 Block, G. (1993) “The Broadway Canon from Show Boat to West Side Story and the European Operatic Ideal”, Journal of Musicology, Vol. XI no. 4, 525-44 Canby, V. (1994) “Two on the Aisle, Yes, but Which Aisle?” The New York Times, March, P. B5 Collins, G. (1992) “Cats with 10 Lives”, The New York Times, October, p. B5 Cushman, R. (1981) “The Cat’s Whiskers”, Observer (London), May, p.31 Darnton, N. (1985) “When Every Night has to be Opening Night”, The New York Times, July, pp. B1, B4 Flinn, M. (1997) Musical: A Grand Tour Rise, Glory, Fall, Cengage Learning, p. 497 Grimes, W. (1997) “Purring Over a New Broadway Record”, The New York Times, June, p. B5 Grimes, W. (1997) “With 6138 Lives, ‘Cats’ Sets Broadway Mark”, New York Times, June, p. B6 Handy, B. (1994) “Kitty Litter”, The New York Times, March Kelly, K. (1982). “The Performers are Wonderful, but ‘Cats’ is a Dog”, The Boston Globe, October, p A46 Lawson, S. (1982) “Trevor Nunn”, The New York Times, October, p. 1 Marks, P. (1997) “5001 Broadway Nights: Shows with 9 Lives”, The New York Times, Jan. p. C1 Morley, S., (1981) “Possum Power”, Punch, May, p. 798 (1982) “Cats a Hit in London, Sets Broadway Dates”, New York Times, April, p. C24 Rosenberg, B. and Harburg, E. (1992) The Broadway Musical: Collaboration in Commerce and Art. New York: New York University Press, p. 63 Sternfeld, J. (2006) Megamusical, Indiana University Press. Sternfeld, J. (2002) “The Megamusical: Revolution on Broadway in the 1970s and 80s”, Vol. 1. Dissertation Abstracts International Steyn, M. (1999) Broadway Babies Say Goodnight: Musicals Then and Now, Routledge, p. 164 Walsh, M. (1989) Andrew Lloyd Webber: His Life and Works: a Critical Biography, Abrams, p. 126 Wollman, E. L., MacDermot, G. & Trask, S. (2006) The Theater will Rock: a History of the Rock Musical: from Hair to Hedwig, University of Michigan Press, 2006 Read More