From Broadway classics to the latest hits, MUSC 151 The American Stage Musical explores themes and history of musical theatre.
Many people love musicals, but not as many know the traditions and history behind their favorite show tune. Students in MUSC 151 The American Stage Musical taught by Associate Professor LaToya Lain spent the Fall 2024 semester learning just that. The class follows a timeline of musical theatre, students begin by examining early works like opera that shaped musicals to come. Afterward, students learned about the shifts to vaudeville, musical plays, and eventually, early musicals such as Show Boat and Oklahoma!.
Later weeks of the course focus on the transformation of the genre from the 1960s onward, with the rise of concept musicals (Company, Hair) and rock musicals (Rent, Hair). The course also examines how new works like Dear Evan Hansen, Wicked, and Hamilton reflect changing attitudes about race, identity, and politics.
At its heart, MUSC 151 challenges students to consider how musicals have cultural and social contexts. The class looks closely at how different shows engage with issues like race, gender, and class. For example, the class examines how Rent brought new social issues to the stage of Broadway, or how Hamilton uses hip-hop to tell a forgotten story about American history.
MUSC 151 also addresses the technical side of musical theatre. Students learn about the role of set design and lighting design in bringing a musical to life. The course features an in-depth study of the creative teams behind musicals in the final project. Students work in groups to direct, choreograph, costume design, light design, and set design a musical. This allows students to truly flesh out all that goes into the workings of a musical.
Dr. Lain knows about this course material intimately as an educator and performer. She performed in The Metropolitan Opera’s Porgy and Bess. She has also performed Porgy and Bess at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, the Hamburgische Oper, and the Köln Philharmonie. In addition, She has performed solo recitals on a global scale.
After studying everything from classic productions to the newest Broadway shows students leave with a strong sense of musical theater’s capacity to entertain, teach, and inspire. This class offers a full and complete understanding of what a musical is, how the theatrical genre became, and where it is going. In short, musicals are an exciting and important lens for understanding the world around us.