John DeVore, "Theatre Kids: A True Tale of Off-Off Broadway" (Applause, 2024)

John DeVore, "Theatre Kids: A True Tale of Of...

Up next

James O'Leary, "The Middlebrow Musical: Between Broadway and Opera in 1940s America" (Oxford UP, 2025)

The premiere of Oklahoma! in 1943 is commonly called a “turning point” in the history of the Broadway musical. Often characterized as the first integrated musical―meaning that the songs and other elements of the show are integrated into the story―James O’Leary offers a different ...  Show more

Cheryl Thompson, "Staging Blackface in Canada: Public Amusements, Variety Shows, and Racial Acts in an Age of Imitation, 1898-1919" (Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2026)

In the early twentieth century, as variety shows flooded Canadian stages, new forms of blackface, inspired by modern forms of amusements, changed the theatre. In this era marked by progressive social reforms, the stage embodied the modern ethos of imitation, mimicry, and change. ...  Show more

Recommended Episodes

The Deaf Composer: How Beethoven wrote music he couldn’t hear
Twenty Thousand Hertz

What happens when one of history’s greatest composers begins to lose the very sense he relies on most? In this episode, we explore how Ludwig van Beethoven continued to create groundbreaking music even as his world fell into silence. Along the way, we uncover the myths, invention ...  Show more

Bonnie Gordon, "Voice Machines: The Castrato, the Cat Piano, and Other Strange Sounds" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
New Books in Music

Italian courts and churches began employing castrato singers in the late sixteenth century. By the eighteenth century, the singers occupied a celebrity status on the operatic stage. Constructed through surgical alteration and further modified by rigorous training, castrati inhabi ...  Show more

The Clarinet in Arabic Music | Kinan Azmeh
Quartertones | Music from the Arab World

Kinan performed three musical pieces and spoke about his work as a composer.

Originally from Damascus, Syria Kinan Azmeh is a soloist, composer, and improvisor. He has performed in places such as the Opera Bastille, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Damascus Opera House, and mo ...

  Show more

David Sulzer, "Music, Math, and Mind: The Physics and Neuroscience of Music" (Columbia UP, 2021)
New Books in Music

Why does a clarinet play at lower pitches than a flute? What does it mean for sounds to be in or out of tune? How are emotions carried by music? Do other animals perceive sound like we do? How might a musician use math to come up with new ideas? This book offers a lively explorat ...  Show more