Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

6-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Theatre and Performance

Advisor

David Savran

Committee Members

James Wilson

Elizabeth Wollman

Subject Categories

Performance Studies | Theatre History

Keywords

Atlanta, civil war history, civil war photography, musical theater, musical theatre history, performing history

Abstract

The U.S. American Civil War is arguably the defining event in the nation’s history; it was the bloodiest war in that history, but also the means by which the United States ended slavery within its borders. Musical theatre, the major U.S. American contribution to popular and commercial theater, might seem a natural partner for chronicling these vital and epic events, but unlike the founding of the nation, which spawned two popular musicals, 1776 (1968) and Hamilton (2015), Civil War musicals have struggled to find audiences or become a part of the musical theatre canon. In this dissertation, I examine how these Civil War-related musicals, which range in time period from 1907 (The Shoofly Regiment) to 2023 (Parade) and cover a wide variety of musical styles (Assassins, Hair, Shenandoah, The Civil War, Bloomer Girl), historicize the war and its personages, through period photography and art, reiterations of homelands in the North and South and the borderlands and crossings between slavery and freedom, and through the unique history and culture of Atlanta, Georgia and its immediate environs, as well as how these musicals repeat or redefine the histories and tropes of the Antebellum South, Reconstruction and its failure, Reconciliation between North and South, the Civil Right Movement, and Black Lives Matter. Throughout, I investigate how these histories are told through the popular form of musical theatre, as well as through whom, by whom, and for what ultimate purpose, both in the show’s time period and in contemporary culture before concluding that a diversity of voices in the creation of Civil War musicals, especially the inclusion of Black creatives and theater makers, guarantees that the war’s history be properly remembered and staged.

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