Inquiring Minds: Performing the History of Musical Theater / Wendi Maloney

Teachers and filmmakers have long relied on primary sources to make history come alive. Ben West, director, performer and musical theater historian, is also drawn to them—but with a novel purpose. He is using unpublished manuscripts, papers of Broadway authors, copyright records and more to tell the story of the American musical—through a musical.
His production, “Show Time! The First 100 Years of the American Musical,” blends live music, performance and narrative to explore the way musicals evolved from the mid-1800s through 1999 alongside social and artistic changes. To develop the show, West visited more than 20 archives in states across the country, including the Library of Congress, whose collections he began consulting in 2009.
... West answers a few questions about his research at the Library. ... [mehr] https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2018/01/inquiring-minds-performing-the-history-of-musical-theater/