College of Arts & Humanities

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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.

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    "It Was Good Enough for Grandma, But It Ain't Good Enough for Us!" Women and the Nation in Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg's Bloomer Girl (1944)
    (2013) England, Sarah Jean; Warfield, Patrick R; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The Broadway musical Bloomer Girl (1944) with score by composer Harold Arlen (1905-1986) and lyricist E.Y. Harburg (1896-1981) was the first book musical to follow in the footsteps of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! The obvious parallels between Oklahoma! and Bloomer Girl led critics and scholars to compare the musicals at the expense of overlooking the contributions the latter made to the genre. This thesis moves Bloomer Girl out from the shadow cast by Oklahoma! and situates it within a richer historical context. It begins with a brief history of Bloomer Girl. It then focuses specifically on both the dramatic and musical representation of women in the work. Using a comparative methodology, this study examines how the women in Bloomer Girl deviate from the model for the Golden Age musical to create a controversial political commentary about the United States in the World War II era.
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    "Who expects a miracle to happen every day?": Rediscovering Me and Juliet and Pipe Dream, the forgotten musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein
    (2004-05-13) Mariska, Bradley Clayton; DeLapp, Jennifer; Music
    Me and Juliet (1953) and Pipe Dream (1955) diverged considerably from Rodgers and Hammerstein's influential and commercially successful 1940s musical plays. Me and Juliet was the team's first musical comedy and had an original book by Hammerstein. Pipe Dream was based on a John Steinbeck novel and featured bums and prostitutes. This paper documents the history of Me and Juliet and Pipe Dream, using correspondence, early drafts of scripts, interviews with cast members, and secondary sources. I analyze the effectiveness of plot, music, and lyrics, while considering factors in each show's production that may have led to their respective failures. To better understand reception, emphasis is placed upon each show's relationship to the political and cultural landscape of 1950s America. Re-examining these musicals helps document the complete history of the Rodgers and Hammerstein collaboration and provides valuable insights regarding the duo's social values and personal philosophies of musical theatre.