An international team of contributors, including film director Mike Leigh, presents fresh insights into the work of Gilbert and Sullivan.

A collection of essays revealing how operetta spread across borders and became popular on the musical stages of the world.

Making use of archival resources in the United Kingdom and the United States, Regina B. Oost examines advertisements, promotional materials, and programs, as well as letters, diaries, and account books, to reconstruct the ways in which Richard D'Oyly Carte, W.S. Gilbert, and Arthur Sullivan attracted and shaped the expectations of theatergoers. Her findings place the Savoy operas in the context of other West End productions, considering similarities between Carte's promotional methods and those of managers Henry Irving, John Hollingshead, and Marie and Squire Bancroft. While all of these managers astutely understood patronage of a middle-class audience to be key to their success, the Savoy collaborators made strategic use of circumstances unique to their situation to distinguish Gilbert and Sullivan operas from contemporary theatrical fare. From Trial by Jury (1875) through The Grand Duke (1896), the Savoy operas celebrated the commodity culture beloved of the urban middle classes, validated a moral code that secured the social privileges audience members cherished, and ultimately provided a new model of British national identity that replaced the agrarian ideal espoused by earlier generations. Written in admirably accessible and jargon-free prose, Oost's book will appeal to scholars of theater history, literature, music, and popular culture, as well as general readers interested in Gilbert and Sullivan and the history of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

"This new and updated Guide, with over 2,700 cross-referenced entries, covers all aspects of the American theatre from its earliest history to the present. Entries include people, venues and companies scattered through the U.S., plays and musicals, and theatrical phenomena. Additionally, there are some 100 topical entries covering theatre in major U.S. cities and such disparate subjects as Asian American theatre, Chicano theatre, censorship, Filipino American theatre, one-person performances, performance art, and puppetry. Highly illustrated, the Guide is supplemented with a historical survey as introduction, a bibliography of major sources published since the first edition, and a biographical index covering over 3,200 individuals mentioned in the text."--BOOK JACKET.

An expanded and updated edition of this acclaimed, wide-ranging survey of musical theatre in New York, London, and elsewhere.

The Cambridge Companion to the Musical provides an accessible introduction to one of the liveliest and most popular forms of musical performance. Written by a team of specialists in the field of musical theatre especially for students and theatregoers, it offers a guide to the history and development of the musical in England and America (including coverage of New York s Broadway and London s West End traditions). Starting with the early history of the musical, the volume comes right up to date and examines the latest works and innovations, and includes information on the singers, audience and critical reception, and traditions. There is fresh coverage of the American musical theatre in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the British musical theatre in the middle of the twentieth century, and the rock musical. The Companion contains an extensive bibliography and photos from key productions.

Renowned for making films that are at once sly domestic satires and heartbreaking 'social realist' dramas, British writer-director Mike Leigh confronts his viewers with an un-romanticized dramatization of modern-day society in the hopes of inspiring them to strive for greater self-awareness and compassion for others. This collection features new, interdisciplinary essays that cover all phases of the BAFTA-award-winner's film career, from his early made-for-television film work to his theatrical releases, including Life is Sweet (1990), Naked (1993), Secrets & Lies (1996), Career Girls (1997), Topsy-Turvy (1999), All or Nothing (2002), Vera Drake (2004), Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) and Another Year (2010). With contributions from international scholars from a variety of fields, the essays in this collection cover individual films and the recurring themes and motifs in several films, such as representations of class and gender, and overt social commentary and political subtexts. Also covered are Leigh's visual stylizations and storytelling techniques ranging from explorations of the costume design to set design to the music and camerawork and editing; the collaborative process of 'devising and directing' a Mike Leigh film that involves character-building, world-construction, plotting, improvisations and script-writing; the process of funding and marketing for these seemingly 'uncommercial' projects, and a survey of Leigh's critical reception and the existing writing on his work.