PER1050

Music theatre: theory and practice

Peter Fitzpatrick

6 points
* 3 hours per week
* Second semester
* Clayton
* Prerequisites: Students must be enrolled for the BPA degree, and should have completed PER1040

Objectives Students taking PER1050 will develop an understanding of the conventions and traditions of twentieth-century musical theatre, a knowledge of the major developments in the field, and of patterns of intertextuality between the works in which they are expressed. They will be expected to show a familiarity with the distinctive methodological issues involved in the study of the form, and of the languages appropriate to their articulation and analysis. They will also develop skills in the performance and technical areas related to the genre, and the capacity to articulate critical and self critical analyses in systematic written argument, and in clear and confident oral presentations.

Synopsis This subject will provide students with a historical and theoretical framework for the study of music theatre in the twentieth century. Its focus will be on patterns of innovation in the form, with particular emphasis in 1998 on the development of `Western', especially US and Australian, models of `the musical'. The subject will culminate in a full production, to which those broader contexts will be consistently related.

Assessment Production participation: 50%
* 2000-word essay: 30%
* Seminar presentation and contribution (equivalent to 1000 words): 20%

Prescribed texts

The central text will be the musical play chosen for performance, supplemented by a subject handbook and other readings as prescribed.