The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical

The Great White Way, second edition, now fully updated, reveals the racial politics, content, and subtexts that have haunted musicals for almost one hundred years from Show Boat to Hamilton. Musicals reflect the political and social issues of their day. Warren Hoffman investigates the thematic content of the Broadway musical and considers how musicals work on a structural level, allowing them to simultaneously present and hide their racial agendas in plain view of their audiences. While the musical is informed by the cultural contributions of African Americans and Jewish immigrants, Hoffman argues that ultimately the history of the American musical is the history of white identity in the United States. He offers entirely new and surprising takes on shows from the American musical canon.

New archival research on the creators who produced and wrote these shows will have theater fans and scholars rethinking how they view this popular American entertainment.