The Routledge Companion to Musical Theatre

Global in scope and featuring thirty-five chapters from more than fifty dance, music, and theatre scholars and practitioners, TheRoutledge Companion to Musical Theatre introduces the fundamentals of musical theatre studies and highlights developing global trends in practice and scholarship.

Investigating the who, what, when, where, why, and how of transnational musical theatre, The Routledge Companion to Musical Theatre is a comprehensive guide for those studying the components of musical theatre, its history, practitioners, audiences, and agendas. The Companion expands the study of musical theatre to include the ways we practice and experience musicals, their engagement with technology, and their navigation of international commercial marketplaces. The Companion is the first collection to include global musical theatre in each chapter, reflecting the musical’s status as the world’s most popular theatrical form. This bookbrings together practice and scholarship, featuring essays by leading and emerging scholars alongside luminaries such as Chinese musical theatre composer San Bao, Tony Award-winning star André De Shields, and Tony Award-winning director Diane Paulus.

This is an essential resource for students on theatre and performance courses and an invaluable text for researchers and practitioners in these areas of study.

Laura MacDonald is Assistant Professor in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University. With William A. Everett, she edited The Palgrave Handbook of Musical Theatre Producers (2017). She writes about long-running musicals on Broadway, in Europe and in East Asia.

Ryan Donovan is Assistant Professor of Theater Studies at Duke University. He is the author of Broadway Bodies: A Critical History, 1970-2020 (Oxford), Queer Approaches in Musical Theatre (Bloomsbury) and he co-edited the special issue of Studies in Musical Theatre on musical theatre dance.