Course Description

Instructor: William Allen, MA, MPhil, MLn
Technical Assistance: Michiyo Allen, BS

What could these three musical plays possibly have in common: Showboat, a 1920s musical concerned with the diverse and colorful inhabitants of a Mississippi theater boat; West Side Story, a 1950s musical involving ethnic New York City teenage street gangs; and Fiddler on the Roof, a 1960s musical about a tradition-bound Jewish ghetto community in Czarist Russia? Join us for a revealing audio-visual study of these three iconic and celebrated musicals as we enjoy and compare the great songs that sprang from them.

Bill wrote a 500 page dissertation on lyricist W. S. Gilbert (Gilbert & Sullivan) to obtain his advanced degree from the University of London.