Contemplating the Afterlife: Musicals in Revival as Pedagogical Intervention.

Courses that center musical theatre as an object of analysis frequently attract ardent devotees of the form. An approach to musical theatre pedagogy that trades exclusively in inaugural first-class productions not only reifies an assumption that a work's first production is its most significant iteration, but it also positions the musical's authorial cohort as its sole purveyors of meaning. When I ask them to expound on their love for a given musical, they frequently conflate its textual elements (libretto, lyrics, and score) with the original production's mise-en-scène (directorial concept, design, and choreography) and thereby suggest that an inaugural production represents the musical's apotheosis. It also asks students to account for the various parties a single artist's choices will influence, including their fellow collaborators, the musical's authors, the musical's devotees, new audiences, and the musical itself. [Extracted from the article]