A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical

by Stacy Wolf

Book Overview

Subverting assumptions that American musical theater is steeped in nostalgia, cheap sentiment, misogyny, and homophobia, this book shows how musicals of the 1950s and early 1960s celebrated strong women characters who defied the era's gender expectations. A Problem Like Maria reexamines the roles, careers, and performances of four of musical theater's greatest stars-Mary Martin, Ethel Merman, Julie Andrews, and Barbra Streisand-through a lesbian...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0472067729
• ISBN13: 9780472067725
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.0"