The Great White Way
Broadway musicals are one of America’s most beloved art forms and play to millions of people each year. But what do these shows, which are often thought to be just frothy entertainment, really have to say about our country and who we are as a nation?
Now in a new second edition, The Great White Way is the first book to reveal the racial politics, content, and subtexts that have haunted musicals for almost one hundred years from Show Boat (1927) to Hamilton (2015). This revised edition includes a new introduction and conclusion, updated chapters, as well as a brand-new chapter that looks at the blockbuster musicals The Book of Mormon and Hamilton.
New archival research on the creators who produced and wrote these shows, including Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Stephen Sondheim, and Edward Kleban, will have theater fans and scholars rethinking forever how they view this popular American entertainment.
What People Are Saying
"The Great White Way is an eye-opener for anyone studying the racial implications of commercial musical theater. Idiosyncratic and surprising, Warren Hoffman strips Broadway of its colorful glitz and reveals its naked whiteness."
— Michael Kantor, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, Broadway: The American Musical
“From Show Boat to Hamilton, from Oklahoma! to The Book of Mormon, Warren Hoffman provides an engaging and insightful analysis of how race has shaped 20th and 21st-century musical theatre. Required reading for the musical theatre student and aficionado alike.”
-Stacy Wolf, author of Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical
Hoffman’s book is, in some sense, like a Broadway musical itself — surprising in its many and varied elements, opinions, defenses and prosecutions. The role of race in the history of Broadway has, I’m sure, never been more thoroughly or more judiciously explored. And it’s a terrific read.”
-Jack Viertel, author of The Secret Life of the American Musical
"Warren Hoffman delivers a comprehensive and robust examination of the American musical as a purveyor of white identity and privilege. Easy to read and adept at elucidating the complexities of race in performance, The Great White Way is straightforward and unapologetic.
-- Rena M. Heinrich ― University of Southern California