What I did for love: Queer theory and A Chorus Line - A queer critical reading of the 1976 Pulitzer Prize winner for drama
Godwin, Aaron James
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/106957
Description
Title
What I did for love: Queer theory and A Chorus Line - A queer critical reading of the 1976 Pulitzer Prize winner for drama
Author(s)
Godwin, Aaron James
Issue Date
2020
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Silvers, Michael
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Redman, Yvonne
Committee Member(s)
Magee, Jeffrey
Wigley, Sarah
Department of Study
School of Music
Discipline
Music
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
A.Mus.D. (doctoral)
Keyword(s)
queer theory
musical theatre
A Chorus Line
gender identity
queer kinship
power structures
queer temporality
Language
en
Abstract
Musical theatre as a genre and medium has been a prime ground for performing artists
and creative types from a variety of spectrums
to exist, explore, and express themselves and the
ways in which they live, experience, interact with, and thus create our society. Often these
theatre-makers have been members of deviant, subcultural communities in their ways of
thinking, living, and being in respect to societal norms. This deviant, or “queer” existence was
often depicted in the works they created for musical theatre. Queerness is an innate part of
musical theatre. In this thesis, I explore the existence of this queerness through a
critical reading
of
A Chorus Line
by turning attention away from the genre’s presumptive heteronormative
conventions.
I aim
to better understand not only how a work was intentionally queer for its time,
but also how it has become queerer with the passage of time and
to understand further what it,
but more importantly, what musical theatre, has to say about sex and gender identity, acceptance
and belonging, theatrical and artistic community power structures, and temporality.
In the first chapter, I will discuss queer identity and gender theory in musical theatre by
examining how they appear and function in
A Chorus Line. In the second chapter, I will
expound on queer identity to explore queer kinship and family
in musical theatre by examining
the relationships between the dancers in
A Chorus Line. The third
chapter explores how the
theatre is
governed by societal power structures and the ways our bodies are policed and
commodified as performers and individuals. Finally, in the fourth chapter, I investigate how we
experience time by examining queer temporality in
A Chorus Line. I then follow these chapters
with a brief conclusion to discuss the implications this thesis has for twenty-first century theatre-makers.
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