Her Turn on Stage

<p> Audiences for musical theater are predominantly women yet shows are frequently created and produced by men. Onstage female characters are depicted as victims or sex objects and lack the complexity of their male counterparts. Offstage women are under-represented among writers directors composers and choreographers.</p><p> While other areas of the arts rally behind gender equality musical theater demonstrates a disregard for women and an authentic female voice.</p><p> If musical theater reflects prevailing societal attitudes what does the modern musical tell us about the place of women in contemporary America the UK and Australia? Are women deliberately kept out of musical theater by men jealously guarding their territory or is the absence of women a result of the modernization of the genre? Based on interviews with successful female performers writers directors choreographers and executives this book offers a unique female viewpoint on musical theater today.</p>