Sample Student Research Reports

(Assignment)

Part 1. Research Report

·         Your reader takes into account the hour’s limit—so should you. Write the best report you can in the time given. Don’t just cram details, but connect them to build larger points. Turn facts into ideas. Compare, contrast, interpret, summarize.

·         Basic organization: Describe your topic, explain its significance (or why you were interested in it), what you knew (or thought you knew) about it, what you found out, the significance of your findings, and what problems remain or what you might do next if continuing your research.

·         All students, in-class or email, must email (or otherwise transmit electronically) their "Works Cited" list, prepared ahead of time.

·         Do not write out the Report beforehand in complete sentences and paragraphs for copying. All outlines and notes (except quotations from sources) should be fragmentary.

(Sample Student Submissions)

(Student authors are identified by initials after titles)

Vaudeville [AAS 02]

            Prior to doing the research for this report I knew very little about Vaudeville and its origins. I knew that Vaudeville acts were variety shows that contained song, dance, mime, acting, etc., but I was unaware of its origins or its impact on American entertainment.

            Encarta World English Dictionary defines the term Vaudeville as “a type of entertainment popular in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries consisting of a variety of singing, dancing, and comic acts.” The actual word vaudeville comes from an area in France, Val de Vire, which was known for its ballads and entertainment. In this valley people would entertain each other in the evenings with ballads and folk songs, and this eventually gave rise to the Theatre de Vaudeville in Paris in 1792.

            The term vaudeville first showed up in America in the 1840’s with Boston’s Vaudeville Saloon. Saloon owners would feature these variety shows in hopes of bringing in more business. Also in the 1840’s, minstrel shows were popular. These shows offered comedy, music, jugglers, and other novelties, as well as special tonics and elixirs. Vaudeville combined the methods of these wild, west shows and minstrel shows. Vaudeville actors were skilled in comedy, juggling, magic, clowning, acrobatics, singing, mime, music, and dancing.

            In the mid-1800’s there was a move to clean up vaudeville so that men, women, and children of all ages could enjoy it. At this point vaudeville moved out of saloons and into the theaters. One of the early advocates of cleaning up vaudeville, Tony Pastor, developed the first vaudeville theater in New York City. Pastor barred the sale of alcohol in his theaters, eliminated offensive or suggestive material from his shows, and offered gifts to attendees.

            Although Pastor was a dominant and important force in cleaning up vaudeville, Benjamin Franklin Keith earns the distinction of being “the father” of American Vaudeville. “Keith’s triumph as a showman lay chiefly in his ability to bridge the gulf between notions of ‘high’ and ‘low’ entertainments that grew increasingly wider in the years following the Civil War” (http://xroads.virginia.edu). Keith developed the idea of continuous performance, which ran up to twelve hours and opened vaudeville to wider audiences.

            Keith’s Vaudeville theaters, as well as most others, were luxurious and opulent and were often known as palaces. They were lavishly designed and decorated with things such as arches, gargoyles, stained glass, marble pillars, and lush carpet. Some of the vaudeville theater managers and owners even tried to make a trip to their show an educational experience in which they instructed their audience on how to act during the show and inside the theater.

            These vaudevillian theaters were organized into a chain of theaters in different cities and towns called a circuit. The theaters along a circuit would usually have the same acts from the same booking agents. Some of the most famous vaudeville circuits were the Orpheum, Pantages, Paramount, Keith, and Hammerstein’s. The three most important groups of people in the vaudeville circuit were the theater managers, the booking agents, and the actual vaudeville acts.

            Each theater had its own manager who dealt with the business side of vaudeville. They dealt with selling tickets, making sure the shows started on time, which acts would perform at their theaters, and the order in which the acts would appear. Strangely enough, however, the vaudeville theaters were not named after the theater managers but after the booking agents.

            Most booking agents had one theater out of which they worked. This theater had the main office where they did all of the booking for the rest of the circuit. One agent would be responsible for booking all of the acts that showcased in their particular circuit. When they hired an act, it was usually to play in all of the theaters of their circuit.

            The Vaudeville Acts were the fun part of show business. There was a never-ending variety of shows from singers, dancers, and musicians to jugglers, clowns, magicians, escape artists, acrobats, daredevils, and even horseback riders. Sometimes a well-known person, such as Helen Keller or Babe Ruth, who was not a vaudeville act, would share their life experiences with the audience. There were also solo acts, duets, trios, and even performing families such as the Marx Brothers or the Dolly Sisters.

            Vaudeville was the first popular entertainment to cross the racial barrier and include African-American performers. Some of the minstrel acts, in which white performers would black out their faces and mimic the lifestyle of slaves, found their way to the vaudeville stage with African-American performers. These African-American performers would put on blackface makeup and do Vaudeville routines. Bert Williams was one of the first African-American comic geniuses along with singer/songwriters Nobble Sissle and Eubie Blake.

            Vaudeville was a mainstay in American entertainment into the early 1900’s, but the rising popularity of the movie industry began to take away vaudevillian audiences. The New York Palace, the last of the big-time Vaudeville theaters, was shut down in 1932 and so ended an era of American theater that has almost been forgotten.

Total time: 62 minutes

Works Cited

Green, A. and Laurie, J. Show Biz from Vaude to Video. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1951.

Hughes, G. “Vaudeville.” The World Book Encyclopedia, 20, 232. Chicago: World Book-Child Craft International, Inc., 1982.

McLean, A. F. American Vaudeville as Ritual. Kentucky: University of Kentucky Press, 1965.

Sillanpa, R. “A History of American Vaudeville at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” URL: http://english.cla.umn.edu/GraduateProfiles/Ksurkan/4403/ville.html.

“Vaudeville.” URL: http://www.lazervaudeville.com/Sghistory.htm.

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Dramatic Comedy [RR 02]

            The topic I chose to research was dramatic comedy.  After listening to Curtisha Wallace’s presentation on comedy, I found myself attracted to the popularity and endurance of comedy.  Moreover, I found myself drawn to dramatic comedy.  I remember shows like Moonlighting, MASH and Northern Exposure that were popular dramatic comedies in the eighties and nineties.  These shows had a huge appeal and a devout following.  Not only did the appeal of these shows affect television but also writers continued to use the formula for other shows.  My interest in dramatic comedy stems from the popularity and appeal that continue to dominate television.

While searching for a definition of dramatic comedy, I found variations of comedy such as tragicomedy, dark comedy, sentimental comedy, comedy of intrigue and other types.  I investigated tragicomedy more closely because it had characteristics of a dramatic comedy.  Tragicomedy combined serious issues using common people and I believed dramatic comedy had a similar meaning.  Reading Marvin Herrick’s Tragicomedy, he referred to an ancient authority’s, Plautus, definition of tragicomedy as “an action drawn from contrasting spheres of life, including the divine” (1).  Plautus’ definition of tragicomedy was unsatisfactory and it did not describe my idea of dramatic comedy.  The definition of tragicomedy per Plautus’ usage did not apply to Moonlighting, MASH, and Northern Exposure.  These shows exemplified dramatic comedy.  For me, dramatic comedy presented realistic problems of people who often resolved those problems comically.

In W. D. Howarth’s Comic Drama, he suggested “it would be absurd even to try to produce a comprehensive definition for dramatic comedy (1).”  I disagreed with Howarth’s statement because I understood that comedy had various layers, and I knew a definition had to exist.  Howarth may have discounted a definition for dramatic comedy because he was concerned with comic drama.  For me, comic drama and dramatic comedy appeared to be related on some level.  Comic drama involves two elements: 1) comic impulse to invoke laughter and 2) plot, theme, and situation to give dramatic shape to the play (8).  Dramatic comedy takes on different characteristics that develop from both tragicomedy and comic drama.  Tragicomedy provides the problem and comic drama furnishes the laughter.  Although defining dramatic comedy was a hard concept, I decided to blend aspects of tragicomedy and comic drama.  My definition of dramatic comedy is a rare form of comedy designed to be represented by actors who deal with a serious problem, not aiming at tragic exaltation, but a resolution that may end either happily or unhappily.  I based my definition by extracting certain elements of tragicomedy and drama, terms found in the Dictionary of Literary Terms.

Now that I had a working interpretation of dramatic comedy, I could apply it to the shows like Moonlighting, Mash, and Northern Exposure.  These shows emphasized characters with realistic problems that everyday people could identify with.  Moonlighting (a detective agency) involved characters such as Maddie (Cybill Shepherd) and David (Bruce Willis) as they dealt with jealousy, sibling rivalry, infidelity, and faith among other issues.  In one episode, Maddie confronts her father about his affair.  Her father is smug about his betrayal, so Maddie hits him with her purse (Horowitz).  The writers depicted the main plot of infidelity but also combined the presence of a comic subplot (physical action of purse hitting).  In each of the shows listed, there is the tradition of the problem that surfaces then fades within physical action of comedy.  Another aspect of dramatic comedy is the characters are usually intelligent and exercise verbal wit.  An example would be Hawkeye (Alan Alda), a doctor from the sitcom MASH.  Hawkeye saves the life of a North Korean guerrilla woman, but a Republic of Korea colonel want to take her into custody.  Hawkeye decides to divert the colonel’s attention to get the woman out of camp.  When the colonel asks Hawkeye about the woman, Hawkeye pretends that he has not seen a gorilla woman (Taflinger).  These shows included a superb cast and excellent writing.  Today, shows like the Ally McBeal, Bernie Mac, Gilmore Girls, and Undeclared follow a format based on dramatic comedy.  These shows continue to thrive because they explore realistic problems; however, they do not strive for laughs.  Dramatic comedy is distinguished from other sitcom because they involve more than laughs or problems.  Dramatic comedies meet people where they are.  The problems are ordinary and applicable to everyday life.  These comedies are popular and appealing because they mirror us at some point in life.

Although I found it difficult to locate a source that defined dramatic comedy, I was familiar with different television shows that followed the format.  I knew a definition existed.  Fortunately, I was able to create my own definition to apply to the examples I used.  I realized that classifying dramatic comedy is tedious because it resembles other genres such as tragicomedy and comic drama.  Overall, I am somewhat satisfied by what I found during my research.  However, I can revisit the topic again as others in the literature field develop the concept further. 

Works Cited

Beckson, Karl. Literary Terms: A Dictionary. New York: Noonday Press, 1989.

Brandt, George. “Twentieth-century comedy.” Comic Drama. Ed. W. D. Howarth. Cambridge: University Press, 1978. 165-188.

Herrick, Marvin T. Tragicomedy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1955.

Horowitz, Joy.  “The Madcap Behind ‘Moonlighting’.” New York Times.  30 Mar 1986.

Howarth, W. D. Comic Drama.  Cambridge: University Press, 1978.

Taflinger, Richard F. Dramedy: Thought-Based Situation Comedies.  28 Jun 2002. Washington University. http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~taflinge/dramadey.html

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The Origin of Negro Spirituals [KG 02]

            Negro spirituals are an important part of American History. They began during an era in this country’s history when all men were not created equal. These songs gave African-Americans a voice, an outlet to express despair as well as hope. Negro spirituals are significant to American history because they have transcended both time and culture.  Traditional spirituals such as, “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel” and “Go Down Moses”, sung in 1865 are still sung today. These songs are sung in Methodist, Baptist, and Episcopalian and Pentecostal churches. They are sung by blacks, whites and hispanics. “Negro spirituals provide bridges” (Aimee class discussion) between religions, ethnicity, culture and race. All people have suffered oppression, hopelessness, weariness with life and a desire to transcend to a better place or situation. Negro spirituals embrace all of these ideas. Through this report I will review the origins and beginnings of this great American tradition.

            Growing up in a southern Methodist church I knew even sang many of these traditional songs, but I didn’t know why they were song or even who created them.  Slaves originally sang Negro spirituals.  “The lyrics of Negro spirituals were tightly linked with the lives of slaves. They are different from hymns or psalms in that they share the hard conditions of slave life” (www.negrospirituals.com).

There are four major groups of spirituals. Work songs were sung to encourage each other. These songs were the precursor to “chain gain” songs. They had a particular rhythm or beat that aided in the lifting or moving of heavy objects. When slaves were in the fields picking cotton the pace of the song would reflect the speed in which they picked the cotton. The following is an example of a work song as noted by Allen Frances in the late 1700’s:

Pic’ up, Pic’ up

Dat sac’

Pic’ up, pic up

Dat sac’

Pil’ ‘n de cot’on

Pil’ ‘n de cot’on

In addition to work songs, Negro spirituals were sung as a testimony of faith. On many plantations blacks were often not allowed to attend church. Many slaves would hold Sunday “meetings” instead. Songs were an expression of their faith and hope that god would deliver them from their hardship and despair. Many slaves believed that slavery was God’s test. If they carried the burden they would receive everlasting life. They believed that if they held on to the belief of salvation and did the good works of God they would be redeemed. During the Civil War, Thomas Wentworth Higgins a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly wrote down the lyrics to a favorite camp song that encouraged the slaves to keep living, praying and uplifting the word of God.

Hold your light Brudder Robert

Hod your light,

Hold your light on Canaan’s shore.

What makes ole Satan for follow me so?

Satan ain’t got notin’ for do wid me.

Hold your light,

Hold your light, Hold your light,

Hold your light on Canaan’s shore.

. Frederick Douglass once sang “We raise the wheat, they give us corn: we bake the bread, they give us the crust.” (Chris Seymour, Struggle and Song). This was a rebellion song. A song to entice slaves to take action. This group of spirituals played an important role in slave uprisings. In 1813 Denmark Vesey and a group of co-conspirators sang the following song encouraging revolt:

Arise, arise! Shake off your chains!

Your cause is just, so heaven ordains:

To you shall freedom be proclaimed!

Raise your arms and bared you breasts,

Almighty god will do the rest

Blow the clarion’s warlike blast

Call every Negro from his task

Wrest the scourge from Buckra’s hand

And drive each tyrant from the land

Not only were songs sung to encourage revolt but also as messages of the Underground Railroad.  Slaves would sing songs letting other slaves know when they would make a run for it. “Get on board little children get on board… I hear the gospel train a rumbling rolling through the land”.  They sang songs to give instructions. Many times the slave would have to walk or “wade” in the water so that dogs could not pick up their scent, thus the song “Wade in the water children, God’s a gonna trouble the water.” Swing low sweet chariot was often sung because “slaves would sometimes have to jump into chariots or wagons, where they could hide and ride away”.

If time permitted I would continue my research into the evolution of Negro spirituals through time, cultural and social influence on American society because these songs which were traditionally sung to “inform the ignorant, incite action, lift spirits, and build solidarity among toilers for change” (Chris Seymour, Struggle and Song) have withstood time. Not only have that withstood time but they have also broken down racial and religious barriers. They have bridged cultures and people. Negro spirituals are significant to American history because this music is a true representation of the American dream. It is struggle. It is growth. It is finding one’s identity and purpose.

Bibliography

The Origin of Negro Spirituals

Ebony pictorial History of Black America: Volume 1, pages 142-143

Lomax, A. & Lomax J. Our singing Country; A second volume of American Ballads and folk songs. New York: Macmillan 1941.

www.negrospirituals.com

www.peoplesmusic.com

http://xroads,virginia.edu/~HYPER/TWH/Higg.html

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Nursery Rhymes [JL 02]

Nursery Rhymes are familiar to people of all ages and nationalities.  We learn them as children and teach them to our children.  “Nursery Rhymes began as fragments of ballads, folk, songs, drinking songs, political satire, and playground rhymes.  The rhythms appeal particularly to small children; the words are often nonsensical, yet help children to acquire the sounds of their language.  For older children, there are physical games associated with rhymes (Ring Around the Roses), as well as language games, such as tongue-twisters” (Encarta). 

            Because nursery rhymes are prevalent in so many societies, my initial question is: Where did they come from?  The entry in Encarta states the origins of nursery rhymes (drinking songs, ballads, etc.), but these are all broad genres.  I was curious to find out where the first nursery rhymes originated.

            In researching, I kept running into the same problem.  No one knows where these rhymes started. The book The Annotated Mother Goose attempts to tackle this issue.  It states:

[Nursery Rhymes] are the beloved heritage of Nobody-Really-Knows how many countries or how many centuries. Here in America we are likely to lump them all together under a single heading and call them the “Mother Goose” rhymes (11).

It is a well-known, accepted fact that no one can accurately tell first origins of these rhymes.  This is perhaps because nursery rhymes are a part of an oral culture, rather than a written one.  We see this throughout literature.  For example, Homer’s Odyssey was a story told for entertainment, not one really knows when it started, or who started it.  We do know when it was first written down.  The rhymes themselves “can be found in 17th century writing” (Encarta), but have been around since at least the 7th century.

            Like good story that gets better every time you tell it, nursery rhymes also have a tendency to change over time.  Take for example Ruth M. Baldwin’s book 100 Rhyming Alphabets.  This book contains alphabet rhymes throughout the 19th century, and while some of the words change, the basic principles and rhymes are the same.  So, if in the 19th century alone there are over 100 rhymes involving the alphabet, one can only imagine how many variations there are on rhymes that began in the 7th century.

            Authors Iona and Peter Opie explored this ability of rhymes to change over time in the book The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren.  The chant “Mister Fatty Belly” began in 1818 and was prevalent until 1823. 

                        Doctor! Doctor! how’s your wife?

                        Very bad, upon my life.

                        Can she eat a bit of pie?

                        Yes, she can, as well as I. (Opie 3)

According to the Opies, the rhyme has adapted and still recited by children today in English cities.  While the rhyme has changed, it still maintains the basic elements of the original:

                        Little fatty doctor, how’s your wife?

                        Very well, thank you, she’s alright.

                        Can she eat a twopenny pie?

                        Yes sir, yes sir, and so can I (3)

This rhyme exemplifies the progression of rhymes over time.  Because they have the ability to conform to the present time, or alter because of society, one can only guess the original verses of some of our most well known rhymes.

            One of the most mentioned variations of nursery rhymes is “Eeenie, meeney, miney, mo.”  According to Encarta this rhyme “echoes the dialects of the Opies cite East Anglian shepherds’ counting words ‘Ina, mina, tethtra, methera.”    Another speculation to the origins of this rhyme is made by the English.  They claim, “...these counting-out rhymes may be relics of formulas used by the druids in choosing human sacrifices” (Gould12).  Perhaps neither of these beliefs are accurate.  In each explanation, it should be noted that the basis for the rhyme in oral, not written material.

                        If I were to continue researching the origins of nursery rhymes, I would focus on one geographic area.  While these rhymes are world wide, I find the adaptations of a single rhyme in one specific area over time to be very interesting.  The origins of nursery rhymes is a very broad topic and through my research I have learned that it is constantly changing.

            Because nursery rhymes originated in an oral culture, there are many speculations about their beginnings.  But, these are only speculations.  I think that it is important to recognize that nursery rhymes do not have a shelf life.  Rather than disappearing as the times change, they have a way of adapting to fit the times.  While one may not consider a nursery rhymes as great literature, you must acknowledge the fact that, like classic great literature, nursery rhymes have withstood the tests of time. 

Works Cited

Baldwin, Ruth M. 100 Rhyming Alphabets.  Illinois: Southern Illinois University  Press, 1972.

Baring-Gould, William S. and Ceil.  The Annotated Mother Goose.  New York: World Publishing Company, 1967.

“Nursery Rhymes,”  Encarta Encyclopedia.  http://encarta.msn.com

18 June 2002.

Opie, Iona and Peter.  The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959.

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Gothic in Tragedy [LR 02]

            To understand the genre of Gothic it is necessary to understand Tragedy.  My main focus in choosing this topic has been to find in what instances are gothic elements used in literature.  Gothic stories have always been a favorite and I wanted to try to find out what makes them so popular.  It was necessary to add Tragedy to this research because I quickly found that Gothic does not exist without Tragedy.  Tragedy is defined in many ways, but simply put it is a story with a social problem, a journey to discover the truth and a restoration of justice that comes at a high personal cost to the hero/heroine.  This high cost is usually banishment or death for the hero/heroine (White genre handout).  Tragedies are much more involved literature because the characters are more fully developed making them easy to identify with by the reader.

            These fully developed characters are never perfect and the tragedy that surrounds them is how the reader connects to them emotionally.  Lee A. Jacobus notes that Tragedy has changed and evolved over the centuries.  Greek tragedies told the stories of nobility, but over the centuries this changed to include the “lower” classes (Jacobus 13-14).  The gothic elements enhance these stories by making them more intense.   It is also important to note that gothic works almost subconsciously, “…Gothic…works partly through its manipulation of its reader’s awareness of the conventions of other genres” (Horner and Zlosnik). 

            To find the out how gothic elements enhance Tragedy I turned to the works that we have studied this summer, library sources and the Internet.  The difficulty is to find instances where tragedy and gothic are together.  In most cases these two genres are kept separate, but when reading articles the gothic elements in tragedy are clear.  I started by trying to find a consistent definition of “gothic.”   This was accomplished only through using the most common definition, “of or relating to a certain style of architecture prevalent in Western Europe from the middle 12^th to the early 16^th century” and combining it with the literary definition used by Dr. White, “Gothic fiction usually takes place in an ancient castle or abbey whose owner discovers his noble line is doomed…”(Merriam-Webster 326 and Renaissance website). 

            From the definitions and the works studied this summer I learned that gothic elements can be found in almost all tragedies.  The most evident example of this is Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  Hamlet confronts the ghost of his father on the battlements of the castle at night.  Hamlet is not viewed as a Gothic Romance, but a Tragedy, yet the gothic elements are present.  A more modern example is O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms in which the large elms shadow the house and the room where Eben’s mother lay in state is dark and her spirit can still be felt.  Again Desire Under the Elms is a tragedy, but the gothic shows through.  The key in these examples is the subtle use of gothic elements.  In stories such as Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher the gothic is so overwhelming that the reader becomes unaware of anything else.

            The elements that can overwhelm the reader are common tools of Gothic such as the edifice, supernatural situations, shadows and a doomed hero.  These problems are what I would continue to study if doing further research.  The question that remains with me even after researching this topic is how to write a truly Gothic story without alienating a reader who does not care for the Gothic genre.  Gothic does not appeal to all and so the authors who are able to incorporate the subtle elements into a more mainstream genre are to be applauded.

Work Cited

Jacobus, Lee A. The Bedford Introduction To Drama. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2001.

Horner, Avril, and Zlosnik, Sue. Daphne Du Maurier: Writing, Identity, and

The Gothic Imagination. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

“The Merriam-Webster Dictionary.” Gothic. Ed. Fredrick C. Mish.

Springfield: Merriam-Webster Incorporated, 1997.

White, Craig. Literature 4232: American Renaissance. http://www.uhcl.edu/Itc/course/LITR/4232/gothic.htm.

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Pulitzer Winners in Musical Drama [SG 02]

In 1918 the first Pulitzer Prize for Drama was presented.  Since that time there have only been seven musical that have been awarded this prestigious accolade.  In 1931 the musical Of Thee I Sing became the musical theatre's Jackie Robinson by breaking the drama line.

The musical Of Thee I Sing opened on December 26, 1931 and ran for 441 performances, which makes this the shortest running musical on this prestigious list.  The Gershwin brothers provided music and lyrics, while Sam H. Harris, who at one time was George M. Cohen’s partner, produced the play. George Gershwin was not included in the citation of the Pulitzer, since his contribution was musical and not considered eligible for a literary award (Carnovale 13). This play, which is considered a political satire, took a barbed, witty look at American political institutions (Bordman 527).  This musical starts with a political rally for John P. Wintergreen who is running for President. To help win the presidency his political advisors decide he needs to fall in love with an all-American girl, so they run a contest to select Miss White House.  Needless to say Wintergreen does not fall in love with the winner, Diana Devereaux, but another girl, Mary Turner, who makes corn muffins. This leads to hurt feelings and broken promises, but Wintergreen marries Turner.  The French Ambassador arrives and demands that Wintergreen annuls his marriage and marry Diana. Wintergreen refuses, so the Secretary of the Navy calls for his resignation. Diana announces she is pregnant and once again everyone is happy, until the French Ambassador demands the baby.  At last the baby (ies) are born, a boy and a girl; the French severs diplomatic relations, and Wintergreen has the brilliant idea to marry Diana off to Throttlebottom, the Vice-President. Everyone is happy.  The fanciful tale of the fortunes of a fictional Presidential ticket (with songs by George and Ira Gershwin) sharply and deftly skewer the institutions of political conventions and campaigns, beauty pageants, marriage and foreign affairs among others (Musical).

In 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein claimed the second Pulitzer Prize for their musical South Pacific. South Pacific opened on April 7, 1949 and ran successfully for 1,925 performances. Adapted from “two of the short stories from James Michener’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Tales of the South Pacific” (Bordman 621). South Pacific chronicles two love affairs; the first involves Lt. Joe Cable and a young Polynesian girl. The second revolves around Nellie Forbush, a Navy nurse from Little Rock, and Emile de Becque, a French planter with whom she falls in love one enchanted evening, but she is unable to turn her back on the prejudices in which she was raised. Rodgers and Hammerstein tied the two stories together by having Cable and de Becque go on a dangerous mission behind Japanese lines from which only Emile returns. Nellie then realizes that life is too short not to seize her own chance for happiness, so she confronts and conquers her prejudices.  This musical is set in an island paradise during World War II.  The dramatic time period during the war and the racial and national differences among the characters help rank this musical more dramatical than comedic (Musical).

The musical biography of Fiorello H. La Guardia appropriately named Fiorello, opened on November 23, 1959, and ran for 795 performances. This musical was based on the true story of Fiorello La Guardia, the aggressive, extrovert U.S. Congressman and Mayor of New York. Fiorello, (Little Flower), is the short, dumpy, gruff-voiced, dynamic, colorful, provocative and yet thoroughly honest politician that was Fiorello LaGuardia. Elected Mayor of New York, Fiorello was an unconventional politician. Seeing wrongs that needed righting LaGuardia announced that he intends to run for Congress with the approval of Ben Marino, Republican leader of the 14th Congressional district. Running for office, LaGuardia pursues a vigorous campaign by going to all the different ethnic groups that make up the city. He succeeds in creating an electoral upset when he becomes the first Republican the district has ever sent to Washington. After ten years, he is still a political reformer and decides to run for mayor against the current incumbent, James J. Walker. His mission is to clean up the city of freeloaders and political opportunists. His efforts to loosen, once and for all, the stranglehold that corruption has on the city finally win him the mayoral ticket, and he gets elected. He is true to his ideals and destroys the political chicanery and corruption (Musical).

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying opened October 14, 1961 at the 46^th Street Theatre and ran for 1,417 performances.  The story follows the rise of a disarmingly opportunist named J Pierrepont Finch. Finch works at the World Wide Wicket Company and is reading a book called How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and as he washes the windows his ambitions climb.  Because of a series of hilarious events, he “works” his way up the corporate ladder until he is named Chairman of the Board of the company.  The play satirically jabs at corporate America and makes people take a look around at how executive actually earn their prestigious positions (Musical).

On April 15, 1975, the longest running musical in this group opened and ran for 15 years and 6,137 performances. Instead of a standard plot, A Chorus Line had what might be called a "staging scheme." Presented without an intermission, or for that matter a chorus, that scheme was a simple one (Bordman 743). At an audition for an upcoming Broadway production, a director and a choreography assistant choose 19 dancers. The director tells them he is looking for a strong dancing chorus of four boys and four girls, and he wants to learn more about them. They are then told to talk about themselves. After the director informs the dancers that he wants to know more about them, they begin, with great reluctance, to talk, and reveal portions of their life stories. To get this job, they realize they must put themselves “on the line”. While the show uses different characters to move through the audition, the overall pattern of stories progresses chronologically from early life experiences through adulthood to the end of a career. The dramatic aspect of each individual's life touches on the dreams and hardships of dancers trying to break onto the Broadway stage. "One," the finale, begins with individual bows for each of the 19 characters; their hodgepodge rehearsal clothes replaced by identical spangled gold costumes. As each dancer joins the group, it is suddenly difficult to distinguish one form the other. Each character, who was an individual to the audience, is now an anonymous member of an ensemble (Musical).

Sunday in the Park with George draws its title from A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Le Grande Jatte, the best known of Seurat's paintings. This play opened on May 2, 1984 and ran for 604 performances. Sunday in the Park with George recreates the biography of the 19th-century pointillist painter, Georges Seurat. The first half of the production is set on a series of Sundays in the 1880s, on the island where Seurat is sketching his subjects and in his studio, where he is hard at work on a massive canvas. Character drives the play, and Sondheim and Lapine have created marvelous characters from the many figures in the painting. There are the soldiers, the strolling couples, the young women fishing, the children at play, the dogs, the monkey -- all of them play a part in the story. Foremost among them is the fictional Dot, the painting's most dominant figure, who in this story is Seurat's model and lover. Dot's passion is George, but George's passion is art. Act II, which takes place 100 years later, examines what Seurat has wrought, artistically, and biologically. The score shimmers with Sondheim’s musical equivalent of Seurat’s work.  There is no dancing in this musical, but there is choreography nonetheless (Musical).

The seventh and last musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama was awarded this accolade even before it moved to Broadway (Bordman 806).  Rent opened April 29, 1996, at the Nederlander Theatre (“Rent”).  Book, music, and lyrics are by Jonathan Larson and is loosely based on Puccini's La Boheme (“Rent”). Rent blends soft rock, rap-pop and a touch of gospel to enhance a tale of a group of mismatched individuals. Rent deals with starving artists who live in New York City's East Village. Rent faces the dramatical issues of today's society, such as, drug addition, the homeless, AIDS, homosexuality, bi-racial relationships, poverty, eviction and death.  The costumes are grungy and hip and the setting is described as “like a pile of junk” or “garbage style scenery” (Bordman 806). The play is spoken mainly in song, and the voices are of the people. At this time, Rent is still on Broadway and remains at the Nederlander.

A look at this group of Pulitzer Prize-winning musical reveals a number of similarities, but the oddest facet involve the number of endings each one represents.  Of Thee I Sing was the last Broadway musical for the Gershwin brothers; South Pacific was the final innovative musical for Rodgers and Hammerstein; Fiorello was the culminating success of George Abbott's long career; and How to Succeed in Business was the last Frank Loesser musical to reach Broadway. The untimely and early deaths of collaborators Michael Bennett, James Kirkpatrick, Nicholas Dante, and Edward Kleban following their unprecedented Broadway success of A Chorus Line and sadly the death of Jonathan Larson the night before the opening of Rent.  Sunday in the Park was the one play that represented a beginning, the newly forged Bock-Harnick score composition relationship and Sondheim-Lapine collaborations on music, lyrics, book, and direction.

            The dramatical effects of these plays are sometimes baffling, why did they win the Pulitzer?  Each play addressed issues that people did not want to deal with at that time period. One play that touches on a Presidential campaign and the possible effects trying to win a campaign without any thought towards the national problems of the 1930’s. South Pacific examines the effects of World War II and the prejudice of mix races. Sunday in the Park with George examines the insight of a painting by George Seurat, who was a neo-impressionist and was experimenting with pointillism. Fiorello is the autobiographical story of the mayor of New York and how he clean corruption out of Tammany Hall. How to Succeed in Business made people look at big business in a whole new light, while A Chorus Line opened up the world of Broadway dance tryouts for many young hopefuls. The newest member to this influential group, Rent, shows how hard life can be to a group of people just trying to live in today’s world.

Bibliography

Carnovale, Norbert. George Gershwin A Bio-Bibliography. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000.

Bordman, Gerald. American Musical Theatre.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Playbill of “Rent.”  www.playbill.com.  June 2002.

Musical Heaven. 1996.  23 June 2002. <http://www.musicalheaven.com>

* * * * * *

Genres of Mark Twain [JT 02]

I became interested in the breadth of Mark Twain’s work while researching the topic of tall tales for my presentation.  Although I was familiar with a few of his works like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, etc. most of them fell in the category of childhood (boy) adventure stories.  After reading excerpts from Life on the Mississippi, I recognized that there was much more to Mark Twain’s literature than I realized and I decided to research his works to learn more about them and his skill as an author.

            Samuel Clemens, better known under his pseudonym of Mark Twain, is one of America’s most celebrated and famous authors.  Although often thought of as simply a writer of humorous short stories and regional novels, Clemen’s range was much greater than that. With a style inimitably his own, Clemen’s penned an impressive variety of genres in his career as an author and lecturer.

            Samuel Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri in 1835, the fifth child of John and Jane Marshall.  His father was an unsuccessful lawyer and storeowner who died when Clemens was 12. Shortly thereafter Clemens left school and entered the newspaper business as a print setter.  His first sketch, A Gallant Fireman, was published when Clemens was only 15. By the time he became an apprenticed, and then full-fledged, riverboat captain on the Mississippi River at the age of 22, Clemens’ work had been published in a variety of newspapers in the Midwest and South. Clemens tried his hand at silver mining in Nevada where he was hired as a newspaper reporter and adopted the pen name, Mark Twain.  His first piece to receive national acclaim was The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.  (Twayne’s)

            This renowned short story exemplifies Clemens’ skill with the tall tale genre – folk stories which “use outrageous exaggeration within the frame of a realistic story – in certain situations in order to perpetuate a hoax” (Encyclopedia of Folklore and Literature, 643).  One of Clemens’ early attempts with the tall tale, A Washoe Joke, was published as a true story by eight newspapers, even though it featured the inquest of an 100-year-old corpse. In his 1883 novel, Life on the Mississippi, a riverboat man boasts of being “Sired by a hurricane, dam’d by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to the smallpox on the mother’s side” (21). With his humorous exaggeration, Clemens’ tall tales are a perfect example of the tall tale genre.

            Clemens’ is probably best known for his boyhood adventure stories, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which are considered masterpieces of American literature.  As Lionel Trilling explains in Discussions of Mark Twain, “Certainly one element in the greatness of Huckleberry Finn, as also in the lesser greatness of Tom Sawyer, is that is succeeds first as a boys’ book.  One can read it at ten and then annually ever after, and each year find that it is as fresh as the year before, and that it has changed only in becoming somewhat larger” (52). Twain also wrote about a boy’s childhood in The Prince and the Pauper, an exchanged twins story.  The Story of the Bad Little Boy Who Didn’t Come to Grief, and The Story of the Good Little Boy were parodies of the didactic stories about childhood popular at the time in which proper behavior by children is rewarded.

            As exemplified in these last two stories, Clemens was also a master at writing the parody.  His story, About Magnanimous-Incident Letter, parodies the tales in which good deeds and self-sacrifice are rewarded.  Lucretia Smith’s Soldier is a parody of romantic literature from the Civil War era. Clemens even takes on the venerable Sherlock Holmes in his parody A Double Barreled Detective Story. Clemens lampoons a wide variety subjects in his many parodies.

            Clemens also wrote a number of travel books.  The Innocents Abroad discusses his trip to Europe and the Holy Land and burlesques the Old World culture that impresses American tourists. Roughing It is his tale of his years in the western United States and a trip to Hawaii. Tramp Abroad chronicles his adventures on a walking trip through Germany and the Swiss Alps. Clemens even tackles time-travel in his book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

As the author of more than 800 “novels, travel pieces, short stories, essays, critical articles, collected speeches, plays, collected poems, and anthologized letters” (Gale xi), any attempt to categorize Samuel Clemens as an author of any one type of genre, would be shortsighted.  Even within a single piece, Clemens blends genres to enhance their appeal.  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for example, “defies classification. Critics have variously called it local color, a romance, a picaresque novel, a comic novel, a historical novel, a gothic novel, a tall tale, an allegory, a satire on American civilization, a satire on humanity, and even “the” American epic” (Twayne’s 8:1). This intermingling of genres is certainly part of Clemens multigenerational appeal and contributes to his success as the creator of a true American literature. Clemens was a prolific, and diversified writer whose depictions of American themes and settings changed the character of American literature. As Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.... All American writing comes from that” (Zwick).

Because of the short time frame of the summer session, I feel that I have only just begun to learn about Clemens’ skill as an author. I was only able to read summaries of most of his works in order to attempt to classify them.  I think the best way for me to continue my research, and certainly the most pleasurable, will be to take the time this summer for some more relaxed reading of Mark Twain’s works.

Works Cited

Brown, Mary E., and Rosenberg, Bruce A. The Encyclopedia of Folklore and Literature. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1998.

Gale, Robert L., Plots and Characters in the Works of Mark Twain, Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1973.

Gerber, John C., “Mark Twain,” Twayne’s United States Authors Series Online, New York: G.K. Hall & Co, 1999, 22 June 2002 http://galenet.galegroup.com.

Trilling, Lionel. “The Greatness of Huckleberry Finn.” Discussions of Mark Twain. Ed. Guy A. Cardwell. Boston: D.C. Heath, 1963.

Twain, Mark. Life on the Mississippi. New York: P.F. Collier, 1917.

Zwick, Jim. “Huckleberry Finn Debated” Mark Twain. 29 June 2002.

http://www.boondocksnet.com/twainwww/hf_debate.html