John Franceschina – författare

Hermes Pan: The Man who Danced with Fred Astaire is a rags-to-riches story about a boy from Tennessee who, armed with only an 8th grade education, an inexhaustible imagination, and an innate talent for dancing, becomes the most prolific and popular choreographer of the glory days of the Hollywood musical. As luck would have it, Pan's movie career began and ended working with Fred Astaire, the most famous dancer on film. The pair made nearly two dozen movies and television shows together and in Astaire, Pan found an artistic soul mate with whom he would develop a symbiotic relationship for the rest of his life. A devout Roman Catholic, Hermes was interested in perfecting the souls as well as the physical technique of his dancers and the book explores the profound effect he had on the lives of stars such as June Haver, Ann Miller, Rita Hayworth, Linda Darnell, Ginger Rogers, and Betty Grable. The book examines each of Pan's eighty-nine films offering a panoramic view of Pan's choreography from "Flying Down to Rio" in 1933 to "Aiutami a sognare" (Help Me Dream) in 1980 and comments on the development of Pan's art throughout his fifty-year career. Although Pan lived what many considered a life without scandal or controversy, as a Catholic and homosexual gentleman living as one of the "A-List" of Hollywood's elite, Pan had many personal conflicts and doubts. The book explores these in full along with his unease with the film community, his spiritual vocation as well as his artistic philosophies. The self-made choreographer of films such as "Top Hat", "Swing Time", "Moon Over Miami", "Kiss Me Kate", "Can-Can", "My Fair Lady", "Porgy and Bess", and "Cleopatra", Hermes Pan is proof that the American Dream is still alive.

Music Theory through Musical Theatre takes a new and powerful approach to music theory. Written specifically for students in music theatre programs, it offers music theory by way of musical theatre. Not a traditional music theory text, Music Theory through Musical Theatre tackles the theoretical foundations of musical theatre and musical theatre literature with an emphasis on what students will need to master in preparation for a professional career as a performer. Veteran music theatre musician John Franceschina brings his years of experience to bear in a book that offers musical theatre educators an important tool in equipping students with what is perhaps the most important element of being a performer: the ability to understand the language of music in the larger dramatic context to which it contributes.The book uses examples exclusively from music theater repertoire, drawing from well-known and more obscure shows and songs. Musical sight reading is consistently at the forefront of the lessons, teaching students to internalize notated music quickly and accurately, a particularly necessary skill in a world where songs can be added between performances. Franceschina consistently links the concepts of music theory and vocal coaching, showing students how identifying the musical structure of and gestures within a piece leads to better use of their time with vocal coaches and ultimately enables better dramatic choices. Combining formal theory with practical exercises, Music Theory through Musical Theatre will be a lifelong resource for students in musical theatre courses, dog-eared and shelved beside other professional resource volumes.

Music Theory through Musical Theatre takes a new and powerful approach to music theory. Written specifically for students in music theatre programs, it offers music theory by way of musical theatre. Not a traditional music theory text, Music Theory through Musical Theatre tackles the theoretical foundations of musical theatre and musical theatre literature with an emphasis on what students will need to master in preparation for a professional career as a performer. Veteran music theatre musician John Franceschina brings his years of experience to bear in a book that offers musical theatre educators an important tool in equipping students with what is perhaps the most important element of being a performer: the ability to understand the language of music in the larger dramatic context to which it contributes.The book uses examples exclusively from music theater repertoire, drawing from well-known and more obscure shows and songs. Musical sight reading is consistently at the forefront of the lessons, teaching students to internalize notated music quickly and accurately, a particularly necessary skill in a world where songs can be added between performances. Franceschina consistently links the concepts of music theory and vocal coaching, showing students how identifying the musical structure of and gestures within a piece leads to better use of their time with vocal coaches and ultimately enables better dramatic choices. Combining formal theory with practical exercises, Music Theory through Musical Theatre will be a lifelong resource for students in musical theatre courses, dog-eared and shelved beside other professional resource volumes.

Scholars have given increasing amounts of attention to the place of homosexuality in different periods of English cultural and literary history. This book is a broad survey of representations of homosexuality in the English theatre from the Renaissance to the late 19th century. It draws on scholarship from a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, history, psychology, literature, and drama. The first chapter provides a background for the book by discussing the nature of same-sex behavior in the ancient and medieval worlds. The chapters that follow discuss such topics as sodomy and transvestite theatre in the Renaisssance; female transvestism on the English stage during the 17th century; bisexuality in 18th-century drama; the rise of English homophobia and the proliferation of lesbian relationships in England between 1745 and 1790; the homophobic context of English theatre during the Romantic Movement (1790-1835); and the rebirth of interest in Greek thought and its associations with same-sex poetry, drama, and pornography in the Victorian era (1840-1900).Scholars have given increasing amounts of attention to the place of homosexuality in English literature and culture. Dramatic works are a reflection of cultural issues, and thus they sometimes treat homosexual subject matter. But because plays are enacted, they also represent homosexual concerns through staging conventions, such as the use of young boys to play female roles during the Renaissance. While some scholars have examined homosexuality in particular plays, this volume is a broad survey of the representation of same-sex relationships on the English stage from the Renaissance to the close of the 19th century. It draws on scholarship from a wide range of fields, including sociology, history, psychology, literature, and drama to provide a sweeping, multidisciplinary account of homosexuality and English Drama.Modern drama has its roots largely in the Renaissance, and Renaissance drama, in turn, drew heavily from classical culture and medieval dramatic traditions. Thus the first chapter of the book provides a background discussion of same-sex behavior in the ancient and medieval worlds. The chapters that follow discuss such topics as sodomy and transvestite theatre in the Renaissance; female transvestism on the English stage during the 17th century; bisexuality in 18th-century drama; the rise of English homophobia and the proliferation of lesbian relationships in England between 1745 and 1790; the homophobic context of English theatre during the Romantic Movement (1790-1835); and the rebirth of interest in Greek thought and its associations with same-sex poetry, drama, and pornography in the Victorian era (1840-1900). The playwrights discussed include major figures such as Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Shelley, and Wilde, along with less frequently read authors such as John Marston, Thomas Dekker, and Barnabe Barnes.

David Braham (1834-1905) was the musical director for the famous vaudeville team of Harrigan and Hart, writing music for many of their comic songs, including The Mulligan Guards, Paddie Duffy's Cart, and many more. His long career as a theatrical composer in New York helped establish a new style of Broadway musical. He came from a family well-entrenched in the music and theater worlds, and his story touches upon nearly all aspects of the history of American musical theater of this era.

Harry B. Smith was the most prolific writer of librettos for the American musical theatre in history, with nearly half of his 300 works actually opening in New York City. In addition, Smith was instrumental in adapting and popularizing foreign musicals in America, significantly influencing writing and composing styles of American shows. He worked with every major composer in America between 1880 and 1920, and consequently this examination of his work and process is highly instructive of the history of the American musical.

Duke Ellington's son Mercer has said that his father was frustrated in only one area of musical ambition: his desire to do his own Broadway show. Though Ellington wrote many theatrical pieces, he was never able to achieve success as a composer for the stage, and today his stage shows receive little attention from music historians. Nevertheless, these works occupied a significant place in Ellington's creative imagination, and many of the ideas he employed in their composition found their way into his other work.Here is the first book to acknowledge Duke Ellington's contribution to the stage. It offers a survey of every theater piece Ellington is known to have worked on during his lifetime, beginning with the 1925 revue The Chocolate Kiddies and ending with the unfinished "street opera" Queenie Pie. This large body of work includes full-length musicals, African American revues, ballets, and incidental music. The plot of each work is described and the score analyzed according to its dramatic function in the piece. Musical phrases are reproduced in the text, and associations with other well-known Ellington compositions are noted. An appendix provides a chronological listing of Ellington's shows with song titles conveniently listed under each.

It is a generally accepted fact that in the first half of the nineteenth century, Catherine Gore became the most prolific, if not most popular writer of fashionable novels in England. It is less well known that Mrs. Gore's 200-volume output included eleven extremely popular, if not always critically successful, plays, performed at all three of the Theatres Royal in London: Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and the Haymarket. While several of the plays held the stage in England and the United States well into the second half of the nineteenth century, modern critical appraisals of the works have been hampered by the lack of available texts. Gore on Stage, for the first time provides performance texts of all of Mrs. Gore's work for the stage, including original cast lists, criticial responses, illustrations, and glossaries of foreign words and nineteenth-century jargon. Students of drama and nineteenth-century literature will delight in the intricacies of plot and theatrical effects in this collection of historical melodramas, comedies of manners, and farces; and they will marvel at the contemporary nature of the plays' themes, trading on a balance of power between male and female characters.

It is a generally accepted fact that in the first half of the nineteenth century, Catherine Gore became the most prolific, if not most popular writer of fashionable novels in England. It is less well known that Mrs. Gore's 200-volume output included eleven extremely popular, if not always critically successful, plays, performed at all three of the Theatres Royal in London: Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and the Haymarket. While several of the plays held the stage in England and the United States well into the second half of the nineteenth century, modern critical appraisals of the works have been hampered by the lack of available texts. Gore on Stage, for the first time provides performance texts of all of Mrs. Gore's work for the stage, including original cast lists, criticial responses, illustrations, and glossaries of foreign words and nineteenth-century jargon. Students of drama and nineteenth-century literature will delight in the intricacies of plot and theatrical effects in this collection of historical melodramas, comedies of manners, and farces; and they will marvel at the contemporary nature of the plays' themes, trading on a balance of power between male and female characters.

David Braham (1834-1905) was the musical director for the famous vaudeville team of Harrigan and Hart, writing music for many of their comic songs, including The Mulligan Guards, Paddie Duffy's Cart, and many more. His long career as a theatrical composer in New York helped establish a new style of Broadway musical. He came from a family well-entrenched in the music and theater worlds, and his story touches upon nearly all aspects of the history of American musical theater of this era.

Harry B. Smith was the most prolific writer of librettos for the American musical theatre in history, with nearly half of his 300 works actually opening in New York City. In addition, Smith was instrumental in adapting and popularizing foreign musicals in America, significantly influencing writing and composing styles of American shows. He worked with every major composer in America between 1880 and 1920, and consequently this examination of his work and process is highly instructive of the history of the American musical.