Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy

Description

Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy explores the unique role of Jewish composers and lyricists in the creation of the modern American musical and many of the songs that comprise “The American Songbook.” Over the fifty-year period of its development, the songs of the Broadway musical were created almost exclusively by Jewish Americans. These are the popular songs that our nation took to war, sang to their children at bedtime, and whistled while waiting for the bus. A virtual behind-the-scenes-of-Broadway, it is an engaging, humorous, and provocative film, mixing and mingling ethnic cultural history with entertaining perspectives on the origins and meaning of some of Broadway’s most beloved songs, stories, and shows.

Featuring interviews and conversations with some of the greatest composers and writers of the Broadway stage, Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy showcases the work of some of the nation’s pre-eminent creators of musical theatre including Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Kurt Weill, Sheldon Harnick, Jerry Bock, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Stephen Schwartz, Jules Styne and many others.