Echoes of the Holocaust on the American Musical Stage

Book excerpt: With chapters on The Sound of Music, Milk and Honey, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, The Rothschilds, Rags, Ragtime and The Producers, this book examines both direct and indirect references to, or resonances of, the Holocaust, tracing changing American attitudes through the chronological progression of these musical productions and their subsequent revivals. Despite the abundance of writing on both musical theatre history and on the difficulties of Holocaust representation, history and theatre scholars alike have thus far ignored the intersections of these areas. The academy thereby risks excluding precisely those works that shed the most light on our culture's evolving response to the Shoah, an event that still helps to define American identity. This book redresses this lapse by focusing on the theatrical form seen by the greatest amount of people--musicals--which either trigger or reflect changing American mores.