“Thousands of Stories to Tell”: Broadway Musicals, New York City, and the Making of Jewish Americans

A cabaret based on Dr. Barrie Gelles’s scholarship that examines the themes and tropes in musicals that recreate, reframe, and reclaim narratives of Jewish American cultural history. 

 Featuring songs from Funny Girl (1964), The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N (1968), Rags (1986), and Ragtime (1998), this cabaret blends scholarship and artistry, history and storytelling. Beginning in the 1960s, for the first time, the Jewishness featured in Broadway musicals was neither represented through racialized comedic representations nor hidden underneath crypto-Jewish characters. Interestingly, many of the musicals of the latter half of the twentieth century that feature Jewish characters, culture, and history are set in the early part of the twentieth century, and most of those are set in the Progressive Era in New York City. These musicals, featuring representations of Jewish Americans, are steeped in a retrospective point of view, both romanticizing and problematizing narratives of immigration and Americanization. The selected musicals are among the many stories created to reaffirm how Jewish immigrants became Jewish Americans in the United States. Incorporating showtunes, lesser known songs, storytelling, and scholarship, this cabaret invites audience members to consider the historical narratives of musicals in addition to enjoying the pleasure they provide. 

This cabaret is based on Dr. Barrie Gelles’s scholarship that examines the themes and tropes in musicals that recreate, reframe, and reclaim narratives of Jewish American cultural history.