The marriage of musical theater and the avant-garde: The musical theater of Tina Landau as experimental theater

Abstract

Tina Landau's writing and directing work has gained increasing prominence over the last decade. She has made strides in both the experimental and the musical theater arenas, and her accomplishments in each are noteworthy independent of each other. However, her concurrent interest and success in both arenas, which are commonly viewed as quite disparate, make her work particularly interesting. These interests, which might seem incongruent, are actually interrelated; her work in one area influences her work in the other, a fact which is evident both in her rehearsal process and the end products. Her experimental work has a musical sensibility and her work in musical theater is quite experimental. This thesis examines works for which she was both writer and director as representative examples: 1969, Stonewall: Night Variations, Space, Floyd Collins and Dream True. Her amalgamated sensibility results in a directing style which serves contemporary musicals, particularly "smart musicals," well.