[AMS-announce] CFP: Germany's Reception of the Broadway Musical, Dessau, Germany, March 2008

[ams-announce-admin at list.bowdoin.edu]

CALL FOR PAPERS

"Germany's Reception of the Broadway Musical"
An interdisciplinary conference by the Kurt-Weill-Gesellschaft Dessau
7-9 March 2008
Dessau, Germany

Proposals in English or German should be submitted by 18 February 2007. 
Please send proposals (no more than 400 words), together with a brief 
CV, to weill-zentrum at t-online.de

The performance history and reception of the Broadway musical in Germany 
(both the genre as a whole and individual, paradigmatic works) still 
await a systematic analysis. This conference will focus on the stage 
musical, whose scattered sources are insufficiently documented and 
catalogued, thus causing scholars in the past to resort to film 
versions, which were readily available but inadequate substitutes. 
Especially welcome, though not mandatory, are papers on Weill. His 
oeuvre is at the heart of a key aesthetic debate that touches on this 
cultural transfer (in which the 1948 German production of "Knickerbocker 
Holiday" played a pioneering role). Papers should address one or more of 
the following areas:

1. Productions
Which works entered the canon of German theaters? Which filtering 
mechanisms prevented works that had achieved classic or iconic status in 
the U.S. from succeeding in Germany? Which musicals were produced 
outside of Germany's subsidized theater system? How could a production 
system evolve that took off from (and ran parallel to) the subsidized 
system and aimed to accommodate the musical's financial and artistic 
needs? What roles were played by institutions such as Theater des 
Westens or Stella Entertainment AG?

2. Receptions
Objects of study should be German-language productions of individual 
works or the genre as a whole. How were they perceived and evaluated? In 
addition to press reviews, papers should also take into account 
scholarly and popular book publications (e.g., "Musicalf?hrer"). Where 
appropriate, film versions, cast albums, and hit numbers ("standards") 
can be considered as well.

3. Adaptations
Which challenges arose in the process of translating book and lyrics 
(and do they differ from those encountered in the translation of other 
theatrical genres)? How did theaters handle the genre's demands on 
performers and production team? Which steps were taken to address the 
cultural politics as well as the economic conditions of the German market?

Participants should refrain from lengthy discussions of plot line or 
structure of a single work. 

The program committee will begin evaluating and discussing proposals 
immediately after the deadline. The results will be communicated in 
March 2007. Currently, the conference is planned to be held at the 
historic Bauhaus.

The Advisory Board of the Kurt-Weill-Gesellschaft Dessau
(A. Eichhorn, N. Grosch, M. Heinemann, E. Juchem, J. Lucchesi, J. 
Schebera, St. Weiss)