Scholar - Women Also Know History

Participant Info

Website URL: https://www.wlv.ac.uk/about-us/our-schools-and-institutes/faculty-of-arts/school-of-performing-arts/staff/sarah-whitfield/

Keywords: musical theatre, theatre history, missing histories, race culture identity, audiences, fan cultures

About Me: I am a theatre historian, specifically in musical theatre and popular culture. I write about theatre history with a particular focus in uncovering the work that women do in the arts and how they are represented. My work addresses missing histories of the work that those in minoritised groups do – work which has been diminished because of practitioners identities.

I am bisexual and have a particular interest in LGBTQ+ representation and histories in popular culture. As a dramaturg I have collaborated and advised on a range of projects from site-specific immersive theatre to West End musicals.

Recent Publications: (Forthcoming) 2018 Editor. Re-framing the Musical: Race, Culture and Identity Palgrave Macmillan

2018 Boublil and Schönberg’s Les Miserables (4THW) Routledge (short monograph)

(2017) – ‘You wanna hear the real story?’: (Mis)remembering masculinity in Clint Eastwood’s adaptation of Jersey Boys (2014)’ in Twenty First Century Musicals: From Stage to Screen ed. by George Rodosthenous (Routledge)

(2017) – ‘For the First Time in Forever – Locating Frozen as a feminist Disney musical’ in The Disney Musical on Stage and Screen: Critical Approaches from ‘Snow White’ to ‘Frozen’. ed. by George Rodosthenous (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama)

(2016) “‘Next You’re Franklin Shepard Inc.?’: Composing the Broadway Musical, a Study of Kurt Weill’s Working Practices.” Studies in Musical Theatre, 10. 2 (June): 163–76. doi:10.1386/smt.10.2.163_1