This dissertation takes musical theatre seriously as a historiographic practice, and considers six musicals that take the past as their subject matter in order to interrogate how these works craft their historical narratives. While there have been studies of historical drama and performance, musicals have generally been left out of that conversation, despite (or perhaps because of) their immense popularity. This project argues that not only can musicals “do” history, they offer an excellent genre for theorizing what I call “queer historiography.” While sexuality remains one category of analysis, I use “queer” to signify opposition, not simply to heterosexuality, but to heteronormativity, and normativity more broadly. Musicals’ queer historiography, then, is a way of engaging past events that challenges normativity in form as well as content; a way of productively challenging not only what we think we know about the past, but how we come to know it. Each chapter uses a different theoretical lens to guide close readings of a pair of thematically linked musicals. The first chapter considers 1776 (1969) and Assassins (1991, 2004) as challenges to official narratives of United States history. My primary lens in this chapter is form, as I analyze how musicals’ structures influence their queer historiographic potential. Chapter 2 examines two musicals that offer histories of U.S. popular culture, Gypsy (1959) and Hairspray (2002), considering how the placement of divas at the center of each show enables a historiography that is feminist as well as queer, challenging ideas about gender and sexuality while making women central to the histories they represent. In the third chapter I look to two musicals, Falsettos (1992) and Elegies: A Song Cycle (2003), which present histories of trauma while featuring overtly gay, lesbian, and queer characters. I use these two texts to theorize how musicals might not simply present history as it “really” was, but also as it might have been, thereby offering what Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick terms a “reparative reading” of history. In examining each of my six case studies, I analyze specific performances as well as written texts whenever possible. / text

Submitted by Automa??o e Estat?stica (sst@bczm.ufrn.br) on 2017-05-08T18:50:47Z No. of bitstreams: 1 FlaviaMariaSilvaVieira_DISSERT.pdf: 81201309 bytes, checksum: 462ae4465550a4b01b164bc285b9fa5a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Monica Paiva (monicalpaiva@hotmail.com) on 2017-05-08T18:58:41Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 FlaviaMariaSilvaVieira_DISSERT.pdf: 81201309 bytes, checksum: 462ae4465550a4b01b164bc285b9fa5a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-08T18:58:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 FlaviaMariaSilvaVieira_DISSERT.pdf: 81201309 bytes, checksum: 462ae4465550a4b01b164bc285b9fa5a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-05-25 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior (CAPES) / Neste trabalho s?o discutidas quest?es que dizem respeito ?s pol?ticas p?blicas voltadas para quilombolas a partir da avalia??o do Programa Brasil Quilombola na Comunidade Negros do Riacho, localizada na zona rural do munic?pio de Currais Novos-RN. A comunidade ? conhecida pelas dificuldades s?cio-econ?micas que enfrenta ao longo de pelo menos cem anos de perman?ncia no territ?rio. Observaremos as rela??es de troca, reciprocidade e hierarquia que se revelam nas pr?ticas sociais nos microespa?os locais e em n?vel mais amplo da pol?tica nacional para quilombolas. Com o objetivo de compreender de que forma as a??es s?o efetivadas localmente, procuraremos responder por que algumas demandas s?o atendidas em detrimento de outras e como se estruturam estas prioridades na agenda pol?tica do munic?pio. A precariedade ainda se faz presente no cotidiano dos moradores do Riacho e o acesso ?s a??es do Programa n?o tem sido completamente viabilizado apesar da exist?ncia de demandas hist?ricas. Assim, atrav?s da observa??o das pr?ticas cotidianas dos quilombolas e dos agentes implementadores, iremos descrever o processo que envolve a efetiva??o de pol?ticas p?blicas nesta comunidade e questionar o modelo de interven??o da administra??o p?blica municipal na promo??o de pol?ticas para quilombos. / Neste trabalho s?o discutidas quest?es que dizem respeito ?s pol?ticas p?blicas voltadas para quilombolas a partir da avalia??o do Programa Brasil Quilombola na Comunidade Negros do Riacho, localizada na zona rural do munic?pio de Currais Novos-RN. A comunidade ? conhecida pelas dificuldades s?cio-econ?micas que enfrenta ao longo de pelo menos cem anos de perman?ncia no territ?rio. Observaremos as rela??es de troca, reciprocidade e hierarquia que se revelam nas pr?ticas sociais nos microespa?os locais e em n?vel mais amplo da pol?tica nacional para quilombolas. Com o objetivo de compreender de que forma as a??es s?o efetivadas localmente, procuraremos responder por que algumas demandas s?o atendidas em detrimento de outras e como se estruturam estas prioridades na agenda pol?tica do munic?pio. A precariedade ainda se faz presente no cotidiano dos moradores do Riacho e o acesso ?s a??es do Programa n?o tem sido completamente viabilizado apesar da exist?ncia de demandas hist?ricas. Assim, atrav?s da observa??o das pr?ticas cotidianas dos quilombolas e dos agentes implementadores, iremos descrever o processo que envolve a efetiva??o de pol?ticas p?blicas nesta comunidade e questionar o modelo de interven??o da administra??o p?blica municipal na promo??o de pol?ticas para quilombos.

My first semester pursuing my MFA in Voice and Speech Pedagogy I vocal-coached an openly gay student playing a straight character who would mask his sexual identity in such a manner that his performance became stiff and uninteresting. Rather than using his personal identity as an asset in the pursuit of a successful performance, his chosen vocal tactics removed any sense of theatricality from his performance. I confronted the student and suggested such extreme vocal suppression diminished the quality of his overall performance. He replied, "So you want me to get the gay out."His use of the phrase, "get the gay out" to describe a fuller adaptation of his sexual identity to suit the character fascinated me and led to me to create a performance seminar course that used open acknowledgment of Camp performance styles as a valuable way to prepare students, gay or straight, for careers on the stage and screen. This thesis is a record of the course taught in the spring of 2007; CAMP: RIDICULOUS THEATRE AS SERIOUS DRAMA.

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