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Past Articles What's New on the Rialto Women Writing Musicals
by Jennifer Ashley Tepper Book Review by Wendy Caster
In the new book Women Writing Musicals, Jennifer Ashley Tepper and Applause Theatre & Cinema Books rescue one important part of theatre history: women writing musicals. And it is full of juicy info.
My personal favorite tidbit: Dorothy Fields wrote the lyrics for the Astaire-Rogers movie Swingtime in 1936 and wrote the lyrics for Broadway musicals Sweet Charity in 1966 and Seesaw in 1973. Not only did Fields write for decades, but she also kept in touch with the moods and values in each of those decades. Tepper has arranged the book chronologically, depending on when the woman in question got her start. Her definition of "women writing musicals" is nicely loose, allowing her to include women who wrote one song in a revue, and the like. The book goes through 2020, though it refers to later musicals here and there; the final full entry is Diablo Cody (Jagged Little Pill). Women Writing Musicals is sort of a reference book and sort of not. It does gather useful information in one place, as would a reference book, but it leaves out, for example, the women's birth and death dates and other pertinent information. The book also lacks a certain amount of focus; for example, while Tepper may mention that a particular woman wrote movies, without naming a single example, she spends nearly a paragraph on specifying where a long-gone theater was located. Similarly, the entry on Heidi Rodewald gives considerably more space to her co-writer/ex-husband Stew. (On the copyright page, the book is classified as "history and criticism.") Women Writing Musicals does not include a bibliography. Notes appear on the pages where they are cited, which is nicely convenient. However, most of the book does not specify the source of its information. For example, Susan Stroman's section has no footnote at all. Granted, her information is easily available, but it still would be nice to know where Tepper did her research. Women Writing Musicals does have a pretty good general index. It also has a separate index of "Musicals Chronologically by Opening Date," but as this list neither includes the women who worked on each show nor provides page numbers within the book, I'm not sure what use it serves. Assuming that Tepper was looking to write a more anecdotal account of theatre history, she is successful. In addition to the ones mentioned above, the book is jammed with fun tidbits. Not all of the tidbits are fun, of course. Many (most?) of the women experienced various levels of sexism. Newspaper reviews focused on their looks or marital status as much as their work, if not more. Many women got their opportunities through their husbands or other men. Some women were performers who gradually moved into writing. The woman who broke in as a writer on her own was rare until well into the 20th century. Tepper also shares moments of understanding from decades ago. For example, the Chicago Tribune wrote that while women may be as talented as men, men have more leeway to market their work: "For the purpose of 'plugging' their new creations, [men] can go where they please, when they please, and stay out as late as they please without shattering any of the traditions of propriety. The women, however, cannot do this." (While Tepper writes that this article appeared in 1917, research on the internet suggests that it more likely appeared in 1907.) Women Writing Musicals would profit from being better written. Words are frequently used incorrectly. The chronology within entries can be confusing. And there are factual errors. For example, Tepper writes that Gretchen Cryer was in the original Broadway cast of 1776. She was actually an understudy, which is not quite the same thing. While Marion Jones Farquhar was indeed the first American woman to win a medal for tennis in the Olympics, Tepper writes, "In 1900, she became the first woman to win an Olympic medal." Not the same thing at all. And, in a sad oversight, while itÂ’s not an error per se, Tepper writes that Adrienne Shelly (the creator of the movie Waitress) "died tragically." Actually, she was murdered. It makes a difference. In an amusing mistake, Tepper says that Les Misérables and A Tale of Two Cities are both about the French Revolution. In fact, Les Misérables is about the Paris Uprising of 1832. This error may really only be amusing to fans of Forbidden Broadway, in which a Les Miz character says, "Then he becomes involved with a French Revolution. But not the big famous one, a little later one you thought you didn't know anything about..." Overall, because of its not-infrequent lack of polish, clarity and accuracy, Women Writing Musicals is disappointing. On the other hand, it exists. It honors and in some cases rescues from obscurity a wide range of talented, ground-breaking women of the theatre. That's no small accomplishment.
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Women Writing Musicals