Addressing both music drawn from contemporary musicals and "Broadway-inspired" contemporary popular music, University of Iowa Graduate Students Zane Larson (Musicology) and Danielle Kramer (Musicology) will be workshopping projects that showcase the breadth of scholarly engagement with pop and musical theater.

"Semper Fi, Do or Die: Hegemonic Masculinity in a Homosocial Musical" 

In this presentation I investigate Pasek and Paul's musical Dogfight (2012) and the ways masculinity is presented to audiences within the homosocial grouping of Marines that act as the main protagonists. Using Connell's framework of hegemonic masculinity, I examine how hegemonic, subordinate, marginalized, and protest masculinities interact within the lyrics, music, staging, and overall performance of the musical. I argue that the presentation of the Marines as a hegemonic whole is challenged by the representations of subordinate, marginalized, and protest masculinities within the homosocial grouping that ultimately causes turmoil and violent action as some marines try to reconstruct their relationship to how their masculinity is viewed within the overall hegemony.

“I Hope You Like The Show, ‘Cuz It’s On A Budget”: Analyzing Musical Theater Influences In Popular Music, Featuring The Music Of AJR 

In recent years, critics and journalists alike have noted how some popular music artists have implemented elements of musical theater into their work, be it through sound, production style, or live performance practices. But what does it mean for a work to be “Broadway-inspired,” especially when “Broadway” can cover a wide range of genres, styles, and eras? Commentators and artists usually explain this connection through broader themes, but fail to give a technical explanation using specific musical examples. Recently, music theorists have begun to bridge a major gap in music theory research, creating technical explanations of musical phenomena specific to theater. Consequently, it is then possible to explain how these phenomena carry into the broader popular music industry. In this paper, I draw connections between music theory research and popular music journalism, explaining how artists invoke specific harmonic strategies during the songwriting process to impose a “Broadway sound” in their music. As a case study, I draw from the discography of AJR, an indie pop band frequently noted by critics as having musical theater influences in both their recorded work and their live performances. Many of their songs use arrangement styles noted by theorists as being backbones of musical theater works, such as direct modulation and Sondheimian harmony.   

Zane Larson is PhD candidate in Musicology at the University of Iowa. He received his Bachelor's in vocal performance with an education minor from Luther College, and a Master's in music in Music Theory from Florida State University. Zane's primary research areas are musical theater, pop music, film music, and gender and sexuality studies. He has presented his research on musicals at CUNY's Graduate Students in Music Conference,  Hyperpop at Harvard's Graduate Music Forum, and Leonard Bernstein at the National American Musicological Society meeting in Denver last year. Zane's publications include works on Women's Clubs in Iowa and the musical A Strange Loop, which is nominated for this year's Society for Music Theory's Public Facing Scholarship Award. 

Danielle Kramer is a musicology student at the University of Iowa. Her research interests include film music, adaptation studies, and Broadway’s impact on other genres of popular music.