Elizabeth T. Craft, George M. Cohan’s Irish American Patriotism on Broadway
Playwright, songwriter, producer, and star performer George M. Cohan (1878–1942) looms large in musical theater legend. Remembered today for classic tunes like “You’re a Grand Old Flag” and “Give My Regards to Broadway,” he has been called “the father of musical comedy” and his statue stands in the heart of the New York theater district. Cohan’s early twentieth-century songs and shows captured the spirit of an era when staggering social change gave new urgency to efforts to define Americanism. He was an Irish American who had the audacity to represent himself as the emblem of the nation, a vaudevillian who unapologetically climbed the ranks and packaged his lower-brow style as Broadway. This lecture-recital by Prof. Elizabeth T. Craft and a group of guest performers will feature some of Cohan’s most memorable songs as it illustrates how he navigated racial and class tensions, staged national identity on Broadway, and shaped the cultural landscape during a fraught time in U.S. history.
About the presenter
Elizabeth T. Craft is Associate Professor at the University of Utah and author of the book Yankee Doodle Dandy: George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage (Oxford University Press, 2024), which examines how Cohan shaped the burgeoning genre of musical comedy, the institution of Broadway, and the American cultural landscape in the early twentieth century. Her scholarship on musical theater and music in the United States also appears in journals and volumes including Studies in Musical Theatre, American Music, The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical, and the Oxford Handbooks of Arrangement Studies and Musical Theatre Screen Adaptations. Deeply committed to public scholarship, she has presented at in live and online venues in partnership with organizations including La Mirada Theatre, the Village Preservation Society, and the Broadway Nation podcast.
In partnership with
University of Utah School of Music