OLLI at Duke • Spring Term 2026
Course Description
According to theatre historian Miles Kreuger, “No studio even begins to approach MGM for its flagrant mangling . . . of Broadway musicals.” He goes on to say that “MGM’s best musicals are those created expressly for the screen.” We begin the course with a brief history of Hollywood musicals from the 1920s to the 1940s, focusing on the films of choreographer Busby Berkeley and those of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. We will then dive into several classic MGM movie musicals that did not begin their life on stage: The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in Saint Louis, An American in Paris, Singin’ in the Rain, The Band Wagon, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Gigi. In the final class, we’ll look at several musicals since 1960 and discuss how these films compare to those of MGM's Golden Age. The course is primarily lecture with video and audio clips. Students will be able to ask questions and make comments during each class.
Instructor : Alan Teasley
Alan Teasley began his career as a high school teacher of English, drama, and mass communications. After retiring from the Durham Public Schools in 2006, he taught in Duke’s Master of Arts in Teaching Program through 2016. Since 2018 he has taught 25 courses for OLLI on musical theater and film. Previous courses on musicals have focused on Jerome Kern, George & Ira Gershwin, Rodgers & Hart, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Loewe, Kander & Ebb, Frank Loesser, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Leonard Bernstein, and Stephen Schwartz, among others. From 2018 to 2020, he taught three OLLI courses aligned with the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, where he served on the selection committee for twenty years. For OLLI he has also curated two documentary film series—one in conjunction with OLLI’s fortieth anniversary celebration and another focused on local filmmakers. All materials for Alan's courses on musicals are on this website, except for the two courses on Stephen Sondheim which are located at https://www.sondheim101.com/