OLLI at Duke • Summer Term 2026
Course Description
Most courses on Broadway musicals focus on the works of a certain period or those by a certain team of creators. However, some shows resist such categories: either they’re not typical of their era or their creative teams didn’t create many shows. This course will explore four Broadway musicals that are not only “singular” but also are adaptations of major works of literature: Man of La Mancha (Don Quixote), Big River (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (War and Peace), and The Secret Garden. Students will learn about the books, scores, and impact of each of the musicals, as well as how each team approached the task of adapting a long book into one evening’s entertainment. 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 English and drama teacher. After retiring from the Durham Public Schools in 2006, he taught in Duke’s Master of Arts in Teaching Program. He is an avid theatergoer with a particular fondness for American musicals. This is his twentieth course on musical theater for OLLI. Previous courses have focused on Stephen Sondheim, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Kander & Ebb, Frank Loesser, Lerner & Loewe, Jerry Herman, Bock & Harnick, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Schwartz, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, the ten musicals that have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, six “Off-Broadway Classics,” “British Musicals on Broadway,” “Twenty-First Century Musicals,” and “The Women of Broadway”--a survey of musicals with book, lyrics, and/or music by women. He has also presented a two-course survey of “Broadway’s Silver Age,” focused on the musicals of Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart, George & Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter. 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/
Recommended Texts
Kantor, Michael, and Laurence Maslon. (2019) Broadway: The American Musical, Third Edition. Guilford, CT: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books. ISBN 978-1-4930-4767-3 (paperback) This is the companion book to the PBS documentary film of the same name, a six-part series first broadcast in 2004. The third edition of the book has been updated to include shows that opened in the 2018-19 Broadway season. The book provides a comprehensive treatment of American musicals and hundreds of photos. It’s worth the heft and the cost—a doorstopper of a tome listing on Amazon.com for about $40. LINK
- Lane, Stewart F. (2015) Black Broadway: African Americans on the Great White Way. Garden City Park, NY: Square One Publishers. ISBN 978—0-7570-0388-2. This book provides a comprehensive survey of stage musicals and plays created by or starring African Americans. I will use this book as a major source in preparing lectures on the musicals. Students may find the book useful for its many photos and “sidebar” features on historical events. Also, since the course won’t focus on plays, students may choose to read those sections of this book to get a more complete picture of African American contributions to Broadway.