OLLI at Duke • Winter 2023
Course Description
This course continues exploring Broadway’s “Silver Age” of the 1920s and ‘30s with a focus on two of American musical theatre’s greatest composer/lyricists: Irving Berlin and Cole Porter. Though their backgrounds were quite different, they excelled in creating witty, tuneful scores, with unforgettable lyrics perfectly matched to their melodies. READ MORE
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. A member of the OLLI Advisory Board, he is an avid theatergoer with a particular fondness for American musicals. This is his tenth course on musical theater for OLLI. Previous courses have focused on the works of Stephen Sondheim, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Kander & Ebb, Frank Loesser, Lerner & Loewe, Jerry Herman, Bock & Harnick, Leonard Bernstein, the ten musicals that have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and The Women of Broadway, a survey of musicals with book, lyrics, and/or music by women. In Fall Term 2022, he presented Broadway’s Silver Age, Part 1, focused on the musicals of Rodgers & Hart and George & Ira Gershwin.