OLLI at Duke • Fall Term 2025
Course Description
Broadway’s first twenty seasons of the 21st century were bookended by the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. During those two decades, 269 musicals opened on Broadway. In this course we'll look at several overall trends: the mix of new works and revivals, the dominant genres, such as screen-to-stage adaptations and “jukebox musicals,” as well as original musicals not based on pre-existing scores. We will also explore some of the controversies that emerged in this particular area of show business, as Broadway responded to changing social, political and economic forces. In each class we will make a closer study of some of the memorable musicals that exemplify the trends and controversies of the period. Possible “spotlight” musicals are listed in the outline of course content below. Class 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. A member of the OLLI Advisory Council, he is an avid theatergoer with a particular fondness for American musicals. This is his eighteenth 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,” 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. He has also been known to just pack together a group of shows he likes and give the package a classy name like “Six Singular Sensations.” All materials for these courses are on this website, except for the two courses on Stephen Sondheim which are located at https://www.sondheim101.com/