Thank you so much to the organizers of the StageStruck! conference and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., one of the most amazing places in this country. It was such an honor to talk about musical theater for three days in this room from May 14-16, 2025. And thank you to everyone who was able to watch my presentation on the musical Inner City on Zoom. This was such a wonderful experience, and I truly valued being among all the thoughtful and intrepid scholars dedicated to the musical theater art form.
Inner City, a short-lived 1971 musical, first came to my attention because of composer and music director Rob Baumgartner, who reached out to me in 2017 because he was putting together an Inner City concert at 54 Below and thought I might be interested in the first Broadway musical to have a score written solely by women.
Inner City is most likely the first Broadway musical in the modern musical theater era to have a score written by women in collaboration and it followed about 40 years of very few women composers writing for the Broadway stage.
My presentation gave an overview of this hidden gem in musical theater history and why it should be seen as an important milestone for women writers thanks to the work of writers Helen Miller and Eve Merriam who were fascinating figures in the musical theater canon.
It was also nice to have my work on the Maestra Timeline included in the opening remarks.
The first day began with treasures from the Library of Congress collection. There were so many amazing pieces but my favorite was a letter from the nun that Rodgers and Hammerstein used as a consultant on The Sound of Music in which she talked about Maria’s character. There were also notebook pages showing how Hammerstein used what she said in the letter to write the lyric for “Climb Every Mountain.”
We also had speaker Julie Taymor, who talked for two hours, and I took seven pages of notes. She focused on her musical theater work in particular, including an obscure musical called Liberty’s Taken that she wrote with her partner Elliot Goldenthal for puppets and actors. It was produced by Norman Lear and starred Todd Graff. This is the musical that got her The Lion King. She is interested in revisiting the piece if she can find the material, and I really hope she does.
And then followed two days of presentations on a wide range of musical theater topics. I hope I can keep in touch with everyone who presented and follow their work.