OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this project is to allow you to become familiar with some of the basic reference tools (books and websites) for the American Musical Theater, and to evaluate their contents and relative worth for research on this topic.

In brief, you will do the following:

• Examine about a dozen different reference works and websites related to the American Musical Theater.
• Give a brief seminar presentation on one of these items.
• Share a written version of your impressions of your chosen item with the seminar members.
• Write an extended descriptive review-essay of a limited number of these items.

The items that you will consider are all non-circulating and held in the REF section of the UCF Library:

• Ken Bloom, Broadway: Its History, People and Places: An Encyclopedia (REF F 128.65 .T5 B56 2004)
• The Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2^nd ed. (REF ML 101 .U6 N48 2013)
• Kurt Gänzl, The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre (REF ML 102 .M88 G3 2001) - K. Hardin
• Stanley Green, Encyclopaedia of the Musical Theatre (REF ML 102 .M88 G7 1976) - A. Soler
• Thomas S. Hischak, The American Musical Theatre Song Encyclopedia (REF ML 102 .M88 H59 1995) - A. Ramirez
• Thomas S. Hischak, The Oxford Companion to the American Musical : Theatre, Film, and Television (ML 102 .M88 H593 2008) - K.Y. Chen
• Thomas S. Hischak, Stage It with Music : An Encyclopedic Guide to the American Musical Theatre (ML 102 .M88 H6 1993) - R. LaVo
• John Stewart, Broadway Musicals, 1943-2004 (REF ML 102 .M88 S74 2006) - S. Amann
• Ken Bloom, American Song: the Complete Musical Theatre Companion (REF ML 128 .M78 B6 1996, v. 1-4) - L. Morgan
• Tommy Krasker and Robert Kimball, Catalog of the American musical : Musicals of Irving Berlin, George & Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart (REF ML 128.M78 K7 1988) - J. Cutting
• Richard Lewine and Alfred Simon, Songs of the Theater (REF ML 128 .S3 L55 [& l53 for earlier ed.] - C. Rodriguez
• Rick Simas, The Musicals No One Came to See : A Guidebook to Four Decades of Musical-Comedy Casualties on Broadway, off-Broadway, and in Out-of-Town Try-Out, 1943-1983 (REF ML128 .M78 S5 1987) - J. Mongerio
• Gerald Bordman & Richard Norton, American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle (REF ML 1711.8 .B67 2010) - M. Lewis
• Dan Dietz, The Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals (REF ML 1711.8 .N3 D52 2014) - N. Costanza
• Dan Dietz, The Complete Book of 1970s Broadway Musicals (ML 1711.8 .N3 D532 2015) - NB. item is not REF, find in general stacks
• Dan Dietz, The Complete Book of 1980s Broadway Musicals (ML 1711.8 .N3 D533 2016) - NB. item is not REF, find in general stacks
• Dan Dietz, Off Broadway musicals, 1910-2007 : casts, credits, songs, critical reception and performance data of more than 1,800 shows (REF ML 1711.8 .N3 D54 2010) - K. Arpin
• Richard C. Norton, A Chronology of American Musical Theater (REF ML 1711.8 .N3 N67 2002 v. 1-3) - A. Jowers

Websites (links also available on the course home page)

• Internet Broadway Database
• Playbill
• Lortel Archives
• Tony Awards
• New York Obies Theater Awards
• Musical of the Month (New York Public Library)

Instructions for the Seminar Presentation:

1. Each member of the seminar will choose (or be assigned) one of the above items. Only one person may present on a particular book.
2. Research the book, including such factors as:
   • Who the author is (was) and his significance as a scholar of American music?
   • When and why this particular book was originally written (specific goals of the author or other impetus for the publication). Also, is this book a reissue or subsequent edition? If so, what can you say about the earlier editions?
   • What is the specific topic or other limitations on the content of the book?
   • Any unique or special features or other research tools found in the item?
   • What is the critical opinion of the book, i.e., what do reviews of the item say about it, and what is its value for research?
3. Prepare a 5- to 6-minute oral presentation on your chosen/assigned book. (You may read from a prepared text or speak extempore from notes, as you prefer.)
4. The oral presentation will be given on 16 January 2018 and counts for 15% of this assignment.

Instructions for Sharing your Evaluation with Other Seminar Members:

1. Within one week of the presentation, (by 23 January 2018) before 5:00 pm, you will share a writen version of your evaluation with the other members of the seminar.
2. Your evaluation should conform to the following guidlines:
   • Your evaluation should be a formal typed document of no less than 250 words in the body of the item. You may write more without fear of a penalty
   • Provide a header with all relevant publication information (Chicago Style formatting), and also include the UCF call no. (NB. This header is not part of the word count for your evaluation.)
   • Provide a brief written summary of your oral presentation.
   • Be sure to note any specific or unique features of the item you evaluate.
   • Include your critical opinion of the book and its value for research.
3. Send your writen summary to the entire seminar as a WORD attachment in your reply (to the entire seminar) to the group email that I send after the oral presentations.
4. The written summary counts for 10% of this assignment.

Instructions for the Written Review Essay:

For each of the items (in the above list), you should do the following:

1. Examine the item in general, noting its overall organization and contents. Note especially what seems to be unique about the item or of particular importance to the author.
2. Read the preface, introduction, table of contents, and any other "guide" materials that describe the item's contents and the author's intentions in writing the book.
3. While you need not read the entire book (especially for longer items), you should try to identify a few sections or passages that concern a work or topic, which you can then use to compare within the other items to be reviewed.
4. In particular, develop a few "test" items (indiviuals, shows, etc.) that you can use in your evaluation of the items, and which you can then cite in your paper as evidence.
5. (OPTIONAL, BUT RECOMMENDED) Using RILM, Project Muse, JSTOR, and/or the Music Index (or any other scholarly tools), locate at least any professional reviews of the item. Read those reviews for their comments on the item, noting especially any strengths or weaknesses that the reviewer finds.

After you have repeated this process with each of the remaining items, you are to prepare a general review-essay of any ten (l0) reference books and three (3) websites of your choice , according to the following guidelines:

1. Your paper should be a single essay of 1,500 words (minimum) that discusses the bibliography of the American Musical Theater as a unified topic, and not as a series of separate reviews.
2. You may organize your paper in any logical manner that you see fit. Possible approaches (among many others) might:
   • follow a chronological (or reverse-chronological) arrangement, i.e., working from earliest to most recent dates, explaining how later books build on the earlier ones,
   • deal more with how certain topics are covered, e.g., individual shows (both off and on Broadway), individuals (including composer, lyricists, performers, etc.), etc.
   • evaluate how the items balance discussions of one kind of information vs. another (or other topics), which are better for music vs. biography, etc.
   • explain which books are best for specific kinds of research and why,
3. You must mention at least ten (10) books within your review-essay and at least three (3) websites, and you must provide a value judgement of some sort for each item that you mention.
4. You must footnote all sources used, especially information drawn from professional reviews. NB. You need not agree with any of the reviews that you read, but you should be able to cite some of the more important reviews and reviewers.
5. In general, the best review-essays will focus on broader issues and how each of the books contributes to those issues. In particular, the best arguments will be supported with examples from these items (properly cited and footnoted).

Due Dates & Grading Criteria

The oral presentation on a single item will be given on 16 January 2018, roughly during the first hour of the seminar meeting. Grading will be split between (1) the coherence of your presentation and the quality of your delivery (organization and presentation), and (2) your description of the item and your opinion of it (content and how you support your argument). You should be prepared to answer questions about your item at that time. The oral presentation counts for 25% of this assignment.

The written evaluation of ten books and three websites is due by 5:00 pm on Friday, 16 February 2018. The item should be submitted to me as a single electronic WORD document attached to an email.

The document itself should be formatted as if it were written on 8-½" x 11" paper, using a 12-point font, indenting all paragraphs, and doubling-spacing the text.

Notes must be given as either footnotes or endnotes in a consistent format throughout the paper. No inline citations will be accepted. (Automatic 2-grade deduction for failure to follow this rule.)

All materials cited from other sources as either a direct quote, paraphrase, or indirect mention (reviews or even the items themselves) must be properly acknowledged in the paper (generally by notes) and included in a bibliography that follows the paper. (Automatic 3-grade deduction for failure to cite your sources.)

The absolute minimum length of the paper, meaning the body of the text itself (not including the title page or other preliminaries, footnotes or other citations, and the bibliography or other following materials) is 1,500 words. There is no penalty for longer papers, and you are encouraged to write more, as necessary. Use the "word count" function in any Word-processor to check your work, if you are unsure of the length of your paper.

Include a title or cover page with your full name, an identification of the course, my name, and (if you wish) a title for your paper. Do NOT submit the title page as a separate file. (Automatic 5-point deduction for failure either to include a title page or to submit one as part of the document.)

Grading of the review-essay will be divided 50/50 between writing (mechanics, style, proper citations and bibliography, etc.) and content (ideas and opinions presented, organization).

The written review-essay counts for 75% of this assignment.