The Magic of Film Musicals: Originals and Adaptations

Join us for an informative and entertaining survey of the musical film--its origins, its history, and its future with Dr. Allen Cohen.

Using audio and video examples, and live performance of some famous movie themes, Dr. Cohen will begin with The Jazz Singer, range through Busby Berkeley, Fred and Ginger, the MGM years, and the rock era, to Chicago and beyond. This talk includes discussions of the differences and similarities between Broadway and Hollywood musicals, why the era of great Hollywood musicals came to an end, and where film musicals may go next.    

Dr. Allen Cohen is Professor of Music at Fairleigh Dickinson University. His compositions have been played in Carnegie Hall and across the United States and Europe. He has also written dance arrangements for Broadway musicals, scores for off-Broadway musicals and plays, and music for several films and many radio and television commercials, and he has conducted three musicals on Broadway and many elsewhere. He is the author of Howard Hanson in Theory and Practice (Praeger/Greenwood) and the popular children’s book That’s So Funny I Forgot to Laugh! (Scholastic), and co-author of Writing Musical Theater (Palgrave Macmillan). He has served as a judge for the American Prize in music for many years, and he has presented papers about music and musical theater at conferences in New York City, Hawaii, Greece, and Germany.

This program is made possible with the support of The Friends of the Livingston Public Library.