Red Hot & Blue: A Smithsonian Salute to the American Musical – by Amy Henderson, Dwight Blocker Bowers

This luxuriant coffee table book is packed with photos, posters, design sketches and drawings that accompanied American musicals from 1866 to the present. The book was published to coincide with the Washington, DC, exhibition of the same name running through July 1997 at the National Portrait Gallery, which co-created both exhibition and book with the National Museum of American History. The book has two main strengths: One, it treats the musicals of Broadway and Hollywood as part of the same phenomenon, which makes sense, since there was so much crossover of creative personnel. Two, it traces the influence of ethnicity and economics on the art form, showing especially how deeply Jewish immigrants and northward-fleeing African-American former slaves poured their experiences and culture into America's greatest contribution to the history of world theater.

Released: 1996