This course will explore six movie musicals through the past 90 years. We will discuss one musical per week, starting with the original 42nd Street and ending with In The Heights, and we will learn about the entire movie musical industry through the lens of each movie. Participants will watch the film during the week on their own, and the class will be an hour of lecture and information, and then 30 minutes for questions. Both instructors have decades of experience in musical theater, and there will be plenty of additional resources linked on the class Padlet.

Karen Curlee performed on Broadway for over 20 years in such shows as CATS, A Chorus Line, The Tap Dance Kid, Me and My Girl, and Showboat and in regional theaters playing lead roles in Chicago,” Sweet Charity, Cabaret, and other musicals. She has choreographed many productions; more recently Xanadu and Sweeny Todd for Piper Productions. After leaving her performing career, she returned to her roots, education, and was an arts-in-education consultant and dance and theater educator. Until her retirement in 2020, she was co-director of Together in Dance, a not-for-profit organization that partners with public schools to bring dance and musical theater programming to thousands of students a year.

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