Overview
Greasepaint Puritan details the life and work of Bradford Ropes, author of the bawdy 1932 novel 42nd Street, on which the classic film and its stage adaptation are based. Each of Ropes’s long-forgotten novels was inspired by his own experiences as a performer, and focused on the lives of gay men in show business, offering rare glimpses into backstage Broadway. But why did Ropes’s body of work, and consequently his biographical footsteps, disappear into such obscurity? Greasepaint Puritan aims to find out and reclaim his story. Descended from Mayflower Pilgrims, Ropes rebelled against the “Proper Bostonian” life, in a career that touched upon the Jazz Age, American vaudeville, and theater censorship. We follow Ropes’s successful career as both a performer and the author of the trilogy of backstage novels: 42nd Street, Stage Mother, and Go Into Your Dance. Populated by scheming stage mothers, precocious stage children, grandiose bit players, and tart-tongued chorines, these novels centered on the lives and relationships of gay men on Broadway during the Jazz Age and Prohibition era. Rigorously researched, Greasepaint Puritan chronicles Ropes’s career as a successful screenwriter in 1930s and ’40s Hollywood, where he continued to be a part of a dynamic gay subculture within the movie industry before returning to obscurity in the 1950s. His legacy lives on in the Hollywood and Broadway incarnations of 42nd Street—but Greasepaint Puritan restores the “forgotten melody” of the man who first envisioned its colorful characters.
Full Product Details
Author: Maya Cantu
Publisher: The University of Michigan Press
Imprint: The University of Michigan Press
Weight: 0.272kg
ISBN: 9780472056576
ISBN 10: 0472056573
Pages: 330
Publication Date: 16 January 2024
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Available To Order
We have confirmation that this item is in stock with the supplier. It will be ordered in for you and dispatched immediately.
Reviews
""Ropes's biography and backstage novels offer an illuminating view of class and the social caste of blue-blooded Bostonians at the turn of the 20th century. Additionally, Ropes's stealth entrance into vaudeville intersected with the Pansy Craze, the Harlem Renaissance, and the emergence of Jewish musical theatre composers banging out tunes in Tin Pan Alley. For musical theatre scholars, queer history aficionados, and literary criticism enthusiasts, Greasepaint Puritan is the book we have been waiting for.""--James F. Wilson, author of Bulldaggers, Pansies, and Chocolate Babies: Performance, Race, and Sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance (1/1/2024 12:00:00 AM) ""A well-researched and thorough illumination of a writer who deserves to be better known. For fans, performers, and creators of musical theater.""--Library Journal (1/26/2024 12:00:00 AM)
"""A well-researched and thorough illumination of a writer who deserves to be better known. For fans, performers, and creators of musical theater.""--Library Journal (1/26/2024 12:00:00 AM)"
Author Information
Maya Cantu is a dramaturg, interdisciplinary scholar, and historian who teaches on the Drama Faculty of Bennington College. She is also the author of American Cinderellas on the Broadway Musical Stage: Imagining the Working Girl from “Irene” to “Gypsy”.
