The Great White Way

“Warren Hoffman’s new edition of The Great White Way remains as provocative, smart, challenging and entertaining as the original publication. Hoffman’s book is, in some sense, like a Broadway musical itself — surprising in its many and varied elements, opinions, defenses and prosecutions.  The role of race in the history of Broadway has, I’m sure, never been more thoroughly or more judiciously explored. And it’s a terrific read.” 

~Jack Viertel, author of The Secret Life of the American Musical

“From Show Boat to Hamilton, from Oklahoma! to The Book of Mormon, Warren Hoffman provides an engaging and insightful analysis of how race has shaped 20th and 21st-century musical theatre.  His perceptive and persuasive readings foreground normative whiteness and underline how every musical is “about” race.  Required reading for the musical theatre student and aficionado alike.”

~Stacy Wolf, author of Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical

"Warren Hoffman delivers a comprehensive and robust examination of the American musical as a purveyor of white identity and privilege. Easy to read and adept at elucidating the complexities of race in performance, The Great White Way is straightforward and unapologetic. Within it, Hoffman contextualizes the racial disparities embedded in the art form and acknowledges the musical’s powerful and irresistible place in the public imagination. This book belongs on the shelf of any theater maker or scholar who seeks to decolonize sites of theater production and pedagogy."

~Rena M. Heinrich, University of Southern California

"This revised edition brings The Great White Way fully into the twenty-first century with an examination of jukebox musicals and the role of off-Broadway and regional theaters in the development of the American musical."

~Broadway World

"There have been musicals produced on Broadway that have had subject matter that reflect diversity but it is Hoffman’s analysis that Broadway has yet to fully embrace diversity or taking risks. It seems that the non-profit theatre companies are more likely to take such risks. Hoffman’s analysis is worth pondering."

~Mark Kappel Dance

"As ‘West Side Story’ returns to Broadway, it has a lot to say about race in America," by Warren Hoffman
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/20/west-side-story-returns-broadway-it-has-lot-say-about-race-america/

~Washington Post

"MAXAMOO BOOK CLUB: THE GREAT WHITE WAY – RACE AND THE BROADWAY MUSICAL" podcast interview with Warren Hoffman
http://www.maxamoo.com/podcast/maxamoo-book-club-the-great-white-way-race-and-the-broadway-musical/

~Maxamoo Book Club podcast

Broadway Radio interview with Warren Hoffman

~Broadway Radio

"The Lost Origins of Broadway's West Side Story," an excerpt from The Great White Way
https://therevealer.org/the-lost-origins-of-broadways-west-side-story/

~The Revealer

"White Supremacy and the Broadway Musical" by Warren Hoffman
https://medium.com/@whoffman18/white-supremacy-and-the-broadway-musical-a44ebd1b0f08

~Medium

"You've Got To Be Carefully Taught" BBC 2 interview with Warren Hoffman

~BBC 2 - "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught"