UC Berkeley

While there have been many studies of musical theater’s affinity to various marginalized cultural identities, such as gay or Jewish ones, there is less scholarly discussion of the genre’s relationship specifically to disability cultures and identities. In this dissertation I examine three oft-discussed aspects of musicals – gayness, Jewishness, and duality – each through the lens of disability, to reveal disability’s significance to the genre. Casting discrimination, the ubiquity of ableist tropes, and the over-categorizing of the visibly impaired body all contribute to the detrimental shortage of disabled performers and disability perspectives in productions of mainstream musicals. Casting more disabled talent in mainstream musicals, especially in “regular” roles, promotes disability justice, deepens the truth and reach of such productions, and transforms the musical genre as a whole to be more in resonance with itself.