Join us for a book talk with author Elizabeth T. Craft to discuss her new book, Yankee Doodle Dandy: George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage.

Even if you don’t know George M. Cohan, you do. From “You’re a Grand Old Flag” to “Give My Regards to Broadway,” you can’t traverse American theater without referencing the great showman. Yet for all of his legacies–as an actor, dancer, singer, playwright, lyricist, composer, and producer–there are still so many who don’t know the impact of George M. Cohan, whose work on the Broadway stage changed not just theater history, but American culture.

The first book about Cohan in over 50 years, Yankee Doodle Dandy: George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage by Elizabeth T. Craft explores and analyzes Cohan’s work, but is also the first to critique and reckon with Cohan’s output and legacy. It’s also a book about how the American musical became the American musical, how Broadway became Broadway, how the United States was becoming the United States, and how the theater Cohan made was part of that journey. Drawing on information previously unexamined and once-inaccessible archives, Yankee Doodle Dandy shows us how Cohan’s life and work offer unending parallels to the current moment in American culture.

About the Author:

Elizabeth T. Craft is an Associate Professor in the School of Music at the University of Utah. Her interdisciplinary research examines how music expresses sociopolitical values and shapes national identity, with a particular focus on musical theater from the early twentieth century to the present. Through her work, she explores the intricate relationships between music, culture, and societal issues. Her recent publications examine the politics and reception of the musical Hamilton (in the journal American Music), the George M. Cohan biopic Yankee Doodle Dandy (in The Oxford Handbook of Musical Theatre Screen Adaptations), and the musicals of Lin-Manuel Miranda (in The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical). Her work also appears in the journal Studies in Musical Theatre and the volumes The Critical Companion to the American Stage Musical and Crosscurrents: American and European Music in Interaction, 1900–2000.