Episode 134: Before GYPSY there was STAGE MOTHER — The Queer Backstage Novels of Bradford Ropes, part 2

My guest again today is author Maya Cantu who returns to discuss her book, Greasepaint Puritan — Boston to 42nd Street in the Queer Backstage Novels of Bradford Ropes.

In this terrific new book Maya reclaims the life and work of vaudeville, nightclub and Broadway dancer turned novelist and screenwriter Bradford Ropes, with a central focus on his three long-forgotten backstage novels: 42nd Street on which the classic film and stage adaptation were based, Go Into Your Dance, a thinly disguised fictional version of the career of Broadway showman George White and his scandals, and the one we will focus on today, his 1933 novel Stage Mother. All of which were inspired by Rope’s own experiences as a gay man in show business during the 1920s.

If you missed part of our conversation you may want to catch up with that before listening to this one.

May Cantu teaches on the Drama Faculty of Bennington College, and is also the author of American Cinderella on the Broadway Musical Stage: Imagining the Working Girl from “Irene” to “Gypsy”.

And as you will hear the parallels between Stage Mother and Gypsy are striking.

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