David Armstrong’s new book is both a labor and a labor of love. After four decades immersed in professional theater, Armstrong has long been fascinated by the history behind the lights and applause—the evolution of the Broadway musical, the stories of the shows, and the people who created them. Yet, it wasn’t until 2018, when he stepped down from the Fifth Avenue Theatre in Seattle, that he began to seriously contemplate writing a book.
That same year, the University of Washington School of Drama asked Armstrong to design a course on the history of Broadway musicals. He leapt at the opportunity. “I wanted to find an approach that was interesting to me, but also meaningful for students today,” he recalls. The result was The Broadway Musical: How Immigrant, Jewish, Queer, and Black Artists Invented America’s Signature Art Form. It would later serve as the blueprint for the book, bridging rigorous research with Armstrong’s practitioner’s insight.
The pandemic pushed Armstrong to innovate further. Unable to teach in person, he launched a podcast, Broadway Nation, in 2020, turning his lectures into episodes that became teaching tools for remote students. “In the back of my mind, I thought, maybe this will eventually lead to a book,” he says. That book materialized when Dom O’Hanlon, an editor at Methuen Drama (a Bloomsbury imprint), approached him. “They saw a need for a new textbook on Broadway history,” Armstrong explains, “but I wrote it as a popular history, fully documented, without academic jargon. I wanted it readable but grounded in fact.”
Armstrong’s deep career in theater gives the book a unique perspective. He’s not just an historian; he’s a practitioner who has worked on many of the shows he discusses. From George M. Cohan to the Gershwins, Armstrong draws on personal experience as well as scholarship. He highlights how Black artists have shaped Broadway from the 1890s onward, noting the collaborations, mentorships, and shared musical languages that blurred racial and cultural lines. “Irving Berlin and the Gershwins were working side by side with Black artists,” he says. “You can’t separate their shows from the works of Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, who wrote Shuffle Along. Broadway has always been a melting pot—Black music, Yiddish theater, and queer artistry all converging to create a singular form.”
Armstrong also delves into the musical innovations of the Gershwins. He points to Rhapsody in Blue and Fascinating Rhythm as examples of how George Gershwin absorbed and synthesized Black musical traditions with Jewish musical idioms. The confluence, Armstrong explains, helped give birth to the show tune as we know it—closely related to jazz, but distinct, “like siblings rather than identical twins.”
The book doesn’t shy away from the complex lives of Broadway artists, particularly queer creatives. Armstrong examines Herbert Fields, who co-wrote Annie Get Your Gun with his sister Dorothy Fields, and Cole Porter, who lived openly in plain sight. Armstrong stresses that uncovering these histories is not about sensationalism but about telling the full story: “These were marginalized artists who couldn’t enter most enterprises, and yet they created this central part of American culture.”
He also explores the evolution of Broadway itself. Show Boat, he explains, was a turning point: the story, not the stars, became central. It paved the way for Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Golden Age, which begins with Oklahoma!. Meanwhile, Stephen Sondheim’s Follies—now a classic—was initially divisive and financially unsuccessful, yet it reshaped modern musical theater with its concept-driven narrative.
He also draws on more recent experiences, such as producing Hairspray at the Fifth Avenue Theatre with Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. Despite having no explicitly gay characters, the show carried the imprint of its largely gay creative team. Armstrong remembers a performance where 200 members of the Seattle Men’s Chorus amplified an already enthusiastic audience, creating a moment of sheer theatrical magic.
For Armstrong, these stories are more than just history—they are testament to the resilience and creativity of artists whose voices were often marginalized. His book, part scholarly resource, part personal narrative, is a celebration of that legacy, highlighting how immigrant, Black, Jewish, and queer artists collectively shaped the Broadway musical into America’s defining art form.
In Armstrong’s hands, the history of Broadway is vivid, inclusive, and alive—an intricate tapestry woven from music, culture, and identity. It’s a reminder that behind every show, every note, and every laugh in the theater, there are layers of story worth telling.
The Broadway Musical: How Immigrant, Jewish, Queer, and Black Artists Invented America’s Signature Art Form is available everywhere.
