Dr Adam Rush

Biography

Dr Adam Rush is Programme Leader and Senior Lecturer in Musical Theatre at the University of Winchester, UK. He is co-author of Musical Theatre Histories: Expanding the Narrative (2022), with Millie Taylor, and is currently developing Adaptation in Musical Theatre for Methuen Drama. His research explores intertextuality, adaptation, digital media, and fan culture in contemporary musical theatre. This work has been published in Studies in Musical Theatre and in edited collections for Palgrave, Routledge, and Oxford University Press. Adam completed his Ph.D. at the University of Lincoln in 2017 and holds a Masters in Theatre and Performance from Queen Mary, University of London.

Areas of expertise

• Adaptation and Intertextuality
• 21st Century Musical Theatre
• British and American Musical Theatre, since 1970
• Contemporary British Theatre?

Publications

Books

• Adaptation in Musical Theatre. London: Bloomsbury Methuen (forthcoming).

• Musical Theatre Histories: Expanding the Narrative. London: Bloomsbury Methuen, 2022. With Millie Taylor.

Articles

• #YouWillBeFound: Participatory fandom, social media marketing and Dear Evan Hansen. Studies in Musical Theatre 15(2) 119-132. DOI: 10.1386/smt_00063_1.

• Oh, What a Beautiful Mormon: Tracing Rodgers and Hammerstein in The Book of Mormon. Studies in Musical Theatre, (2017), 11(1) 39-50. DOI: 10.1386/smt.11.1.39_1.

Chapters ?in Edited Collections

• Stage Door to Cyberspace: The Evolution of Fan Spaces in Musical Theatre. In: MacDonald, L. and Donovan, R. (eds.) (2022) The Routledge Companion to Musical Theatre. London and New York: Routledge. With Stephanie Lim.

• Hamilton - An American Musical: The Very Model of a Modern Major (British) Megamusical. In: Lodge, M. J. & Laird, P. R. (eds.) (2021) Duelling Grounds: Revolution and Revelation in the Musical Hamilton. New York: Oxford University Press, 215-229.

• The "Phan"-dom of the Opera: Gothic Fan Cultures and Intertextual Otherness. In: Kelly Jones, Benjamin Poore and Rob Dean (eds.) (2018) Contemporary Gothic Drama: Attraction, Consummation and Consumption on the Modern British Stage. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 139-158.

• It’s Just a Jump to the Past!: Subverting Intertextual Otherness in The Rocky Horror Show. In: Luis Campos and Fiona Jane Schopf (eds.) (2016) Music on Stage: Volume II. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 120-135.

Book Reviews

• Review of Woller, M. (2021) From Camelot to Spamalot: Musical Retellings of Arthurian Legend on Stage and Screen in Studies in Musical Theatre 16(1) 91-93.

• Review of Kokai, J. A. and Robson, T. (eds.) (2019) Performance and the Disney Theme Park Experience: The Tourist as Actor in Contemporary Theatre Review, https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2020.1815453.

• Review of Gordon, R. and Jubin, O. (eds.) (2017) The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical in Studies in Musical Theatre, 11(2) (DOI: 10.1386/smt.11.2.219_5).

• Review of Kenrick, J. (2017) Musical Theatre: A History in Studies in Theatre and Performance, 37(2) (https://doi.org/10.1080/14682761.2017.1401302).

• Review of Cramer, L. (2013) Creating Musical Theatre: Conversations with Broadway Directors and Choreographers in Platform: Journal of Theatre and Performing Arts, 2015, 9(1) 77-81.

• Review of Wright, A. (2012) West End Broadway: The Golden Age of the American Musical in London in Platform: Journal of Theatre and Performing Arts, 2013, 7(2) 92-95. 

Conference Papers

2024      

• “’Whipped into Shape’: Rethinking Legally Blonde as a Musical” at Song, Stage and Screen 2024, New York Public Library (NYPL), June 2024 (online).

2023      

• “Musical Theatre Histories: From Intertext to Instagram” at Performing Arts Research Seminar, University of Portsmouth, February 2023.

2022      

• “‘Making Things Up Again’: Contextualising The Book of Mormon (2011) and the contemporary intertextual turn” at Song, Stage and Screen XVI, University of Portsmouth, June 2022 (online).

2021      

• “Dueling Grounds: Hamilton Panel” at Association for Theatre in Higher Education Annual Conference (ATHE), University of Texas (Austin), August 2021 (online).

2019

• “Changing My Major: Adapting Fun Home from Bechdel to Broadway” at Song, Stage and Screen XIV, University of Leeds, June 2019. 

2018

• “Hamilton – An American Musical: The Very Model of a Modern Major (British) Megamusical” at the Faculty of Arts Research Seminar, University of Winchester, December 2018.

• “#YouWillBeFound: Marketing the ‘Other’ in Dear Evan Hansen” at Song, Stage and Screen XIII, University of California, Los Angeles, May 2018.

2017

• “Who Wants to Live Forever?: Memoralising Freddie Mercury in We Will Rock You” at Song, Stage and Screen XII, Guildford School of Acting, June 2017.

?2016?

• ?““…that you might find in a musical”: Reclaiming Intertextual Traditions in Urinetown” at Song, Stage and Screen XI, City of New York University (CUNY), June 2016.

• ?“Everything’s Coming Up Twitter: Social Media as Research Tool and ‘Text’” at Putting It Together: Investigating Sources for Musical Theatre Research, University of Sheffield, May 2016.

2015

• ?“Lavatories, Loo Roll and Love Ballads: Risking the Traditional Model in Urinetown” at the TaPRA 2015 Annual Conference, University of Worchester, September 2015.

• “So Lauren Bacall Me: Musical Theatre and the Fluidity of Iconicity” at Song, Stage and Screen X: ‘The Star System in Musical Theatre and Film’, Regents University, London, June 2015.

• “Oh, What a Beautiful Mormon: Tracing Rodgers and Hammerstein within The Book of Mormon” at British Association for American Studies (BAAS) Annual Conference, University of Newcastle, April 2015.

2014

• ?“‘It’s Just a Jump to the Past’: Subverting Intertextual Otherness in The Rocky Horror Show” at the 5th International Music on Stage Conference, Rose Bruford College, October 2014.