The popularity of Lin-Manuel Miranda's hit musical Hamilton has been unprecedented. Hamilton tells the story of the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, a founding father who, until recently, was often forgotten in American public memory. Miranda's unique musical, which fuses an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century story with contemporary music and text, features actors of various races and genders in order to tell the story of ‘America then’ by and for ‘America now’. Through a close textual analysis of the musical's script, cast recording, and sheet music, Valerie Lynn Schrader uses narrative theory to explore how Hamilton creates public memory of one of the lesserknown US founding fathers. She argues that, through the narrative paradigm, Hamilton creates what narrative theorist Walter Fisher refers to as ‘public moral argument’,1 through which audience members can discern life lessons, or ‘equipment for living’,2 for their own lives. Finally, the article suggests that the rhetorical theory of Burkean identification may play a role in how public memory of Hamilton's story is formed and how audience members learn life lessons from the musical. Valerie Lynn Schrader is Associate Professor of Communications Arts and Sciences at the Schuylkill Campus of the Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on rhetorical messages in theatre works, especially musical theatre productions. She is herself a classically trained lyric soprano/soubrette.

This rhetorical analysis examines the production script of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical through the lenses of second-wave feminism, third-wave feminism, and post-feminism. Based on the life of American singer/songwriter Carole King, Beautiful focuses on the triumphs and tribulations of King’s career as a songwriter in the 1960s New York Brill Building, as well as King’s personal life, including her relationship with her spouse/lyricist Gerry Goffin. Through this analysis, we explore how Beautiful’s characters Carole King and Cynthia Weil embody elements of second and third-wave feminism, and suggest that Beautiful: The Carole King Musical conveys an overall empowerment message that is written for a post-feminist audience, given King’s and Weil’s empowerment through individual choices rather than through feminist activism. We conclude that this utopian post-feminist message may be problematic for a twenty-first-century audience in that it fails to acknowledge women’s current career struggles.

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This article examines how Dolly Parton’s and Patricia Resnick’s musical 9 to 5 breaks down women’s humour stereotypes in various ways, showing the many facets of each character’s personality and thereby illustrating that real women’s personalities are multifaceted. Through a textual analysis of 9 to 5’s libretto, this article suggests that 9 to 5 offers a general empowerment message that is rooted in feminist principles but appeals to a broader audience.