Join this special Wednesday edition of PPP's Fridays@2 speaker series for a book talk with Dr. Joanna Dee Das, author of “The Heartland’s Answer to Broadway”: Branson Theater and America’s Culture Wars.
The Performance as Public Practice Fridays@2 speaker series facilitates discussions about the creation and study of performance. PPP welcomes artists from within and beyond the Winship Drama Building, including current students, distinguished alumni and arts leaders from across the country, to share their research and methodology. This special Wednesday edition of PPP Firdays@2 welcomes Dr. Joanna Dee Das for a book talk about her recent work “The Heartland’s Answer to Broadway”: Branson Theater and America’s Culture Wars.
About “The Heartland’s Answer to Broadway”: Branson Theater and America’s Culture Wars
Branson, Missouri is a tourist destination where millions of visitors come each year to watch live performance. Its beginnings as an entertainment town date to 1907, and by the 1990s, the city boasted more theater seats than Broadway. It had also become a lightning rod in the nation’s culture wars, alternately described as “God’s country” or “as close to Hell as anything on Earth.” In this talk, Joanna Dee Das analyzes the controversy that developed around Branson’s live performance industry and the ramifications that have endured into the present.
About Joanna Dee Das
Joanna Dee Das is a cultural historian who focuses on the politics of performance. She is Associate Professor of Dance and an affiliate of African & African American Studies, American Culture Studies and History at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of the award-winning Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora (Oxford, 2017) and Faith, Family, and Flag: Branson Entertainment and the Idea of America (Chicago, 2025).
DATE
Wednesday, March 25, 2026 at 5:00 p.m.
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