ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book demonstrates how jukebox-musical versions of Twelfth Night have realized this potential to provide audiences with an experience of the sense of the instability of identity associated with early-modern Violas, represented by a boy apprentice playing a female character who disguises herself as a young man. It discusses how a of Romeo and Juliet destabilizes gender by playing with vocal range and by incorporating a richness of allusions, creating a sense of the unstable genders not only of early modern performances, but of nineteenth-century female Romeos. The book demonstrates jukebox musicals are capable of shedding interpretive light on William Shakespeare's plays. It discusses the role of the combination song in responding to Twelfth Night's theme of the instability of identity.
