Max Shulman is an assistant professor of theatre in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts. He holds a doctorate in theatre history from Tufts University. His forthcoming book The American Pipe Dream: Performance of Drug Addiction, 1890-1940 will be published by Iowa University Press. He is the co-editor of the recent collection Performing the Progressive Era: Immigration, Nationalism, and Urban Life. At UCCS, he is the director of the HomeFront Theatre Project that creates performance events around issues affecting our veteran and active duty communities.

His research has been published in Modern Drama, Theatre Topics, Theatre Annual, Studies in American Jewish Literature, and on HowlRound.com. HIs research areas of interest are Progressive Era Theatre, Popular Culture, History of Counter Culture Movements, and Political Theatre.

The essay being discussed in this talk is about the way jazz performance of the 1930s sutured together African American culture, drug culture, and jazz culture to create a hybrid known as “Jive.” Calloway, the famous front man, communicated a subversive form of autonomy through his performance and promo on
of Jive.

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