In their own terms, on their own terms: Capturing meaning in community musical theatre cast member e-journals

Community musical theatre actively engages individuals in music-making and dramatic performances across the United States. Through these productions, enthusiastic volunteers are afforded socially and musically meaningful opportunities to perform alongside other members of their community. While a large body of scholarly musicological and historical literature on American musical theatre exists, little work has been done to engage individuals involved in these community productions in an attempt to understand reasons for participation or to examine the meaning found in participation. In response to this gap in the literature, this article reports research from an intensive ethnographic study of a Florida community group as they present a production of Maury Yeston’s blockbuster musical Titanic. In addition to ethnographic observation and interviews, e-mail-based cast member journals (e-journals) were used as a way to explore participants’ experiences as the show progressed. E-journal entries are the focus of this article, discussed here in terms of the meaning they capture and the general utility of the methodology. Consideration is given both to the results of this data collection process in the present ethnography and to the usefulness of this approach for future research.