"I'm the new Berlin Wall. Try to tear me down." -- Hedwig An East German war bride looks after a young boy in a Kansas trailer park. She is an ex-prostitute who turns her young charge on to Barry Manilow. The story seems lifted from a tabloid, but these are actual childhood memories for one unusual

Angry, New american musical, Perverse, Pop, Tragic

Beaver coats, hooch, Roadsters, flappers, the Charleston, and hot jazz -- all these ingredients blended in the punch bowl that was the Roaring Twenties, the era in which F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda were the crown prince and princess of the fast set. The author had gained wealth, excitement

Catastrophe, Charming, Manic, Modernist literature, Opulent, The lost generation, Tragic

Dense, Dreamy, Modernist literature, Tragic, Witty

The unlucky landlord of "Rent" died the night his smash Broadway musical was born in 1996. Following the musical's final dress rehearsal, Broadway's Great White Hope for the American musical unexpectedly perished in his apartment of an aortic aneurysm at the age of 35. Theater's wunderkind reworked

Bombast, Dramatic, New american musical, Overflowing, Pop, Tragic