Broadway Bookshelf - Must Read Theater Books

The Best American Short Plays 20132014 takes a look at our changing times. Uncertain seems to be the watchword of todays world, full of surprises, shocks, and even a few delights. Uncertainty brings with it fear and insecurity, as well as a nostalgic longing for the good old days, but for some, uncertainty means opportunity and along with it the prospect of change for the better. This volume explores various experiences of uncertainty and includes a series of nine plays gathered by Daniel Galla...

Since it first opened on Broadway in September, 1964, Fiddler on the Roof has constantly been onstage somewhere, including four Broadway revivals, four productions on London’s West End and thousands of schools, army bases and countries from Argentina to Japan. Barbara Isenberg interviewed the men and women behind the original production, the film and significant revivals-- Harold Prince, Sheldon Harnick, Joseph Stein, Austin Pendleton, Joanna Merlin, Norman Jewison, Topol, Harvey Fierstein and ...

Since it first opened on Broadway in September, 1964, Fiddler on the Roof has constantly been onstage somewhere, including four Broadway revivals, four productions on London’s West End and thousands of schools, army bases and countries from Argentina to Japan. Barbara Isenberg interviewed the men and women behind the original production, the film and significant revivals-- Harold Prince, Sheldon Harnick, Joseph Stein, Austin Pendleton, Joanna Merlin, Norman Jewison, Topol, Harvey Fierstein and ...

The Book of Broadway is a celebratory, gorgeous tome dedicated to what is arguably the quintessential American art form: the Broadway show. The book profiles 150 of the best, biggest, most influential, and most fascinating Broadway musicals and plays ever produced, spanning the mid-nineteenth century to the twenty-first century. Shows profiled include everything from the 1860s musical The Black Crook, which captivated and titillated audiences for more than five hours, to the Pulitzer Prizeâ??wi...

New York’s Broadway theatre scene has long been viewed as the “top of the heap” in the world theatre community. Taking lessons from the very best, this innovative guide delves into the business side of the renowned industry to explain just how its system functions. For anyone interested in pursuing a career on Broadway, or who wants to grow a theatre in any other part of the world, The Business of Broadway offers an in-depth analysis of the infrastructure at the core of successful theatre. Mana...

The name Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. (1867--1932) is synonymous with the decadent revues that the legendary impresario produced at the turn of the twentieth century. These extravagant performances were filled with catchy tunes, high-kicking chorus girls, striking costumes, and talented stars such as Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, Marilyn Miller, W. C. Fields, and Will Rogers. After the success of his Follies, Ziegfeld revolutionized theater performance with the musical Show Boat (1927) and continued makin...

Ethan Mordden has been hailed as "a sharp-eared listener and a discerning critic," by Opera News, which compares his books to "dinner with a knowledgeable, garrulous companion." The "preeminent historian of the American musical" (New York Times), he "brings boundless energy and enthusiasm buttressed by an arsenal of smart anecdotes" (Wall Street Journal). Now Mordden offers an entirely fresh and infectiously delightful history of American musical theatre. Anything Goes stages a grand revue o...

In 1912 James Reese Europe made history by conducting his 125-member Clef Club Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. The first concert by an African American ensemble at the esteemed venue was more than just a concert--it was a political act of desegregation, a defiant challenge to the status quo in American music. In this book, David Gilbert explores how Europe and other African American performers, at the height of Jim Crow, transformed their racial difference into the mass-market commodity known as "b...

Fear grips many American actors and directors faced with the opportunity to perform Shakespeare live. Their tongues twist at the first trauma: To Brit or not to Brit, that is the question. Whether tis nobler to stick to the kings English, or opt out and go all US. The thought of using verse for hours makes them dizzy. Iambic pentameter: Its not to fight, but to welcome. Its the God-given inherent beat of spoken Englishoops, American. And they go into a psychogenic trauma just considering the is...

It has been 150 years since Victor Hugos novel Les Misérables was first published. However, for the last 25 or so, the poignant saga of Jean Valjean, a villain to some, but a savior to others, set in France during the early years of the 19th century, has become one of the worlds most popular musicals, and is about to become one of the must-see movies of 2013. In Les Misérables: The Official Archives, the reader can find out how the musical came to lifethe trials and tribulations of turning it f...

Unsinkable is the definitive memoir by film legend and Hollywood icon Debbie Reynolds. Actress, comedienne, singer, and dancer Debbie Reynolds shares the highs and lows of her life as an actress during Hollywood’s Golden Age, anecdotes about her lifelong friendship with Elizabeth Taylor and her experiences as the foremost collector of Hollywood memorabilia, and intimate details of her marriages and family life with her children, Carrie and Todd Fisher. A story of heartbreak, hope, and sur...

Music and Lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Book by Quiara Alegria Hudes, Conceived by Lin-Manuel Miranda In the Heights is an exciting musical about life in Washington Heights, a tight-knit community where the coffee from the corner bodega is light and sweet, the windows are always open, and the breeze carries the rhythm of three generations of music. During its acclaimed Off-Broadway and Broadway runs, In the Heights became an audience phenomenon and a critical success. It's easy to see why: with...

In this luminous memoir, Rita Moreno shares her remarkable journey from a young girl with simple beginnings in Puerto Rico to Hollywood legend—and one of the few performers, and the only Hispanic, to win an Oscar, Grammy, Tony and two Emmys. Born Rosita Dolores Alverio in the idyll of Puerto Rico, Moreno, at age five, embarked on a harrowing sea voyage with her mother and wound up in the harsh barrios of the Bronx, where she discovered dancing, singing, and acting as ways to escape a tumult...

Fear grips many American actors and directors faced with the opportunity to perform Shakespeare live. The challenges of Elizabethan British speech patterns, the thought of using verse for hours, the debate over staging a period piece versus "updating" the Bard of Avon-all can cause psychogenic trauma on this side of the Atlantic. In Shakespeare for American Actors and Directors (Limelight Editions, April 2013, $14.99), Aaron Frankel defines and asserts the acting tools by which American acto...

A decade-long collaboration between three-time Academy Award® winner Steven Spielberg and Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner, Lincoln is a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President’s tumultuous final months in office. Having just won re-election in a country divided, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of...

Zachery Kleinmann lives in the elite world of New Canaan, Connecticut and has left his accounting job four years earlier to be a modern stay-at-home father. But as his son is starting pre-school, his wife is passionately involved in her own career, and Zach is knocking on forty years old, he begins to wonder how he will find his own serenity and define himself moving forward. Enter Ginger Charman, an older, eccentric, free living actress who has dedicated her life to bringing joy to childre...

Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is pleased to announce the publication of the newest play by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet: The Anarchist. Just having completed its world premiere on Broadway under the direction of the playwright and starring Patti LuPone and Debra Winger, Mr. Mamet’s work is also currently represented on Broadway with the revival of his award-winning Glengarry Glen Ross starring Al Pacino and Bobby Cannavale. “Mamet remains the American theatre’s most ur...

Taking its inspiration from historical fact, Collaborators explores the intense, paradoxical, and ultimately deadly friendship between the dissident writer Mikhail Bulgakov and Josef Stalin, centering around a play which Bulgakov was forced to write to commemorate Stalin's sixtieth birthday. Stalin has been in power for 16 years and his purges are at their zenith. Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita is lying unpublished in a desk drawer, and his latest play Molière has been banned following ...

Inspired by Arthur Wooten's life, Dizzy is a unique read in that it marries two genres: an exciting backstage show business tale coupled with a frightening medical drama. Angie Styles, a beloved Broadway star, is struck down at the height of her career by a mysterious disease and is forced to reexamine her life and the people in it as she fights to survive. "Dizzy is a wonderfully told story with such great heart and humor." - Peter Gregus, Broadway actor, writer, director, currently starr...

In celebration of the making of The Book of Mormon, the authors, production team, and entire original cast recount their experiences as they grew their show from the initial idea to opening night on Broadway. With the complete book and lyrics annotated by the full creative team and cast, along with more than 700 photographs and illustrations, they share the journey that began one night in a Manhattan bar and culminated seven years later in the achievement that is The Book of Mormon.

Melding a poetic dreamscape with a stream-of-consciousness narrative, Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue takes us on an unforgettable journey across time and generations. Lyrically tracing the legacy of war on a single Puerto Rican family, this Pulitzer Prize finalist is the first installment in Quiara Alegria Hudes' The Elliot Trilogy. Quiara Alegría Hudes wrote the book for the Broadway musical In the Heights, which received the 2008 Tony Award for Best Musical, a Tony nomination for Best Book of a...

This second volume presents a cross-section of the most diverse and dynamic stage directors defining today’s American theater, in conversation with director/producer Jason Loewith. A follow-up to the immensely popular first volume, which has sold over eighteen thousand copies, much has changed in the twenty years since The Director’s Voice debuted. “The nonprofit model has been turned on its head,” Loewith notes. “Institution-building is out for these directors; creating a distinctive voice fro...

Show Boat draws on exhaustive archival research to tell the story of how Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II, and a host of directors, choreographers, producers, and performers--among them Paul Robeson--made and remade the most important musical in Broadway history.

From car mechanic to internationally loved opera, musical and recording star: the story of Alfie Boe...Alfie Boe is the first official bad boy of opera: a musical superstar celebrated not only in Britain, but worldwide. This is the story of his life - the ups and the downs, from finding fame to losing his father - and, essentially, of his love affair with music. Raised in Lancashire, the youngest of nine children and with a father who played opera at home, Alfie's story is not typical of most mu...

The five Chamber Plays of August Strindberg, written in 1907 and newly translated by Paul Walsh, including "Storm," "Burned House," "The Ghost Sonata,: "The Pelican," and "Black Glove." Strindberg began writing his chamber plays early in 1907 for a group of young actors embarking on a new endeavor: to open a small theater in the center of Stockholm dedicated to the Strindberg plays. The theater would be called Intima Teatern (The Intimate Theater), and it would explore the possibilities of a new...

Thornton Wilder: A Life, the first biography of the playwright and novelist since 1983, is also the first to be based on thousands of pages of letters, journals, manuscripts, and other documentary evidence of Wilder's life, work, and times. For more than a decade, biographer Penelope Niven has worked with unprecedented access to Wilder's papers, including his family's private journals and records, searching for the secrets that illuminate Wilder's public life and work, as well as the hidden inn...

John Pizzarelli, the son of jazz guitar legend Bucky Pizzarelli, is a connoisseur of American song who grew up among the legends of jazz. From teenage explorations of rock music to life on the road with his father, he worked his way from gigs in tiny clubs to opening for Frank Sinatra during his final international tour. Now Pizzarelli performs in festivals and top venues across the United States and the world, and he shares his unique journey in this revealing, charming, and heartwarming memoir...

Hard Times tells the story of the adult musical in 1970s New York City. Featuring strong sexual content, frequent nudity, and simulated sexual activity, adult musicals were cheap to produce, and even the ones that got the most scathing reviews usually made money. Author Elizabeth Wollman illustrates how they both drew from and reflected aspects of American culture at a particularly tumultuous time.

Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is pleased to announce the U.S. release of The Oberon Anthology of Contemporary American Plays: Volume One edited by Mark Subias, published by Oberon Books (London). This new volume brings together plays from four of the best young artists on the contemporary American playwriting scene. Volume One is introduced by Andr Bishop, Artistic Director of the Lincoln Center Theater, and each play is introduced by well-known and critically acclaimed writers. The f...

Quiara Alegría Hudes is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Water by the Spoonful, the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights and the Pulitzer Prize finalist Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue. Her other works include Barrio Grrrl!, a children’s musical; 26 Miles; Yemaya’s Belly and The Happiest Song Plays Last, the third piece in her acclaimed trilogy.

The Twentieth Century Performance Reader is the key introductory text to all types of performance. Extracts from over fifty practitioners, critics and theorists from the fields of dance, drama, music, theatre and live art make up an essential sourcebook for students, researchers and practitioners. This new third edition places a renewed focus on contributions from the world of music, as well as privileging the voices of practitioners themselves ahead of more theoretical writing. A bestseller...

The best-selling biographer of Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor tells the electrifying story of how Barbra Streisand transformed herself into the greatest star of her era, etching an indelible portrait of the artist as a young woman (Publishers Weekly). In 1960, she was a seventeen-year-old Brooklyn kid with plenty of talent but no connections and certainly no money; her mother brought her soup to make sure she stayed fed as she took acting classes and scraped out a living. Just four...

Over the last century the New York Times’s six leading critics—Brooks Atkinson, Howard Taubman, Clive Barnes, Walter Kerr, Frank Rich, and Ben Brantley—have offered the most authoritative and influential commentary on the Broadway musical. This definitive volume includes the original reviews of the 119 most important , selected by current chief theater critic Ben Brantley and accompanied by photographs from each show’s first production as well as celebrated revivals. From the golden age of the ...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony for Best Musical, South Pacific flourished as the golden musical of Broadway's post-WWII golden era. Nearly 60 years after its 1949 premiere, South Pacific returned to Broadway in Lincoln Center Theater's glorious Tony-winning production, setting box office records and bringing this timely and timeless musical to new generations. With a score by Rodgers & Hammerstein and a book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan, based on James A. Michener's Puli...

Broadway's biggest musical comedy hit of the 1940s, this was one for the ages and built by a "dream team" - songwriter Irving Berlin, librettists Dorothy and Herbert Fields, producers Rodgers & Hammerstein, and star Ethel Merman - telling the improbable but true story of sharpshooter Annie Oakley. A staple of the touring and summer stock circuit for years, Annie Get Your Gun kept hitting bull's-eyes, with a film version, two television productions, and thousands of stage revivals over the years...

Geared toward hopeful musical theater, show choir, a cappella, and glee club singers, as well as all shower singers that want to improve their skills, this enthusiastic and practical guide can help anyone’s inner superstardom make a public appearance. Full of straightforward, well-organized advice for every step of the process, this book will help you train your vocal cords, pick the right audition material, and become comfortable with the spotlight. Interactive quizzes, helpful sidebars, and wo...

“Ready? Set? Act!” is for the working actor who desires to move to the next level in film, TV and theater and who wants to set reachable goals that will sustain his or her career for many years to come. It is for the actor who has been discouraged by his progress so far and wants to know what to do to get ahead! It is for every actor who needs to combine the business aspects of having a career with the creative drive that made him choose to be an actor, in the first place. Joan Sittenfield i...

West End and Broadway theatre legend Ruthie Henshall has given a 25th anniversary present to fans and future musical theatre stars with the release of her new book 'So You Want To Be In Musicals?' The book, co-written with music director Daniel Bowling contains personal anecdotes and professional advice about the world of musical theatre with Henshall revealing what it really takes to build a long and successful career on the stage. Henshall, the triple threat star of hit musicals includ...

Laurents passed away early in 2011 but not before writing The Rest of the Story, in which he revealed all that had happened in his life since Original Story By, filled with the wisdom he gained by growing older and a new perspective brought on by Laurents' experience of deep personal loss, including the death of his longtime companion, Tom Hatcher. Laurents' style remains engrossing and brutally honest. His voice is still highly intelligent, loving, generous, and gracious. He remained committed ...

Celebrated actress Ruthie Henshall has starred on Broadway and the West End in Chicago, Les Misérables, Cats, and Oliver! among others. She brings her extraordinary knowledge and personal experiences to this insider account of how to make it in this very tough business. An essential guide to turning dreams into reality.

Best known for the hit musicals West Side Story and Gypsy , Arthur Laurents began his career writing socially minded plays such as Home of the Brave and Time of the Cuckoo . He also garnered impressive credits as a screenwriter ( The Way We Were ) and stage director ( La Cage aux Folles ). Such a varied professional life makes for absorbing reading, as unleashed in his lively 2000 autobiography, Original Story By . Laurents passed away early in 2011 but not before writing The Rest of the Story ...

Actors' Equity Association, the union representing stage actors and stage managers, turns 100 years old in 2013. Shaped by the inequities visited on performers in the 19th century, the union has shaped the landscape of the professional American theater. Founded in 1913, it became a force to be reckoned with in an historic 1919 strike the most entertaining and dramatic one (naturally) the nation had ever seen. Since then, Equity has gone beyond securing the safety, health, and rights of stage ac...

Cyndi Lauper is a singer-songwriter who has released eleven albums and over forty singles. Her hit singles include 'Time After Time,' 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,' and 'True Colors.' She starred as Jenny in THE THREEPENNY OPERA on Broadway. Her most recent project, Kinky Boots, will have its pre-Broadway world premiere in Chicago this fall. Directed and choreographed by Tony® Award-winner Jerry Mitchell, Kinky Boots will play the Bank of America Theatre (18 West Monroe Street, Chicago, IL) i...

One of Ireland's leading playwrights, Conor McPherson sets his latest play around a house hemmed in by a restive, starving populace in rural Ireland. In May 1822, the defrocked Reverend Berkeley arrives at the once-glorious Mount Prospect House to accompany seventeen-year-old Hannah to England, where she is to be married off in order to absolve her mother's debts. But compelled by the peculiar voices that haunt his enchanting young charge and a fascination with the spirits that pervade the house...

From one of the most famous and influential acting teachers of her time, of all time--whose generations of students include Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Warren Beatty, Meryl Streep, Jerome Robbins, Annette Bening, Peter Bogdanovich, Sydney Pollack, and Mark Ruffalo--the long-awaited companion volume to her book On Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov ("Evidence," wrote John Guare, "that Stella Adler is hands down the greatest acting teacher America has produced...Nobody with a serious in...

A wide-ranging, inspiring documentary history of the American theater movement as told, at the time of its making, by the visionaries who goaded it into being. This anthology collects over forty essays, manifestos, letters, and speeches that are each introduced and placed in historical context by the noted writer and arts commentator Todd London, who spent nearly a decade assembling this collection. The founding visions of theaters from across the country are represented here, including: Arena ...

Embodied Acting is a crucial, pragmatic intervention in the study of how neuroscience can be applied to theatre studies. Examining the nature of the acting process from the perspective of cognitive science, author Rick Kemp re-examines familiar questions of how an actor develops a character, and what is actually involved - physically, mentally - in training, rehearsing and performing. The result is an elegant blend of theory, practice and cutting-edge science, making a compelling case for disca...

Between 1930 and 1960, popular female dramatists, including Paola Riccora, Anna Bonacci, Clotilde Masci, and Gici Ganzini Granata, set the stage for a new generation of feminist theatre and the development of contemporary Italian women’s theatre as a whole. Now largely forgotten, the lives and works of these dramatists are reintroduced into the scholarly conversation in Italian Women’s Theatre, 1930–1960. Following a general introduction, the book presents a selection of dramatic works, rounded...