Broadway Bookshelf - Must Read Theater Books

Published with Hachette, Relentless will be available in both English and Spanish and shares the story of Luis’ life and career – from his early days as a Puerto Rican activist to the decades of political strategy and Latino community organizing. Readers will experience the thrill of the ascendency of Hamilton, created by his son Lin-Manuel Miranda, the family’s remarkable humanitarian action after the devastation of Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria, and all the grit, triumphs, and challenges of ...

Judi Dench opens up about every Shakespearean role she has played throughout her seven-decade career in a series of intimate conversations with actor and director Brendan O'Hea. Interspersed with vignettes on audiences, critics, company spirit and rehearsal room etiquette, she serves up priceless revelations on everything from the craft of speaking in verse to her personal interpretations of some of Shakespeare's most famous scenes.

Tamblyn writes about his career and his personal life. 360 pages.

By David Mamet, with illustrations by David Mamet. The author " shares scandalous and laugh-out-loud tales from his four decades in Hollywood where he worked with some of the biggest names in movies." Audiobook narrated by Jim Frangione. 256 pages.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece "The Color Purple," as well as the acclaimed 1985 film from Steven Spielberg, the Tony-winning Broadway musical, and the all-new film adaptation. An exploration of the novel’s enduring legacy, featuring contributions from Alice Walker, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Colman Domingo, Fantasia Barrino, Danny Glover, and more. Oral histories and fresh anecdotes based on more than fifty original interviews, as well as vibr...

Barbra Streisand's memoir detailing her life from growing up in Brooklyn to the early days of her career, including her breakout performance in the musical and film versions of Funny Girl, and the years after. Audiobook narrated by the author. 992 pages.

Sir Patrick Stewart memoir. From his humble beginnings in Yorkshire, England, to the heights of Hollywood and worldwide acclaim. Audio version read by the author. 480 pages.

"Offers a witty multidimensional look at the musical genius ..." Explores the bond between Sondheim and his audiences ... examines the challenging Sondheim works that continue to develop devoted new followings. "... a lavish, highly engrossing documentation of the dynamic force who reshaped twentieth-century American musical history."

Pop history of audiences through the ages. Walks us through the different types of audiences and the history of their changing behaviors, what science has to say about how our brains respond to what we experience, how technology will continue to shape audiences, and why, during COVID-19, people risked a deadly virus to be part of a crowd. Drawing on perspectives from critics, performers, scholars, and many others. 256 pages.

English stage actor/singer Alfie Boe (La bohème, Les Misérables) memoir. Hardcover edition currently has a UK release on the same date.

In Locksburg, Pennsylvania, a former coal and steel town whose best days seem long past, five thousand residents have toughed it out, and have reasons for both worry and hope as this neglected place teeters between decay and renewal. For some of them, their biggest troubles have just arrived. After years of just scraping by, three restless souls have their lives upended: Nathan, a volunteer fireman who uncovers a secret stash of money in a burning building and takes it; Callie, a nurse whose...

Memoir by Chita Rivera, with Patrick Pacheco. "Chita invites us into workrooms and rehearsal studies, on stage and on set as she works with some of the greatest talents of the age, including Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim, Bob Fosse, Jerome Robbins, Hal Prince, Liza Minnelli, Sammy Davis Jr, Gwen Verdon, Shirley MacLaine, and many others. We also learn deeply moving, revelatory details about her upbringing and her heritage, and how they indelibly shaped her work and career...

Delves deeply into Shepard's life as well as the ways in which his work illuminates it. Takes readers through the world of downtown theater in Lower Manhattan in the early sixties; the jazz scene at New York's Village Gate; fringe theater in London in the seventies; Bob Dylan's legendary Rolling Thunder tour; the making of classic films Broadway productions. Greenfield interviewed dozens of people who knew Shepard well, many of whom had never before spoken on the record about him. While explori...

An exploration of the cultural impact of Blanche DuBois, examining Tennessee Williams's most enduring creation through the performances of seven brilliant actresses who have taken on the role: Jessica Tandy, Vivien Leigh, Ann-Margret, Jessica Lange, Patricia Clarkson, Cate Blanchett, and Jemier Jackson. Exploring themes of womanhood, sexuality, mental illness, and the idealized South, Blanche is an engrossing cultural history of a rich and complex character that sheds light on who we are. Photo...

The author uses her life story to empower and encourage anyone seeking to find and live their best life with beauty, dignity and a grace that radiates from within. 172 pages.

" ... philosophical-ish musings on connection, creativity, loss, love, faith, and closure." In each chapter: behind-the-scenes stories from Kristin's personal life; high-design, colorful pages of inspirational quotes; engaging prompts, prayers, and inspiring quotes. Bible verses and f-bombs. 224 pages.

Personal collection of interviews with the late Stephen Sondheim, conducted in the last years of the artist's life (unedited from the February 22 New Yorker article). Audio versions narrated by Christopher Grove and Keith Sellon-Wright. 240 pages.

An original interpretation of Miller's work and his personality ... Organized around the fault lines of Miller's life–Miller's family, the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, Elia Kazan and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Marilyn Monroe, Vietnam, and the rise and fall of Miller's role as a public intellectual. Demonstrates the synergy between Arthur Miller's psychology and his plays. Concentrating largely on Miller's most prolific decades of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, Lahr pr...

YA novel by Andy Meintus (Spring Awakening, "Smash") "about a mysterious boarding school, a brotherhood that must stay in the shadows, and an ancient evil that could tear it all apart." 368 pages. Released 9/20/22.

Play by director Rob Roth (Beauty and the Beast, Lestat), who unearthed eighty hours of tapes of conversations between Andy Warhol and Truman Capote in 1978 (made to be the source of a play, then abandoned). Every word in the play comes directly from these two 20th century geniuses. The structure of the conversations springs from Roth's imagination. The play made its world premiere at American Repertory Theater in 2017. 224 pages.

Intimate and light-hearted memoir by viral sensation Randy Rainbow: "the highs, the lows, the lipstick, the pink glasses, and the show tunes."

Memoir by Viola Davis. Audiobook editions narrated by the author. 304 pages Released 4/26/22.

An emotional, funny, and fabulous memoir by trailblazing and award-winning Trans actor and activist Alexandra Billings. Spanning five decades, from profound lows to exhilarating highs ... captures the events of a pioneering life ... award-winning actor and history-making LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS activist shares not only her own ever-evolving story but also the parallel ways in which queer identity has dramatically changed since the Stonewall riots of 1969. She weaves a true coming-of-age story of ric...

Memoir by Broadway/Off-Broadway/TV/fim performer David Pevsner. 368 pages.

All About Me! charts Mel Brooks’s meteoric rise from a Depression-era kid in Brooklyn to the recipient of the National Medal of Arts. Whether serving in the United States Army in World War II, or during his burgeoning career as a teenage comedian in the Catskills, Mel was always mining his experiences for material, always looking for the perfect joke. His iconic career began with Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows, where he was part of the greatest writers’ room in history, which included Carl R...

Ben and his friends are playing in their favorite part of the classroom-- the dress-up corner! They are talking about what they want to be when they grow up. Rachel wants to be a tae kwon do master, Dixie wants to be a doctor like her auntie, and John wants to be a teacher just like their teacher, Mr. Underwood. But when Ben says he wants to fly just like his daddy, his friends are sure his daddy must be a pilot. Ben tells his friends that they aren't even close, but he offers a few more cl...

Memoir by West End/Broadway and TV performer Denise Van Outen (Chicago, Tell Me on a Sunday, Legally Blonde).

"The life story of a singular artist and survivor in his own words ... the story of a boy whose talent and courage opened doors for him, but only a crack ... the story of a teenager discovering himself, learning his voice and his craft amidst deep trauma. And it is the story of a young man whose unbreakable determination led him through countless hard times to where he is now; a proud icon who refuses to back down or hide." 288 pages.

Whether she’s playing an “age-defying” book editor on television or dazzling audiences on the Broadway stage, Sutton Foster manages to make it all look easy. How? Crafting. From the moment she picked up a cross stitch needle to escape the bullying chorus girls in her early performing days, she was hooked. Cross stitching led to crocheting, crocheting led to collages, which led to drawing, and so much more. Channeling her emotions into her creations centered Sutton as she navigated the significa...

Play by Tennessee Williams in 2020 Williamstown Theatre Festival production. Joel Reuben Ganz, Joe Goldammer, Carla Gugino, Carmen M. Herlihy, Sullivan Jones, Brian Lucas, Audra McDonald, Stacey Raymond, Cesar J. Rosado, Ariel Shafir. Directed by Robert O’Hara.

Williamstown Theatre Festival world premiere production of Stacy Osei-Kuffour play. Directed by Whitney White. Madeline Brewer, Jason Butler Harner, William Jackson Harper, Aja Naomi King. Previously released as Audible Audiobook.

The story of Nick Cordero and Amanda Kloots' love and fairy-tale marriage, of the disease that quickly upended it, of the fight for Nick’s survival, of her grief and how she came to terms with his death, of keeping Nick's memory alive for Elvis and the world. Includes 16 pages of color photos exclusive to the book.Audio versions narrated by Amanda Kloots.

Gives readers an inside look at In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda's Broadway debut, written with Quiara Alegría Hudes, and now a feature film. Untold stories, perceptive essays, and the lyrics to Miranda’s songs, complete with his annotations. Also, newly commissioned portraits and never-before-seen photos from backstage, the movie set, and productions around the world.

For readers of Hidden Figures and Something Wonderful, Footnotes is the story of New York in the roaring twenties and the very first Broadway show with an all-black cast and creative team to succeed―and the indelible mark on our popular culture.

Presents the twinning narratives of renegade scholar Dennis McCarthy, called “the Steve Jobs of the Shakespeare community,” and Sir Thomas North, an Elizabethan courtier whom McCarthy believes to be the undiscovered source for Shakespeare’s plays.

Biography of writer Tom Stoppard by Hermione Lee, with his cooperation and access to a trove of hitherto unseen material.

Novel by playwright Jen Silverman (The Roommate) about a queer, feminist novelist.

Novel by Ethan Hawke about a young man "performing the role of Hotspur in a production of Henry IV under the leadership of a brilliant director, helmed by one of the most electrifying--and narcissistic--Falstaff's of all time." 256 pages. Audiobook narrated by Ethan Hawke.

Biography by Mark Harris, "an intimate and evenhanded accounting of success and failure alike; the portrait is not always flattering, but its ultimate impact is to present the full story of one of the most richly interesting, complicated, and consequential figures the worlds of theater and motion pictures have ever seen. " Audiobook narrated by George Newbern.

"Moving between sensual recollection of childhood in a now almost vanished Ireland and reflections on stardom in Hollywood and Broadway, Byrne also courageously recounts his battle with addiction and the ambivalence of fame." Audio versions narrated by the author. 1

Collection of personal essays, poems and even amusement park maps on the subjects of insecurity, fame, anxiety, and much more. Told in her unique voice (sometimes singing voice).

Chronicle of the Grammy-winning 1995 Alanis Morissette album and the new Broadway musical it inspired. Photos (Matthew Murphy) and interviews from Morissette, bookwriter Diablo Cody, creative team members, and cast members, as well as a full annotated libretto and an exploration of the album's cultural significance.

Account of recent Broadway history—spanning from the debut of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Sunset Boulevard to Disney’s The Lion King. Drawing upon more than 150 insider interviews, Riedel walks us through the Broadway we know and love today: an industry awash in big hits and bigger money, while also being an industry split between its adherence to old art forms and the allure of popular culture.

Book of lyrics and stories from Hadestown from its author, songwriter Anaïs Mitchell, with a foreword by Steve Earle. 272 pages.

Chronicle of the Grammy-winning 1995 Alanis Morissette album and the new Broadway musical it inspired. Photos (Matthew Murphy) and interviews from Morissette, bookwriter Diablo Cody, creative team members, and cast members, as well as a full annotated libretto and an exploration of the album’s cultural significance

Novel by Ayad Akhtar (Disgraced). Audio versions narrated by the author.

Mixes fact and fiction, memoir and novel, to imagine the provocative story of a woman we thought we knew. Darin Strauss and Tavia Gilbert narrators for the audio version.

Play by Qui Nguyen. L.A. Theatre Works production recorded before a live audience at the UCLA James Bridges Theater in February 2020. Will Dao, Desiree Mee Jung, Greg Watanabe, Paul Yen, Jeena Yi. Directed by Tim Dang. Original music by Shane Rettig.

The novel, in verse, that inspired the West End/Broadway play by Stefano Massini. Spanning three generations and 150 years, a moving epic that tells the story of modern capitalism through the saga of the Lehman brothers and their descendants. A story of immigration, ambition, and success.

David Friedman's 2017 book, now in audiobook format, with Nancy LaMott singing Friedman's "We Can Be Kind." Foreword by Lucie Arnaz. Through story, meditation and suggestions on how we can be kind not only to others, but to ourselves as well, Friedman encourages us to create new ways of building community