24 Theater Books for Your Summer 2025 Reading List
Broadway authors this season include David Mamet, Debbie Gibson, and more.
By: Nicole Rosky Jul. 06, 2025
Summer is here and there is no better time of year to soak up the sun and dive into a new book. You're in luck, because Broadway's best have put pen to paper to turn out theatre page-turners of every kind. From theatre biographies to theatre fiction; theatre books for kids to theatre history; check out our collection of 24 new Broadway books for every theatre lover's Summer 2025 reading list. Don't forget to listen to our Broadway Summer Jams playlist will you read!
Check out recent releases and view upcoming books for later this year!
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The Book of Joel
By Joel Grey
Available now
The Book of Joel is the visual life story of one of the world’s most beloved entertainers, Joel Grey: actor, singer, dancer, director, and photographer. This sprawling yet intimate scrapbook-style volume uncovers a kaleidoscope of both famous and previously unseen photographs, family snapshots, playbills, posters, and ephemera from Grey’s personal archive, revealing an encyclopedic and all-absorbing visual romp through one of the last living greats of American entertainment. The Book of Joel is a captivating collection of photographs, ephemera, and posters that capture the multifaceted life and career of the 2023 Lifetime Achievement in Theatre Award, Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and Golden Globe Award winner Joel Grey.
Theater After Film
By Professor Martin Harries
Available now
In Theater after Film, Martin Harries argues that after 1945, as cinema became omnipresent in popular culture, theater had to respond to cinema’s hegemony. Theater couldn’t break that hegemony, but it could provide a zone of contestation. Theater made film’s domination of the cultural field visible through hyperbole, refusal, and other strategies, thereby unsettling its power. Postwar theatrical experiment, Harries shows, often channeled and represented film’s mass cultural force, while knowing that it could never possess that force. Throughout the book, Harries brings critical theory into contact with theories of performance. Although Theater after Film treats the theatrical work of many figures, its central focus falls on Tennessee Williams, Samuel Beckett, and Adrienne Kennedy. Discussions of these dramatists consider their ways of addressing spectators, the politics of race between film and theater, and the place of the theatrical apparatus. Readings of these central figures in twentieth-Century Theater exemplify the book’s historical engagement with the media surround that drama confronted. This confrontation, Harries shows, was central to the development of some of the most continually compelling postwar drama.
Theatre Fandom: Engaged Audiences in the Twenty-first Century
By Kirsty Sedgman, Francesca Coppa, and Matt Hills
Available now
By bringing together a range of discussions from leading international fan and performance studies scholars, Theatre Fandom tracks key case studies of theatre fans across different eras, performance forms, and cultures. The contributors emphasize the importance of considering theatrical elements such as pleasure, engagement, allure, enjoyment, and love. They illustrate how leveraging fan enthusiasm can foster greater and more meaningful participation in the cultural industries, potentially guiding us towards a thriving post-pandemic future for theatre.
Scenery of the Crime
By Frank 'Fraver' Verlizzo
Available now
Legendary actress Helena Baxter is once again starring on Broadway! A weird death on stage places her in the spotlight of suspicion, along with a cast of other suspects, including her dashing British bridegroom, her Hollywood Producer Ex, the demure set designer, the ubiquitous photographer, the watchful general manager, and a catty rival diva. With assistance from a quirky press agent and her handsome young assistant, Vic and Bettie inadvertently place themselves in grave danger. It will take NYPD Detective Renny Clements and high society psychic, Mizz Mitzi, to make sense of the murders in time to save the lives of their new friends.
A Beginner’s Guide to Directing Theatre
By Robert Marsden
Available now
An accessible guide to the theatre directing process of text-based theatre, from the choice of the play through to an encounter with an audience. Moving from how to choose a play to the opening night, A Beginner's Guide to Directing Theatre takes the reader, via a step-by-step approach, through various techniques, practitioners, methodologies and exercises that could be applied to text-based theatre. By not providing one single methodology, but introducing readers to various methods, the author garners an understanding of how different plays, genres, styles and movements require their own approaches to reach opening night.
Arts Hustler: A Story of Resilience
By Sofia Kapkov
Available now
After fleeing to New York with two suitcases and two children in the wake of Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2022, Sofia—a celebrated arts producer in her home country—left everything behind at forty-five to rebuild her life from scratch. That leap led her to produce Our Class, a deeply personal and hauntingly relevant theatrical experience that reflected her own pain and the fractured relationships of a world torn apart by politics and war.
The Infamous Theaters of Virginia City, Nevada
By Carolyn Grattan Eichin
Available now
Virginia City boomed in the nineteenth century, with thousands coming to try their luck in the mines. The entertainment industry boomed with it. Piper’s Opera House became one of the most well-known theaters in America, attracting actors from the East and West Coasts for lauded performances. The Alhambra Theater took a different approach, advertising acts with women in scanty clothing to bored, restless miners. The vibrant scene drew in big names like renowned actors John McCullough and Lawrence Barrett, William Cody (better known as Buffalo Bill) and even Mark Twain.
The Middlebrow Musical: Between Broadway and Opera in 1940s America
By James O'Leary
Available June 30, 2025
Rattled by two world wars, ongoing discrimination, and economic calamity, a group of critics in 1940s New York sought to promote art that would do nothing less than heal the world. The primary obstacle to this project, they believed, was that American culture had splintered into factions, which in turn divided American audiences: highbrow art, which these writers regarded as obscure and elitist; folk art, which they found provincial and alienating; and popular culture, which they considered merely commercial. Blending these kinds of art, they argued, could draw together a fractured society into mutual understanding (if not necessarily agreement) by situating the most sophisticated ideas within longstanding expressive traditions, accessible to all. Their contemporaries called this culture “middlebrow” and believed that its culmination appeared on Broadway.
Backstage in Hong Kong: A life with the Philharmonic, Broadway Musicals and Classical Superstars
By John Duffus
Available June 30, 2025
After 50 momentous years, little is remembered of the chaos the Hong Kong Philharmonic faced in its early days as a professional outfit. John Duffus arrived in Hong Kong in 1979 as its fifth general manager in as many years. In this entertaining memoir he highlights those problems and illustrates how, with typical Scottish grit and determination, he helped get the orchestra on the road as an international ensemble.
The Tourist's Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City
By Henry H. Sapoznik
Available July 1, 2025
The Tourist's Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City offers a new look at over a century of New York's history of Yiddish popular culture. Henry H. Sapoznik-a Peabody Award-winning coproducer of NPR's Yiddish Radio Project-tells the story in over a baker's dozen chapters on theater, music, architecture, crime, Blacks and Jews, restaurants, real estate, and journalism. Culled from over five thousand Yiddish and English newspaper articles of the period, and thanks to new research from previously inaccessible materials, the book reveals fresh insights into the impossible-to-overstate influence of Yiddish culture on New York City. Containing fifty images, many of which have never before been published, the book is complemented by an online interactive Google Map linked to over one hundred of the historic locations discussed in the book, with additional graphics and resource materials. The Tourist's Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City is a vivid, entertaining, and accessible compendium of both New York's lush Ashkenazic past and present, showcasing the culture's persistent resiliency.
Orchestration in Musical Theatre
By Paul R. Laird and Elizabeth Sallinger
Available July 24, 2025
Broadly described as the art of arranging a piece of music for a particular musical ensemble, orchestration is a specific skill that few composers or songwriters possess. This volume helps the reader understand and appreciate the art of orchestration and traces how the incorporation of rock and other types of popular music into scores for musical theatre on Broadway and in the West End fundamentally changed the genre's sound. From discussions of specific instrumentation through to a brief history of the art, this book demystifies how different instrumentation contributes to a show's soundscape.
Listen to Movie Musicals!: Exploring a Musical Genre
By James E. Perone
Available July 24, 2025
Exploring musical theater on film for fans of the genre, Listen to Movie Musicals! focuses on 50 must-hear movie musicals featured in the United States. In this book, 50 movies featured for critical analysis include many of the best-known film musicals of the past and present, from The King and I to La La Land. The list also includes several important movie musicals that were popular successes that are not necessarily on the "best-of" lists in other books. This volume also includes a greater focus on the actual music of movie musicals than do most other books, making it a stand-out title on the topic for high school and college readers.
Broadway Nation: How Immigrant, Jewish, Queer, and Black Artists invented the Broadway Musical
By David Armstrong
Available July 24, 2025
At the turn of the 20th century, immigrants, Jews, Queers, and African Americans faced exclusion from mainstream American society, with limited employment opportunities. They found their calling in the emerging field of "Show Business", particularly the burgeoning Broadway Musical. Their pioneering spirit not only seized this opportunity but also continued to shape and dominate the Broadway Musical for over a century, creating an art form that has deeply influenced American culture.
Some Recollections of St. Ives: A Novel
By David Mamet
Available August 5, 2025
Written in the final years of Hollis’s life, Some Recollections of St. Ives traces his forty years within the institution, providing portraits of the people, politics, and parables that shaped both the man and the school. Within Hollis’s allegorical ruminations, David Mamet delivers a sharp, incisive examination of an isolated world—the St. Ives School—and its place in the wider culture. Witty, elegant, and profoundly insightful, Some Recollections of St. Ives proves once again that Mamet is a master of language and character. Intimate yet expansive, this novel is an astute exploration of tradition and legacy—how we shape them and, in turn, how they shape us.
Rachel Crothers: Broadway Innovator, Feminist Pioneer
By John Bassett
Available August 7, 2025
Rachel Crothers was renowned for her ability to command all aspects of a stage production-unusual for playwrights and even more so for a woman of this time period. Rachel Crothers: Broadway Innovator, Feminist Pioneer celebrates her remarkable skill and feminism, from her experiences as a young actress in Illinois and New York to the success of her first play in 1906 and beyond. Crothers integrated themes of double standards, prostitution, and women's rights in her work, and she went on to become President of the Stage Women's War Relief Fund through both World Wars and the Great Depression. Incorporating extensive archival material, this book also discusses each of Crother's plays with careful consideration for her attention to detail, character influences, motivations for social justice, and creative vision.
Rocky Horror Show: The Official Coloring Book
By Titan Books
Available August 12, 2025
Unleash your inner Creature of the Night, and step into a world of wild imagination, sensual pleasure, and unapologetic fun with the Rocky Horror Show: The Official Coloring Book! Relive the timeless magic of the cult classic musical with over 50 pages of intricate illustrations featuring your favorite characters, scenes, and iconic moments. From the enigmatic Dr. Frank N Furter to the innocent Brad and Janet, this coloring book invites you to add your own splash of color to the world of Rocky Horror. Based on the characters from Richard O’Brien’s stage show, each page offers a chance to celebrate and personalize this beloved musical, whether you're a long-time fan or a curious newcomer.
Practice, Research, and Cognition in Devised Performance
By Maiya Murphy
Available August 21, 2025
This interdisciplinary study explores devised performance and practice research at the intersection of the cognitive sciences and arts. It interrogates relationships between epistemology and cognition, action and aesthetics, and first-person experience and third-person investigation. Pairing practice research methodologies from theatre and performance with cognitive and neuroscientific approaches-both theoretical and empirical-it reveals new insights into the practices of collective creation in theatre.
The Theatre of Kander and Ebb
By Robert Gordon
Available August 21, 2025
Discover John Kander and Fred Ebb, the most artistically and commercially successful musical theatre writing team since Rodgers and Hammerstein, in a brand new way. Identifying the theatrical approach that renders their musical dramaturgy unique, this book explores their importance within, and contribution to, musical theatre history. Through their biggest hits, Cabaret (1966) and Chicago (1975), Kander and Ebb have been performed on the stage more times both within and outside of the USA than any other American musical theatre writers. Unlike Sondheim, whose work from 1964 increasingly aspired towards the avant-garde, Kander and Ebb located their projects in a nexus between art and commercial entertainment, seeking to deconstruct popular forms in order to expose their ideological function.
The Drama School Handbook: Getting In, Getting On and Getting Out There
By John Abbott
Available August 26, 2025
Is your ambition to be an actor in films, TV shows and plays? Do you want to train at a drama school to start making that ambition a reality? Are you looking for honest, expert advice to boost your chances of success and beat the competition? If your answer to these questions is YES, then this essential guide to drama schools is for you! Written by an acting teacher with decades of experience in top UK drama schools, this book breaks down everything you need to know about the whole journey
Fever: The Complete History of Saturday Night Fever
By Margo Donohue
Available August 26, 2025
Whether you’re a brother or whether you’re a mother, it’s impossible to resist the throbbing disco beats—and lasting cultural impact—of Saturday Night Fever. Released in December 1977, the low-budget “disco movie” was the surprise gift that kept on giving. It made millions at the box office, earned an Oscar nomination for TV-actor-turned-movie-star John Travolta, catapulted the Bee Gees’ music career into the stratosphere with a record-breaking, Grammy-winning soundtrack album, and ignited a “disco inferno” that burns to this day. From Travolta’s iconic white polyster suit and legendary dance moves to the flashing lights and illuminated floor of the 2001 Odyssey disco in Brooklyn, Saturday Night Fever captured the era like no other film—and launched a phenomenon that changed the world forever.
The Theatre of Grotowski
By Jenna Kumiega
Available August 27, 2025
A seminal text on the work of Jerzy Grotowski and Laboratory Theatre, recognised as one of the most important and influential studies of the Polish theatre practitioner. In 1984 Grotowski's Laboratory Theatre closed down after 25 years of ceaseless experimentation pushing at the boundaries of nature of theatre. From tiny beginnings in provincial Poland, Grotowski's influence spread to Europe and the United States, fuelled first by the international tours of his remarkable company and then by 'paratheatrical' participatory projects which attracted adherents all over the world..
Eternally Electric: The Message in My Music
By Debbie Gibson
Available September 9, 2025
Debbie Gibson was just sixteen when she released her multi-platinum debut album Out of the Blue and recorded “Foolish Beat” in 1988, making her the youngest person to ever write, produce, and perform a Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper. A child actress who became the original pop princess, Debbie had full creative control over her music and, when that no longer aligned with a transitioning arts scene, she went on to star in Broadway’s Les Misérables, Beauty and the Beast, and Cabaret, as well as in the London production of Grease. Yet, for all the accolades and achievements, her success came at a high price.
Hirschfeld's Sondheim: A Poster Book
By David Leopold
Available September 9, 2025
This first volume in a series of deluxe Hirschfeld poster books contains art drawn from life before the opening night of each of Sondheim’s productions. On the reverse side are rare, ancillary images from the archives, as well as an introduction by Bernadette Peters, an essay by Ben Brantley, and text by David Leopold, Hirschfeld’s archivist and creative director of the Al Hirschfeld Foundation. Hirschfeld’s images capture the essence of the performances even better than the photographs of the shows. All of Sondheim’s best-known plays are included—West Side Story, Follies, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, and Sunday in the Park with George.
Matching Minds with Sondheim: The Puzzles and Games of the Broadway Legend
By Barry Joseph
Available September 18, 2025
Matching Minds with Sondheim is a journey into this rich but largely unmapped aspect of the composer's creative life, illuminating how Sondheim's playful designs delivered moments of clarity and connection for friends, colleagues, and anyone who's ever been captivated by his genius. This book opens, for the first time, the door into what Sondheim called his “puzzler's mind,” helping readers to better understand the man, his work, and-if they accept the challenge-themselves. Gaming expert Barry Joseph draws from over eighty years of Sondheim's activities, including extremely rare and never-publicly-seen puzzles and game designs, scores of original interviews with the celebrity friends who played them, archival deep dives, and illuminating analysis from both puzzle designers and theater professionals from around the world. Packed with illustrations and insights, this book does more than describe Sondheim's life in puzzles: It allows readers to match minds with the maestro by attempting to solve his puzzles and bring Sondheimian games into their own homes.
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