Broadway Bookshelf

The Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows Are Built

(3/1/2016)

For almost thirty years, Jack Viertel has been a major figure in the Broadway theater world?he’s helped create shows like Hairspray, Angels in America, and Into the Woods; served as dramaturg of the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles; and is currently senior vice president of Jujamcyn Theaters, which host such shows as The Book of Mormon and Jersey Boys. Not long ago, Viertel noticed that while colleges offer intensive classes on Shakespeare's plays, dissecting them line by line to uncover their...

Bash--acting edition

(12/15/2015)

BASH, a collection of three darkly brilliant one-act plays, forms a trio of unforgettable personal accounts. In MEDEA REDUX, a woman tells of her complex and ultimately tragic relationship with her junior high school English teacher; in IPHIGENIA IN OREM, a Utah businessman confides in a stranger in a Las Vegas hotel room, confessing a most chilling crime; and in A GAGGLE OF SAINTS, a young Mormon couple separately recounts the violent events of an anniversary weekend in New York City. All thre...

Razzle Dazzle: The Story of Broadway

(10/1/2015)

The Best American Short Plays 2013-2014

(8/20/2015)

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...

Tradition!: The Highly Improbable, Ultimately Triumphant Broadway-to-Hollywood Story of Fiddler on the Roof, the World's Most Beloved Musical

(8/15/2015)

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 an...

Tradition!: The Highly Improbable, Ultimately Triumphant Broadway-to-Hollywood Story of Fiddler on the Roof, the World's Most Beloved Musical

(8/15/2015)

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 an...

The Book of Broadway: The 150 Definitive Plays and Musicals

(8/1/2015)

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??w...

The Business of Broadway: An Insider’s Guide to Working, Producing, and Investing in the World’s Greatest Theatre Community

(7/7/2015)

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...

Ziegfeld and His Follies: A Biography of Broadway's Greatest Producer

(6/5/2015)

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...

Anything Goes: A History of American Musical Theater

(6/1/2015)

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...

The Product of Our Souls: Ragtime, Race, and the Birth of the Manhattan Musical Marketplace

(5/10/2015)

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...

Best Monologues from The Best American Short Plays, Volume Three

(5/5/2015)

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Really? Words can break spirits, destroy confidence. They can also build hope and incite great acts of heroism. Playwrights know this, and so do theater audiences. Otherwise, why go? Words matter and carry clout every bit as dangerous as a hammer or crowbar. This, too, playwrights know. The monologues in this volume are full of such blows, striking at our imaginations and our memories, generating responses such as joyful laught...

Show Boat: Performing Race in an American Musical

(5/1/2015)

Show Boat: Performing Race in an American Musical tells the full story of the making and remaking of the most important musical in Broadway history. Drawing on exhaustive archival research and including much new information from early draft scripts and scores, this book reveals how Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern created Show Boat in the crucible of the Jazz Age to fit the talents of the show's original 1927 cast. After showing how major figures such as Paul Robeson and Helen Morgan define...

Nothing Like a Dame: Conversations with the Great Women of Musical Theater

(5/1/2015)

In Nothing Like a Dame, theater journalist Eddie Shapiro opens a jewelry box full of glittering surprises, through in-depth conversations with twenty leading women of Broadway. He carefully selected Tony Award-winning stars who have spent the majority of their careers in theater, leaving aside those who have moved on or occasionally drop back in. The women he interviewed spent endless hours with him, discussing their careers, offering insights into the iconic shows, changes on Broadway over the...

Fortune in My Eyes: A Memoir of Broadway Glamour, Social Justice, and Political Passion

(4/21/2015)

David Rothenberg s multilayered life thrust him into Broadway s brightest lights, prison riots, political campaigns, civil rights sit-ins, and a Central American civil war. In his memoir, Fortune in My Eyes, his journey includes many of the most celebrated names in the theater: Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, Sir John Gielgud, Peggy Lee, Alvin Ailey, Lauren Bacall, Christine Ebersole, and numerous others. He produced an Off-Broadway prison drama, Fortune and Men s Eyes, which res...

The Great Parade: Broadway's Astonishing, Never-to-Be-Forgotten 1963-1964 Season

(4/7/2015)

It was the Broadway season when Barbra Streisand demanded "Don’t Rain on My Parade" and Carol Channing heard the waiters at the Harmonia Gardens say "Hello, Dolly!". From June 1, 1963 through the final day of May 31, 1964, theatergoers were offered 68 different productions: 24 new plays, 15 new comedies, 14 new musicals, 5 revivals of plays, 3 revues, 3 plays in Yiddish, 2 in French, 1 double-bill and even 1 puppet show. Peter Filichia’s The Great Parade will look at what a Broadway season ...

The Broadway Song: A Singer's Guide

(3/12/2015)

Truly powerful vocal performance in musical theater is more than just the sum of good vocal tone and correct notes. As experienced teacher, director, and performer Mark Ross Clark lays out in The Broadway Song, powerful performance communicates the central function of a song within the context of the surrounding narrative, or the "truth" of a song. Because unstaged performances of a song, such as auditions, are key to the success of all aspiring singers, Clark provides here the essential practi...

Transatlantic Broadway: The Infrastructural Politics of Global Performance

(3/11/2015)

Transatlantic Broadway traces the infrastructural networks and technological advances that supported the globalization of popular entertainment in the pre-World War I period, with a specific focus on the production and performance of Broadway as physical space, dream factory, and glorious machine. Inspired by post-humanist scholarship, this book pays heed to the non-human entities and the backgrounded or disappeared human laborers who participated in the transnational expansion of theatre netwo...

The Sound of Music FAQ: All Thats Left to Know about Maria, the von Trapps, and Our Favorite Things

(3/10/2015)

The Sound of Music FAQ is a comprehensive, encyclopedia-like reference to the worlds most popular movie musical. Rather than focusing on the often-told stories of this classic movie, this book looks at the 1965 Oscar-winner in relation to its source, including the true von Trapp family story and the Broadway musical from which it was derived. The Sound of Music FAQ explores such facts and trivia as the movies phenomenal original run in cinemas, during which it dominated the box office for a sta...

So You Want to Be a Dancer: Practical Advice and True Stories from a Working Professional

(3/9/2015)

Matthew Shaffer’s more than twenty years as a performer, choreographer, director, Broadway collaborator, writer, and producer has allowed him opportunities to work with celebrities like Megan Mullally, Ben Stiller, and the elite competition team of Dance Moms. So You Want to Be a Dancer is the ultimate book for anyone who has to fight the urge to sashay down grocery store aisles or school hallways. Shaffer discusses everything from how to break into the industry to practical advice—from how...

Theatre World Volume 69: 2012-2013

(3/1/2015)

Acting in Musical Theatre: A Comprehensive Course

(2/28/2015)

Acting in Musical Theatre: A Comprehensive Course offers a complete guide to mastering this highly specialized area of acting. Packed with practical tips, useful exercises and advice from professionals, this book offers step-by-step instruction for an integrated performance, looking at: the fundamentals of acting how to analyze the script and score for clues to developing your character how to make a song come to life staging a performance acting in different styles and genres of...

We'll Have Manhattan: The Early Work of Rodgers & Hart

(2/25/2015)

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart are one of the defining duos of musical theater, contributing dozens of classic songs to the Great American Songbook and working together on over 40 shows before Hart's death. With hit after hit on both Broadway and the West End, they produced many of the celebrated songs of the '20s and '30s--such as "Manhattan," "The Lady is a Tramp," and "Bewitched"--that remain popular favorites with great cultural resonance today. Yet the early years of these iconic collabor...

The Captain and "the Cannibal": An Epic Story of Exploration, Kidnapping, and the Broadway Stage

(2/24/2015)

Sailing the uncharted waters of the Pacific in 1830, Captain Benjamin Morrell of Connecticut became the first outsider to encounter the inhabitants of a small island off New Guinea. The contact quickly turned violent, fatal cannons were fired, and Morrell abducted young Dako, a hostage so shocked by the white complexions of his kidnappers that he believed he had been captured by the dead. This gripping book unveils for the first time the strange odyssey the two men shared in ensuing years. The ...

Annie Get Your Gun

(2/16/2015)

(Applause Libretto Library). 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 stag...

The Complete Book of 1940s Broadway Musicals

(2/16/2015)

The debut of Oklahoma! in 1943 ushered in the modern era of Broadway musicals and was followed by a number of successes that have become beloved classics. Shows produced on Broadway during this decade include Annie Get Your Gun, Brigadoon, Carousel, Finian’s Rainbow, Pal Joey, On the Town, and South Pacific. Among the major performers of the decade were Alfred Drake, Gene Kelly, Mary Martin, and Ethel Merman, while other talents who contributed to shows include Irving Berlin, Gower Champion, ...

Production Stage Management for Broadway: From Ideas to Opening Night & Beyond

(2/15/2015)

Getting a new show up and running? Planning a revival? Taking over a long-running show? Going on the road? On Broadway, off Broadway, in regional repertory, or on tour, the only book you need as your professional companion is Peter Lawrence s comprehensive and definitive Production Stage Management for Broadway: From Idea to Opening Night and Beyond. With this book, Tony Award-winning Peter Lawrence has turned his decades of experience on Broadway into a thoroughly modern approach to the art a...

Music Direction for the Stage: A View from the Podium

(2/2/2015)

Theater music directors must draw on a remarkably broad range of musical skills. Not only do they conduct during rehearsals and performances, but they must also be adept arrangers, choral directors, vocal coaches, and accompanists. Like a record producer, the successful music director must have the flexibility to adjust as needed to a multifaceted job description, one which changes with each production and often with each performer. In Music Direction for the Stage, veteran music director and...

Black Broadway

(2/2/2015)

The African-American actors and actresses whose names have shone brightly on Broadway marquees earned their place in history not only through hard work, perseverance, and talent, but also because of the legacy left by those who came before them. Like the doors of many professions, those of the theater world were shut to minorities for decades. While the Civil War may have freed the slaves, it was not until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s that the playing field began to level. In this rema...

Broadway Plays and Musicals: Descriptions and Essential Facts of More Than 14,000 Shows Through 2007

(1/31/2015)

New York City's Broadway district is by far the most prestigious and lucrative venue for American performers, playwrights, entertainers, and technicians. While there are many reference works and critical studies of selected Broadway plays or musicals and even more works about the highlights of the American theater, this is the first single-volume book to cover all of the activities on Broadway between 1919 and 2007. More than 14,000 productions are briefly described, including hundreds of plays...

SPIDER-MAN: A BUMPY RIDE ON BROADWAY

(1/8/2015)

“Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” had all the makings of a mega-hit and was one of the most highly anticipated shows on Broadway. With music and lyrics by U2’s Bono and the Edge, direction by Julie Taymor (“The Lion King”) and a stellar cast, the show seemed destined for success. But, from the get-go, the musical seemed cursed, plagued with delays, financial troubles, stars bailing out and faulty flying equipment that caused a series of injuries. As things went from bad to worse, even t...

Adventures in Blackface: and other shorts

(12/31/2014)

Adventures in Blackface is a short story and one of a selection of “shorts” retrieved from the cutting room floor. The short story centers on a black college freshman, Ruth, one of six black students in an otherwise white university in the 1960’s. Ruth faces the challenge of the romantic advances of a white male student, and the racism of white faculty.

Tevye's Daughters: No Laughing Matter

(12/31/2014)

The Crawley sisters of Downton Abbey? The Bennet sisters of Pride & Prejudice? The daughters born to Zelophehad? Why mention any of these women in the same breath as the beloved characters in the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof? Conventional wisdom has it that Fiddler on the Roof is about Tevye, a beleaguered patriarch persecuted by his neighbors and “desperately clinging to Tradition.” But in this surprising eBook, Jan Lisa Huttner turns the reader’s focus away from Tevye and onto h...

Falling off Broadway

(12/29/2014)

Falling off Broadway is a witty, entertaining memoir by Tony Award-winning producer David Black of his adventures on Broadway. The book is filled with revealing personal accounts of theatrical luminaries and well-known figures such as Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Julie Harris, Gene Hackman, Joel Grey, Bernadette Peters, Burt Reynolds, Julie Andrews, Groucho Marx, Joshua Logan, Alan King, David Merrick, Donald Trump, and Richard Nixon. This memoir is based on David Black's one-man play, which...

The Godspell Experience: Inside a Transformative Musical

(12/22/2014)

This book covers all things "Godspell." It includes a colorful behind-the-scenes account of the musical’s creative history, notes about each song, never-before-published photographs, "Godspell" movie development details, complete lyrics, and much more. In his Foreword for "The Godspell Experience," composer Stephen Schwartz shares some of his favorite personal memories from the earliest days of "Godspell." Author Carol de Giere has gathered fresh comments from original cast members, Stephen S...

Hopelessly Hollywood: My Dreamland Diary, from Small Town Extra to Musical Theatre King for a Day

(12/21/2014)

Curtain up on musical theatre, LA! Journey into the shadows of Tinseltown, where on dozens of small stages eager young actors fresh off the bus share the spotlights with forgotten idols and new stars rising. Follow collaborators Mike and David into this dream-drenched world, the two believing they are the next Rodgers and Hammerstein waiting to be discovered. But the City of Angels soon cures them of their heady illusions, sending each down a separate road, one ultimately tragic. Here is another...

Out of the Woods: A True Story

(12/21/2014)

Father takes six-year-old daughter to see summer production of Into the Woods thinking in his ignorance it would be appropriate for children because it’s about fairy tales. Problem is that her mother died when daughter was three weeks old, and seeing the show opens the floodgates to almost seven years of unresolved grief for father and daughter both. Next morning, daughter wakes father and begs him to take her to see it again. And the same the next morning, and the next after that. And so beg...

ZOMBIE BROADWAY, Issue 1

(12/19/2014)

They say that New Yorkers have seen everything. But that was before New York City was hit by a zombie infestation, destroying the city, and killing most of its inhabitants. Now the President and all his men have to solve this zombie problem before it hits the rest of the country. Dropping a bomb on the city seems like the only solution, until the mayor of New York comes up with a last ditch effort: put on a Zombie Broadway! Crazy? Well, not completely. Seems like zombies aren't so different fro...

STAGE MANAGEMENT from Rural America to Broadway: An Interview with Bryce McDonald

(12/19/2014)

What do Mary-Louise Parker, Kathleen Turner, Frank Langella, Blythe Danner, Judith Ivy, Victoria Clark, Sherie Rene Scott, Danny Burstein, and Doug Hughes have in common? Each of them has worked with Bryce McDonald during his career as a New York Stage Manager. While serving as Production Stage Manager for the 2014 off-Broadway run of "Tales from Red Vienna," Bryce McDonald took some time to answer questions about his career as a professional stage manager: how he got started and what he lo...

W. C. Fields from Burlesque and Vaudeville to Broadway: Becoming a Comedian

(12/17/2014)

A virtuoso comedian, W. C. Fields is often called a comic genius and legendary iconoclast who gave the gift of laughter to multitudes during his epoch and left a legacy of humor for future generations. Using the newly opened W. C. Fields Papers at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, this groundbreaking book explores how he became a comedian during his lesser known stage career from 1898 to 1930 - years of hardship and exaltation that had a major influence on his comedy...

Mickey & Sage

(12/15/2014)

This four-scene, 60-minute piece lays bare the way that the minor differences that kids note about their playmates' home lives take on greater weight and power as childhood ends. --Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice Listening to two kids talking smack during forced backyard playdates can be pretty funny. They mangle adult language they're trying to ape, and what it all means. But there's a disturbing undercurrent to MICKEY & SAGE. Comedy leavens the underlying painful circumstances, as filtered ...

Strays, the Musical: Piano-Vocal Score (Volume 2)

(12/12/2014)

STRAYS, THE MUSICAL! explores furry foibles from the PETS’ point of view. The actors give voice to a variety of cat and dog characters in this hilarious–and often moving–musical review “drama-dy” that seeks to edu-tain audiences about normal pet behavior while honoring the bond we share with them. The two-hour review-format offers a mix of funny to poignant monologues and scenes with and without music, perfect for middle school to high school contest/performance as well as adult comm...

Three Songs by George M. Cohan: for Voice and Piano

(12/11/2014)

Give my Regards to Broadway, Over There and Mary's a Grand Old Name. Classic sheets from the early 20th century. Carry this on your Kindle, and you'll always be prepared to kick a party into overdrive.

The Broadway Anthology: And Tender Buttons

(12/11/2014)

The Broadway Anthology: And Tender Buttons (Bonus Book) By Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein (Authored by), Walter J. Kingsley (Authored by), Murdock Pemberton (Authored by), Gertrude Stein (Authored by)

Blue-Collar Broadway: The Craft and Industry of American Theater

(12/5/2014)

Behind the scenes of New York City's Great White Way, virtuosos of stagecraft have built the scenery, costumes, lights, and other components of theatrical productions for more than a hundred years. But like a good magician who refuses to reveal secrets, they have left few clues about their work. Blue-Collar Broadway recovers the history of those people and the neighborhood in which their undersung labor occurred. Timothy R. White begins his history of the theater industry with the dispersed ...

Charles Walters: The Director Who Made Hollywood Dance

(12/5/2014)

From the trolley scene in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers's last dance on the silver screen ( The Barkleys of Broadway, 1949) to Judy Garland's timeless, tuxedo-clad performance of "Get Happy" ( Summer Stock, 1950), Charles Walters staged the iconic musical sequences of Hollywood's golden age. During his career, this Academy Award--nominated director and choreographer showcased the talents of stars such as Gene Kelly, Doris Day, Debbie Reynolds, and Frank Sinatra. ...

Studying Musical Theatre: Theory and Practice

(12/4/2014)

The ideal accompaniment to any study of musical theatre, this lively textbook provides a comprehensive overview of the history, theory and practice of this popular theatre form. Bringing critical theory and musical theatre together, Millie Taylor and Dominic Symonds explore the musical stage from a broad range of theoretical perspectives, including narrative theory, orientalism, gender theory and globalization. Focusing on opera as well as musical theatre, Studying Musical Theatre considers ...

It Happened on Broadway: An Oral History of the Great White Way

(12/2/2014)

In this deliciously revealing oral history of Broadway from World War II through the early 1980s, more than one hundred theater veterans—including Carol Channing, Hal Prince, Donna McKechnie, Hal Holbrook, Andrea McArdle, and Al Hirschfeld—deliver the behind-the-scenes story of the hits, the stars, the feuds, and the fiascoes. Along the way there are evocations of the great comedians and dramatic actors who had that indefinable magic that made them stand out above the rest. With verve, love...

Aladdin - Broadway Musical

(12/1/2014)

(Easy Piano Vocal Selections). 11 selections from the Broadway production arranged at an easier level. Includes: Arabian Nights * Babkak, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim * Friend like Me * High Adventure * A Million Miles Away * One Jump Ahead * One Jump Ahead (Reprise) * Prince Ali * Proud of Your Boy * Somebody's Got Your Back * A Whole New World

The Broadway Comedy Murders

(12/1/2014)

Hollywood comedy writer Springer McKay’s latest adventure finds him on Broadway, where his satirical play, Boob Tube, is in rehearsal with a bunch of wildly eccentric actors—British stage legend Lady Kate Ashley, egotistical sitcom star Wally Wheeler, highly neurotic Tony Award–winner Nedda Norman, and action film star Kirby Gates, who has saved the world a million times. Retired junk dealer Sid Rosko is the producer. Five quirky young performers round out the cast. When two surprisin...