Skip to main content
My Shows
News on your favorite shows, specials & more!
Home For You Chat My Shows Register/Login Games Grosses

Broadway Bookshelf

Biographies, show books, musical scores, history, and must-read theatre books.

Browse by Category

Biographies Show Books Autobiography For Actors Musical Scores Reference Books History

Latest Broadway Books

Matching Minds with Sondheim: The Puzzles and Games of the Broadway Legend

(12/31/2025)

Gaming expert and theatre fan Barry Joseph draws from over eighty years of Sondheim’s activities, collecting his extremely rare and never-publicly-seen puzzles and game designs, original interviews with the celebrity friends who played them, deep dives into Sondheim-related archives from around the country, and analysis from both puzzle designers and theatre professionals from around the world. Allows readers to solve Sondheimian puzzles and bring Sondheimian games into their own homes. 208 p...

Matching Minds with Sondheim: The Puzzles and Games of the Broadway Legend Cover

Secret Lovers Songbook

(12/2/2025)

Companion book to Anya Turner & Robert Grusecki's tenth studio recording released in September 2024. Ten new songs inspired by their own life experience and the artistry of poet Emily Dickinson, novelist Virginia Woolf, essayist Joan Didion, Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt, New Zealand-born street artist Deborah Wood, Harlem blues singer Gladys Bentley, transgender jazz pianist Billy Tipton, and British jazz singer/pianist Liane Carroll.

Secret Lovers Songbook Cover

Matching Minds with Sondheim

(5/20/2025)

By near-universal consensus, Stephen Sondheim was the greatest musical theater composer of his generation—celebrated, among other things, for the wit, sophistication, and intricacy of shows from West Side Story to Sunday in the Park with George. A less well-known avenue for his brilliant creativity was his lifelong fascination with designing and constructing intricate puzzles and games: from treasure hunts and crossword puzzles to parlor and board games. Matching Minds with Sondheim is a j...

Matching Minds with Sondheim Cover

The Book of Joel

(5/20/2025)

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 Cover

Elphie

(3/25/2025)

The childhood story of Wicked's Elphaba, including her promiscuous mother, her pious father, her saintly sister Nessarose, and her junior felon brother Shell. Deluxe collector’s hardcover features stenciled edges and a color illustrated map of Oz. 288 pages.

Elphie Cover

Every Day a Little Death: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Stephen Sondheim

(3/22/2025)

Twenty crime stories, one inspired by a song from each of the twenty musicals with scores by Stephen Sondheim (including the made-for-TV Evening Primrose and the final show, Here We Are). Contributing authors include both widely published crime writers and people who are involved in the world of the theatre.

Every Day a Little Death: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Stephen Sondheim Cover

The Gershwins Abroad

(12/13/2024)

Ira Gershwin's account of the 1928 European trip. Vivid – oftentimes humorous – descriptions of the numerous parties given for the Gershwins; the concerts of George's compositions, and his work on the tone poem "An American in Paris"; meetings with such artistic luminaries as Sergei Prokofiev and Alban Berg; encounters with members of high society; Ira's wide-ranging choice of reading material; and entertaining anecdotes about the food and drink consumed along the way. First time in print. ...

The Gershwins Abroad Cover

Adventures in Theater History: Philadelphia

(11/30/2024)

From the founding of The Walnut Street Theatre and the beginning of the American circus to the world premiere performance of Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman, and from censorship and opposition to riots and deadly fires, this engaging collection of short, focused narratives introduces the reader to the often overlooked and frequently underappreciated topic of the history of theater in Philadelphia, and offer a new way of approaching the wider history of this unique and important Ameri...

Adventures in Theater History: Philadelphia Cover

The Show Goes On: Broadway Hirings, Firings and Replacements

(11/27/2024)

Conducting more than a hundred interviews, Fassler has drawn from a wide range of the New York theatre community gathering dozens of stories that border on the heroic. How is a suitable replacement chosen to take over on Broadway? What goes into an actor making a role their own in the shadow of another's highly lauded performance? What happens when someone hops on the moving train that is a multi-million dollar production and replaces a flailing actor during an out of town tryout? 462 pages.

The Show Goes On: Broadway Hirings, Firings and Replacements Cover

Suffs

(11/26/2024)

Written by one of the most exciting new voices in theater, this epic new musical takes an unflinching look at the unsung trailblazers of the American women’s suffrage movement. In the seven years leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, an impassioned group of suffragists—“Suffs” as they called themselves—took to the streets, pioneering protest tactics that transformed the country. They risked their lives as they clashed with the president, the public, and each other. ...

Suffs Cover

Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words

(11/26/2024)

First full-length biography devoted to the life of Ira Gershwin. Draws on extensive archival sources and often using Ira's own words. 30 illustrations. 400 pages. The first lyricist to win the Pulitzer Prize, Ira Gershwin (1896–1983) has been hailed as one of the masters of the Great American Songbook, a period which covers songs written largely for Broadway and Hollywood from the 1920s to the 1950s. Now, in the first full-length biography devoted to his life, Michael Owen brings Ira out at l...

Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words Cover

Women Writing Musicals: The Legacy That the History Books Left Out

(11/19/2024)

Tells the stories of over 300 inspiring women who wrote Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals that Publishers Weekly calls "an exhaustive tribute to women whose contributions to Broadway musical history have often been overlooked." Covers prolific and celebrated Broadway writers like Betty Comden and Jeanine Tesori, women who have written musicals but gained fame elsewhere like Dolly Parton and Sara Bareilles, and dramatists you’ve never heard of—but definitely should have. 408 pages.

Women Writing Musicals: The Legacy That the History Books Left Out Cover

Recording Broadway: A Life in Cast Albums

(11/19/2024)

Producer Thomas Z. Shepard's writes about his childhood as a piano prodigy, and of the making of fifty plus years' worth of show albums, featuring stories of his work with Broadway people including Julie Andrews, Leonard Bernstein, Sheldon Harnick, Barbara Cook, Placido Domingo, Gregory Hines, John Kander, Fred Ebb, Danny Kaye, Angela Lansbury, Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Chita Rivera, Stephen Sondheim, Barbra Streisand, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and many more. 408 pages.

Recording Broadway: A Life in Cast Albums Cover

How Sondheim Can Change Your Life

(11/19/2024)

Author Richard Schloch makes the case that Sondheim's greatness–beyond the clever lyrics and adventurous music–rests in his ability to tell stories that relate to us all. From Louise's desire for freedom to Sweeney Todd's thirst for revenge, we as an audience relate easily to Sondheim's characters. Follows the arc of Sondheim's career and includes stories about productions and iconic performers, deep readings of his music and lyrics, and insights into his creative process. 304 pages.

How Sondheim Can Change Your Life Cover

It Happened at the Palace: A History of New York’s Iconic Broadway Theater

(10/29/2024)

A historical account and love letter to the performing arts, a chronicle of New York's cultural evolution, and a business saga of revival and triumph. More than 175 photographs, untold stories, and intimate portraits of stage legends and the intricate process of preserving a landmark not only of bricks and mortar but of dreams and memories. 200 pages.

It Happened at the Palace: A History of New York’s Iconic Broadway Theater Cover

Broadway Poster Art: 1945–1969

(10/28/2024)

750 advertising posters for the musicals and plays of Broadway's golden age, plus behind-the-scenes stories. Also included: never-before-seen artist progressions from conception to completion, as well as alternate and rejected designs; facts and legends about the productions; a look at how the posters were used around the city; rare images - many one of a kind - from private collections, archives, and libraries nationwide; and an index of artists and shows. 304 pages.

Broadway Poster Art: 1945–1969 Cover

The Wall of Life: Pictures and Stories from This Marvelous Lifetime

(10/22/2024)

Extensive photo collection revealing both intimate family memories and images with some of the most significant figures from entertainment and politics. MacLaine reflects on each photo, exploring ambition, love, friendship, motherhood, art, political activism, curiosity, and more. 272 pages.

The Wall of Life: Pictures and Stories from This Marvelous Lifetime Cover

Sonny Boy: A Memoir

(10/15/2024)

To the wider world, Al Pacino exploded onto the scene like a supernova. He landed his first leading role, in The Panic in Needle Park, in 1971, and by 1975, he had starred in four movies—The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon—that were not just successes but landmarks in the history of film. Those performances became legendary and changed his life forever. Not since Marlon Brando and James Dean in the late 1950s had an actor landed in the culture with such f...

Sonny Boy: A Memoir Cover

A Show Tune for Today: 366 Songs to Brighten Your Year Calendar

(10/15/2024)

Day-to-day calendar (one that can be used again and again, in any year). 366 bite-size entries, with anecdotes, observations, fun facts, and other confections tied to a single song, perfect for starting each day. Tied to a show's opening date, holidays, historic dates, lyrics, or connections more surprising. 400 pages.

A Show Tune for Today: 366 Songs to Brighten Your Year Calendar Cover

The Musical: A Research and Information Guide (Routledge Music Bibliographies) 2nd Edition

(10/14/2024)

2nd edition of 2011 book by William Everett. More than 1,400 annotated entries; includes reference works, monographs, articles, anthologies, and websites related to the musical. Separate sections devoted to sub-genres (such as operetta and megamusical), non-English language musical genres in the U.S., traditions outside the U.S., individual shows, creators, performers, and performance. This second edition reflects the notable increase in musical theater scholarship since 2000. Also includes mul...

The Musical: A Research and Information Guide (Routledge Music Bibliographies) 2nd Ed Cover

The Spamalot Diaries

(10/8/2024)

Eric Idle shares original journal entries and raw email exchanges that reveal the sometimes bumpy, always entertaining path to the musical Spamalot's run. 208 pages.

The Spamalot Diaries Cover

Running the Room: Conversations with Women Theatre Directors

(9/24/2024)

Explores, through a series of conversations with many of the leading talents working on British stages, what it takes to succeed in the field, and how each director approaches the work in their own way. Contributions from Natalie Abrahami, Annabel Arden, Milli Bhatia, Carrie Cracknell, Tinuke Craig, Marianne Elliott, Nadia Fall, Yaël Farber, Vicky Featherstone, Jamie Fletcher, Sarah Frankcom, Emma Frankland, Rebecca Frecknall, Debbie Hannan, Tamara Harvey, Natalie Ibu, Ola Ince, Lynette Linton...

Running the Room: Conversations with Women Theatre Directors Cover

The Play's the Thing: Fifty Years of Yale Repertory Theatre (1966-2016)

(9/24/2024)

Each of four chapters is dedicated to one of the Yale Rep's artistic directors to date: Robert Brustein, Lloyd Richards, Stan Wojewodski Jr., and James Bundy. Numerous sidebars are dedicated to the spaces used by the theater, the playwrights produced most often, casting, the prop shop, the costume shop, artist housing, and other topics. Illustrated. Based in part on interviews with some of America’s most respected actors about their experiences at the Rep. 400 pages.

The Play's the Thing: Fifty Years of Yale Repertory Theatre (1966-2016) Cover

The Third Gilmore Girl

(9/17/2024)

Memoir by Kelly Bishop, spanning her six decades in show business from Broadway to Hollywood with A Chorus Line, Dirty Dancing, Gilmore Girls, and much more. Also includes a special collection of personal and professional photographs. 288 pages.

The Third Gilmore Girl Cover

Love Me Tonight (Oxford Guides to Film Musicals)

(9/6/2024)

About the musical film Love Me Tonight (1932), with individual chapters devoted to the work's genesis and development of the screenplay, the songs and instrumental music, the role censorship has played in the history of the film, and the film's reception from its time to the modern day. Informed by extensive archival holdings in several major library collections, as well as from the indispensable resources housed at the Paramount Studio archives. 208 pages.

Love Me Tonight (Oxford Guides to Film Musicals) Cover

Please Be My Star

(9/3/2024)

A wonderfully fun and unique reimagining of The Phantom of the Opera as a teen rom-com set in high school! Erika knows that people find her weird and off-putting. Instead of making friends, she finds solace in talking to herself and obsessing over handsome actors and pop stars. When she starts attending a new school, her loneliness takes on a life of its own and she develops a new obsession: the cutest boy in her theater class, Christian. For some reason, Christian is kind to her and even agree...

Please Be My Star Cover

I Danced on Broadway: Memoir of a Career on Stage

(9/3/2024)

By Lee Wilson, who shares stories from her four decades of dancing on Broadway, with anecdotes about theatre legends including Agnes de Mille, Richard Rodgers, Michael Bennett, Donna McKechnie, and Bernadette Peters. She details the economic, political, and social events that led from the Golden Age to the slump of the early 1970s to the rejuvenation of Broadway with the huge success of A Chorus Line. 241 pages.

I Danced on Broadway: Memoir of a Career on Stage Cover

The Hirschfeld Broadway Tarot: Deck and Guidebook

(9/3/2024)

From spiritual practitioner, tarot card reader, and former Broadway publicist Emily McGill. Deluxe, one-of-a kind deck that "casts" Broadway icons in traditional tarot roles, complete with the art of Al Hirschfeld. 78 cards (3 X 5 inches), guidebook (4 3/4 X 6 inches, 120 pages), inner card box, and magnetic closure keepsake outer box. Fully illustrated guidebook which includes images of each card, alongside card descriptions and suggested interpretations, as well as sample card spreads to guid...

The Hirschfeld Broadway Tarot: Deck and Guidebook Cover

The Songwriter's Handbook: Power Strategies for Crafting Great Lyrics

(8/30/2024)

Platinum award-winning singer, songwriter, and lyricist Mark Winkler provides a handbook on writing great lyrics, chock full of songwriting exercises and engaging personal vignettes. This book crosses a variety of genres andteaches the craft of modern commercial songwriting as practiced by the likes of Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and Bruno Mars.

The Songwriter's Handbook: Power Strategies for Crafting Great Lyrics Cover

The Year that Made the Musical: 1924 and the Glamour of Musical Theatre

(8/29/2024)

About the remarkable mid-Roaring Twenties stagecraft to have been truly transnational, with a stellar cast of producers, performers and creators boldly experimenting worldwide. Revues, musical comedies, zarzuelas and operettas formed part of a thriving theatrical ecosystem, with many works - and their leading artists - now unpredictably defying genres. Demonstrates how fresh approaches became highly successful, with established leads like Marie Tempest and Fred Stone appearing in new production...

The Year that Made the Musical: 1924 and the Glamour of Musical Theatre Cover

Fishamble Tiny Plays

(8/14/2024)

All 70 tiny plays commissioned by Fishamble for Tiny Plays for Ireland, Tiny Plays 24/7, and Tiny Plays for a Brighter Future performed in Dublin, New York City, and Washington DC. 320 pages.

Fishamble Tiny Plays Cover

Brian Friel: Beginnings

(8/2/2024)

Based on newly discovered documents in the BBC and New Yorker archives, the book reveals Friel's youthful personality and his struggles to get noticed as a young writer. His correspondence with his first mentors - Belfast BBC radio producer Ronald Mason, New Yorker editor Roger Angell, and theatre director Tyrone Guthrie - shows how he shaped his early work, how he chose to write for the theatre, and how the patterns that became so memorable in his later plays were set in motion by his beginni...

Brian Friel: Beginnings Cover

Brian Friel: Beginnings

(8/2/2024)

Based on newly discovered documents in the BBC and New Yorker archives, the book reveals Friel's youthful personality and his struggles to get noticed as a young writer. His correspondence with his first mentors - Belfast BBC radio producer Ronald Mason, New Yorker editor Roger Angell, and theatre director Tyrone Guthrie - shows how he shaped his early work, how he chose to write for the theatre, and how the patterns that became so memorable in his later plays were set in motion by his beginnin...

Brian Friel: Beginnings Cover

Say It with a Beautiful Song: The Art and Craft of the Great American Songbook

(7/15/2024)

Looks at the Great American Songbook's craft and its mastery through essential elements of the beloved songs, investigating the qualities that make the songbook a unique staple of American culture. With anecdotes, each chapter looks at a variety of songs thematically and dives into the lives of songwriters. 210 pages.

Say It with a Beautiful Song: The Art and Craft of the Great American Songbook Cover

Ballplayers on Stage: Baseball, Melodrama, and Theatrical Celebrity in the Deadball Era

(7/3/2024)

Explores the relationship between professional baseball and professional theater in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Examines case studies of five representative players from baseball's pre–Babe Ruth “deadball” era: Cap Anson, Mike “King” Kelly, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, and Rube Waddell, with a concluding study of Babe Ruth himself. A historical study of baseball, theater, and the relationship between the two ... also shares insight into the creation of celebrity ...

Ballplayers on Stage: Baseball, Melodrama, and Theatrical Celebrity in the Deadball E Cover

A Sense of Theatre: The Untold Stories of the Creation of Britain's National Theatre

(7/1/2024)

By Richard Pilbrow (British pioneer of stage lighting; appointed by Sir Laurence Olivier to help create the National Theatre of Great Britain as a member of the building committee). An eye-witness account of the birth and subsequent triumph of one of the world's most famous theatres. The theatre architecture has challenged generations of theatre makers, leading to innovation that has changed theatre worldwide. With insight from leading players in British theatre and the minutes of the deliberat...

A Sense of Theatre: The Untold Stories of the Creation of Britain's National Theatre Cover

From The Back Of The House: Memoir of a Broadway Theatre Manager

(6/14/2024)

Memoir by Broadway theater manager Dan Landon. Spanning from 1978-2018, the book shares backstage and onstage stories of encounters with theatre luminaries such as Bob Fosse, Ian McKellen, Bernadette Peters, August Wilson, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Madeline Kahn, Stephen Sondheim, Tom Stoppard, David Mamet, and more.

From The Back Of The House: Memoir of a Broadway Theatre Manager Cover

My First Book–Part 2

(6/4/2024)

Second memoir by veteran motion picture, television and Broadway producer Julian Schlossberg. Je shares stories from his 60 years in show business including new profiles of working with Peter Falk, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, George C. Scott, John Cassavetes and many others. Released 6/4/24.

My First Book–Part 2 Cover

Mike Bartlett

(6/3/2024)

By William C. Boles. Routledge Modern and Contemporary Dramatists series editors Maggie Gale and Graham Saunders. Includes Barlett's plays Cock, Doctor Foster, King Charles III, and Albion, a biographical introductory chapter, and new interviews with Bartlett and some of his closest and oft relied upon collaborators. 186 pages.

Mike Bartlett Cover

Yankee Doodle Dandy: George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage

(5/24/2024)

Part of the Broadway Legacies series. In the first book on Cohan in fifty years, Craft situates Cohan as a central figure of his day. Examining his multifaceted contributions and the various sociocultural identities he came to embody, Craft shows how Cohan and his works indelibly shaped the American cultural landscape. 288 pages.

Yankee Doodle Dandy: George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage Cover

Beautiful: The Story of Julian Eltinge, America's Greatest Female Impersonator

(5/17/2024)

From the late 19th to the early 21st centuries, female impersonation was a hugely popular performance genre. Long before today's popular television shows, men in colleges, business, and even the military formed drag clubs and put on musicals and variety shows of all kinds with little fear of negative judgment. But no female impersonator was as famous, successful, or highly-regarded as Julian Eltinge (1881-1941). Eltinge, born William Dalton just outside Boston, started playing female characters...

Beautiful: The Story of Julian Eltinge, America's Greatest Female Impersonator Cover

BroadwayWorld TV

View all Videos

Ticket Central
Ticket Central
Ticket Central
Hot Show
Tickets From $89
Hot Show
Tickets From $123
Hot Show
Tickets From $72
Hot Show
Tickets From $65
More Hot Shows Discounts

Recommended For You