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History Books

Ever After: The Last Years of Musical Theater and Beyond

(2004)

Ever After is more than a detailed show-by-show history of the last quarter century in American musical theater. It explains how the storied Broadway tradition in many cases went so very wrong. Singer takes the reader behind the scenes for an unparalleled look at A Chorus Line's final bow, the creation of Rent, the real people behind Disney's uber-musicals, and even an afternoon with Andrew Lloyd Webber.Ever After also celebrates the promise of the next generation of young musical theater artist...

Ever After: The Last Years of Musical Theater and Beyond

British Musical Theatre: 2 Volumes Volume 1: 1865-1914 Volume 2: 1915-1984

(1987)

From the pre-Gilbert and Sullivan 1860s to the 1980s, this important reference surveys more than a century of British light musical theatre, including its writers and composers. Gänzl provides a wealth of information on the book, lyrics, and music of over 800 London musicals, including contemporary reviews, cast lists, performances, plus pertinent notes gleaned from a study of surviving scores and libretti. Volume 1 traces the development of the genre between 1865 and 1914, describing its roots...

British Musical Theatre: 2 Volumes Volume 1: 1865-1914 Volume 2: 1915-1984

Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies

(2005)

Chapin tells how the 1971 Hal Prince/ Stephen Sondheim/Michael Bennett musical about old theater performers created no strapping young stars, went through multiple revisions, lost money and yet established a place in theater memory for emotional and artistic complexity. The author, son of arts impresario Schuyler Chapin, was one of Follies's few youngsters, a Connecticut College student observing the production as independent study but becoming the crew's gofer. Chapin's chronology spans the pra...

Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies

Better Foot Forward

(1976)

The History of American Musical Theatre

Directors and the New Musical Drama

(2008)

Directors and the New Musical Drama offers a fresh perspective on the dramatic shifts in musical theatre in the 1980s and 90s. Miranda Lundskaer-Nielsen explores the cultural differences between British and American musicals, examines their critical reception, and demonstrates the crucial role of British and American directors in developing musical dramas that have initiated change in the parameters of this popular art form. Starting with the provocative idea of the “British Invasion,” this ...

Broadway to Hollywood

(1998)

With the coming of sound movies as a commercial proposition in the late 1920s, the importance of music in the cinema grew enormously. The arrival of color, allied to the technical developments in recording itself, gave to the great film makers a fabulous palette with which to realize the transfer to the screen of the Broadway hits, capturing forever the great theatrical shows of the century. Thus two great entertainment disciplines, both essential products of America, were joined: the Broadway ...

The Virgin Encyclopedia of Stage and Film Musicals

(1999)

Musical buffs have finally met their match in Colin Larkin's latest volume. The Virgin Encyclopedia of Stage & Film Musicals is an exhaustive, indepth view of one of the world's oldest forms of entertainment. Timeless classics are included in this volume as well as the flops which may have escaped the memories of avid musical enthusiasts. Compiling an entire history of musicals in one volume allows the reader to draw links between stage and film. How many people knew that Gay Divorce, Funny Fac...

The Virgin Encyclopedia of Stage and Film Musicals

Make Believe: The Broadway Musical in the 1920's

(1997)

Anyone seeking to understand 20th-century America should consider examining it through the lens of musical theater. Ethan Mordden's Make Believe: The Broadway Musical in the 1920s tells us so much more about what was really on people's minds during that decade than a hundred hours of newsreels ever could. Mordden conjures up a parade of glittering Ziegfeldian revues, galumphing operettas, Marxian star vehicles, writers like Richard Rodgers, George Gershwin, and Irving Berlin in their first flow...

Make Believe: The Broadway Musical in the 1920's

The First Hollywood Musicals: A Critical Filmography of 171 Features, 1927 Through 1932

(2004)

As Hollywood entered the sound era, it was rightly determined that the same public fascinated by the novelty of the talkie would be dazzled by the spectacle of a song and dance film. In 1929 and 1930, film musicals became the industry’s most lucrative genre—until the greedy studios almost killed the genre by glutting the market with too many films that looked and sounded like clones of each other. From the classy movies such as Sunnyside Up and Hallelujah! to failures such as The Lottery Br...

The First Hollywood Musicals: A Critical Filmography of 171 Features, 1927 Through 19

Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Dramas on Broadway: Situating the Western Experience in Performing Arts

(2011)

Frontier dramas were among the most popular and successful of early-twentieth-century Broadway type plays. The long runs of dramas such as Augustus Thomas's Arizona (1900), Owen Wister and Kirke La Shelle's The Virginian (1904), Edwin Milton Royle's The Squaw Man (1905), David Belasco's The Girl of the Golden West (1905), William Vaughn Moody's The Great Divide (1906), and Rachel Crothers's The Three of Us (1906) not only indicate the popularity of these plays but also tell us that these plays ...

Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Dramas on Broadway: Situating the Western Experience

Through the Screen Door: What Happened to the Broadway Musical When it Went to Hollywood

(2004)

This book is about the transition that musicals went through when they traveled from the stage to the screen. While the approach is critical, the style is readable and yields fascinating knowledge on the many things that did and didn't happen as theatre and film have merged throughout the past century.Hischak'sanalysis covers productions from The Desert Song (1927), to Chicago (2002).

Through the Screen Door: What Happened to the Broadway Musical When it Went to Hollyw

Incongruous Entertainment: Camp, Cultural Value, and the MGM Musical

(2005)

With their lavish costumes and sets, ebullient song and dance numbers, and iconic movie stars, the musicals that mgm produced in the 1940s seem today to epitomize camp. Yet they were originally made to appeal to broad, mainstream audiences. In this lively, nuanced, and provocative reassessment of the mgm musical, Steven Cohan argues that this seeming incongruity—between the camp value and popular appreciation of these musicals—is not as contradictory as it seems. He demonstrates that the fi...

Incongruous Entertainment: Camp, Cultural Value, and the MGM Musical

A Beautiful Pageant: African American Theatre, Drama, and Performance in the Harlem Renaissance, 1910-1927

(2002)

The Harlem Renaissance, from 1910 to 1927, was the time when Harlem came alive with theater, drama, sports, dance, and politics. Looking at events as diverse as the prizefight between Jack Johnson and Jim “White Hope” Jeffries, the choreography of Aida Walker and Ethel Waters, the writing of Zora Neale Hurston and the musicals of the period, Krasner paints a vibrant portrait of those years. This was the time when the residents of northern Manhattan were leading their downtown counterparts at...

A Beautiful Pageant: African American Theatre, Drama, and Performance in the Harlem R

The American Musical: History & Development

(2010)

The "Broadway Musical" holds a special place in the history of the performing arts, and this book helps trace its origins and development of this unique art form. The European roots of the genre are explored, and traced into more modern times through the burlesque, minstrel, and reivue shows of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Running right into the modern age, the book gives insights and information on key figures of every era, from P.G. Wodehouse to Andrew Lloyd Webber and covering everythin...

The American Musical: History & Development

A Chronology of American Musical Theater

(2002)

With an introductory chapter discussing the very earliest productions—The Beggar's Opera (1750), The Archers (1796), Tom and Jerry (1823), and The Bohemian Girl (1844)—A Chronology of American Musical Theater offers in-depth coverage of Broadway musicals from 1850-2001. The book's entries span more than 5,000 shows, including not only "book musicals" but also revivals, revues, burlesques, operettas, farce comedies, comic operas, ice skating shows, rock operas, and other musical spectacles th...

A Chronology of American Musical Theater

With an air debonair: Musical theatre in American 1785-1815

(1991)

Even before reading this record, one is struck by the beautiful layout and clarity of reproductions found within. This most comprehensive piece of research fills a scholarly gap on the early history of musical theater in the United States. Not just a chronicler of musical theater, Porter (music history, Ohio State Univ.) provides fascinating information on all aspects of 18th-and 19th-century musical production: personnel, technical effects, musical composition, and orchestra. In addition to the...

With an air debonair: Musical theatre in American 1785-1815

Broadway!: 125 Years of Musical Theatre

(1991)

Offers an illustrated survey of American musicals from "The Black Crook" in 1886 to 1991's "Miss Saigon," detailing the stars, sets, and designs.

Extravaganza King: Robert Barnet and Boston Musical Theater

(2004)

This is the entertaining tale of Robert Barnet (1853–1933), a prosperous Boston sugar merchant, and the enormously popular musical theatricals he wrote and produced for the First Corps of Cadets, a volunteer militia of young upper-class Boston businessmen who sought money to build an armory as protection against feared immigrant uprisings. Barnet had already made a name for himself in local amateur theater circles when the Corps hired the middle-aged father of five to stage fund-raisers to er...

Extravaganza King: Robert Barnet and Boston Musical Theater

Historical Dictionary of the Broadway Musical

(2007)

This title in the Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts series provides a wealth of information on musical Broadway. A chronology covers from 1866—when The Black Crook, one of the first important Broadway musicals, opened—to 2006. This is followed by an introduction that describes the evolution of the form. The main part of the dictionary consists of nearly 1,000 entries arranged alphabetically by person, show title, or subject, from Aarons, Alexander (a producer who worked wit...

Historical Dictionary of the Broadway Musical

150 Years of Popular Musical Theatre

(2001)

Both informed and engaging, 150 Years of Popular Musical Theatre by British musicologist Andrew Lamb traces the development of modern musical theater from its beginnings in Paris roughly a century and a half ago to productions seen today on Broadway, in New York's East Village and the West End of London. Lamb contends that the dawn of the Industrial Revolution brought an increase in the uneducated working population to urban centers where the demand for "less sophisticated, more accessible thea...

No Legs, No Jokes, No Chance

(2008)

Written by one of American theater's most avid and knowledgeable proponents, No Legs, No Jokes, No Chance traces the American musical from its rich and varied beginnings in European opera, American minstrel shows, and vaudeville through its many permutations to its current state--from, as Sheldon Patinkin puts it, La Boheme to Rent. Minstrelsy, burlesque, revue, dance, and choreographers, the of musical theater so often overlooked by its historians, finally receive due consideration in this thor...

Stage It with Music: An Encyclopedic Guide to the American Musical Theatre

(1993)

A one-stop, up-to-date source for information on the history of the American musical theatre, Stage It with Music packs an astonishing quantity and variety of facts as well as insights and anecdotes into a convenient dictionary format. Coverage extends from the genre's nineteenth century beginnings to the present day, from The Black Crook (1866) to Jelly's Last Jam (1992). Included are entries on over 300 individual shows, musical series, performers, composers, lyricists, librettists, directors,...

Stage It with Music: An Encyclopedic Guide to the American Musical Theatre

Operetta: A Theatrical History

(2003)

Operetta: A Theatrical History is considered the classic history of this important musical theater form. Traubner's book, first published in 1983, is still recognized as the key history of the people and productions that made operetta a worldwide phenomenon. Beginning in mid-19th century Europe, the book covers all of the key developments in the form, including the landmark works by Strauss and his followers, Gilbert & Sullivan, Franz Lehar, Rudolf Friml, Victor Herbert, and many more. The book ...

Black Musical Theatre: From Coontown to Dreamgirls

(1989)

Black Musical Theatre begins its historical survey with Clorindy, the Origin of the Cakewalk and A Trip to Coontown, in 1898, and concludes with the Broadway smash Dreanigirls, in 1981. The section on the ragtime pianist and composer Eubie Blake and his popular 1920s show, Shuffle Along, attests to early black influence in American musical theater. Prior to the 1920s, black musical theater was enriched by Walker and Williams, Cole and Johnson, Miller and Lyles, and Ernest Hogan. White producers ...

Black Musical Theatre: From Coontown to Dreamgirls

First Nights: Five Musical Premiers

(2001)

This is a unique and extremely attractive account of the premieres of five musical masterpieces spanning from 1607 to 1913: Monteverdi's opera Orfeo, Handel's oratorio Messiah, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, and Stravinsky's ballet Le Sacre du printemps. The focus of each essay is the actual premiere, but Kelly, who teaches a course called "First Nights" at Harvard, first places each event in its broader historical and cultural setting and then proceeds to fill in ...

America's Musical Stage: Two Hundred Years of Musical Theatre

(1985)

Mates shows the musical stage in all its guises--from burlesque to musical comedy to grand opera--from its beginnings in pre-Revolutionary America to the present day. He deals sensitively with the recurrent aesthetic question of popular versus highbrow art and also looks at critical reactions to popular theatrical forms of musical entertainment. He introduces the reader to various types of theatrical companies, the changing repertory, and the many kinds of musical performers who have animated th...

America's Musical Stage: Two Hundred Years of Musical Theatre

The History of the Musical

(2001)

This audiobook traces the musical from its origins in classical music through to its flowering in America; "Showboat", "Anything Goes", "Guys and Dolls", "West Side Story", "The Sound of Music" - the list is endless. It also includes over 120 musical examples to illustrate the story.

Theatre in the Victorian Age

(1991)

This book examines all major aspects of theater practice and dramatic literature of the Victorian period. Michael Booth's comprehensive survey explores the social and cultural context of the theater including theater management, the audience, architecture and production methods, acting and the job of the actor, as well as the drama itself. Within this framework, Booth discusses such topics as the effect on theater of population growth and the spread of the railway system, the typical organizatio...

Beautiful Mornin': The Broadway Musical in the 1940s

(1999)

Once again establishing that he is as impressive a nonfiction writer as he is a novelist (How Long Has This Been Going On?; Buddies), Mordden analyzes the many notable hits (and egregious flops) of the 1940s, and describes how they figured intoAand indeed establishedAthat period's importance to the Broadway musical theater. It was a decade of many milestones, chief among which was the emergence of Rodgers and Hammerstein with 1943's unlikely groundbreaker, Oklahoma ("all Broadway gaped as these...

Beautiful Mornin': The Broadway Musical in the 1940s

American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle

(2010)

Gerald Bordman's American Musical Theatre has become a landmark book since its publication in 1978. It chronicles American musicals, show by show and season by season, and offers a running commentary and assessment as well as providing the basic facts about each production. This updated edition includes the new shows that have opened on Broadway since the original publication. Also included are over a hundred musicals that were turn-of-the-century, cheap-priced touring shows which never played B...

Performing Spanishness

(2007)

José María Rodríguez Méndez is a noted playwright, an acerbic cultural critic, and a political dissident under Franco. In Performing Spanishness, the first English-language examination of Méndez’s life and work, Michael Thompson sets the playwright’s lifelong struggle against censorship in the context of Spain’s shifting national identity. Méndez’s work presents “Spanishness” not as a static trait, but as an ongoing performance; Performing Spanishness is an indispensable resour...

Making the Scene: A History of Stage Design and Technology in Europe and the United States

(2010)

Theatrical scene design is one of the most beautiful, varied, and lively art forms. Yet there are relatively few books on the subject, and almost none for a general audience that combine expansive scholarship with lavish design. Making the Scene offers an unprecedented survey of the evolving context, theory, and practice of scene design from ancient Greek times to the present, coauthored by the world's best-known authority on the subject and enhanced by three hundred full-color illustrations. ...

Making the Scene: A History of Stage Design and Technology in Europe and the United S

Black Magic: A Pictorial History of the African-American in the Performing Arts

(1990)

Black Magic Langston Hughes's last book, presents the vast, sweeping story of African-American entertainers--the artists and the musicians, the singers and the dancers, the obscure and the illustrious--from the tragic beginnings in slavery to he triumphant artistic achievements of the late 1960s. Long considered the most comprehensive history of African-Americans in the performing arts, this milestone in black history features hundreds of rare and beautiful illustrations. Covering both the obst...

Black Magic: A Pictorial History of the African-American in the Performing Arts

Reflecting the Audience: London Theatregoing, 1840-1880

(2001)

This innovative work begins to fill a large gap in theatre studies: the lack of any comprehensive study of nineteenth-century British theatre audiences. In an attempt to bring some order to the enormous amount of available primary material, Jim Davis and Victor Emeljanow focus on London from 1840, immediately prior to the deregulation of that city's theatres, to 1880, when the Metropolitan Board of Works assumed responsibility for their licensing. In a further attempt to manage their material, t...

Reflecting the Audience: London Theatregoing, 1840-1880

The Theatre of the Greeks: A Series of Papers Relating to the History and Criticism of the Greek Drama

(2010)

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of t...

The Theatre of the Greeks: A Series of Papers Relating to the History and Criticism o

African Theatre 9: Histories 1850-1950

(2010)

African performers, dramatists and directors have far out-paced chroniclers, critics and librarians, and as a result, those preparing accounts of theatre movements and performance on the continent have very limited resources to work on. African Theatre 9 addresses the topic of theatre history and, more specifically, looks at a selection of theatrical movements and events between 1850 and 1950. Drawing on such archived resources as are available, this volume seeks to recover moments from the pas...

British Theatre between the Wars, 1918-1939

(2007)

This volume reveals a theater culture more complex and contradictory than previous histories have allowed for. Combining the popular with the commercial, the book includes accounts of the craze for thriller and detective plays and musical comedy and revue, alongside analyses of historical pageantry and the development of politicized productions of Shakespeare. It initiates a long overdue reassessment of mid-twentieth century British theater cultures. The book will appeal to advanced undergraduat...

British Theatre between the Wars, 1918-1939

The Cambridge History of American Theatre 3 Volume Paperback Set

(2006)

This unique three-volume history covers all aspects of American theatre from plays and playwrights, through actors and acting, to theatre groups and directors. Each volume includes an extensive overview and timeline followed by chapters on specific aspects of American theatre including vaudeville and popular entertainment, European influences, theatre in and beyond New York, the rise of the Little Theatre movement, reception, modernism, scenography, stagecraft, and architecture. Volume I covers...

The Cambridge History of American Theatre 3 Volume Paperback Set

The Horse's Mouth: Staging Morpurgo's War Horse

(2008)

The latest in the series 'The National Theatre at Work' follows the production of War Horse from early concept workshops, through the design and development of the magnificent life-size horse puppets, research of the play's languages and wartime setting, the exploratory process of making the adaptation, rehearsals with the ensemble, and onto the Olivier stage. Mervin Millar's unique perspective as a member of the creative team and a puppeteer gives an extraordinary insight into the way this st...

The Horse's Mouth: Staging Morpurgo's War Horse

Historic Photos of Broadway: New York Theater: 1850-1970

(2008)

With 240 carefully selected photographs and memorabilia from the New York Public Library's acclaimed Billy Rose Theatre Collection Historic Photos of Broadway: New York Theater 1850 1970 celebrates the Great White Way, the undisputed pinnacle of success and achievement on the American stage. This beautiful coffee table book begins before the Civil War Historic Photos conjures up a time when Times Square was farmland when New York's theater district crisscrossed lower Manhattan. The volume is pa...

Historic Photos of Broadway: New York Theater: 1850-1970

Theatre Histories: An Introduction

(2009)

This new edition of the innovative and widely acclaimed Theatre Histories: An Introduction offers overviews of theatre and drama in many world cultures and periods together with case studies demonstrating the methods and interpretive approaches used by today's theatre historians. Completely revised and renewed in color, enhancements and new material include: A full-color text design with added timelines to each opening section A wealth of new color illustrations to help convey the vita...

Babylon Girls: Black Women Performers and the Shaping of the Modern

(2008)

Babylon Girls is a groundbreaking cultural history of the African American women who performed in variety shows--chorus lines, burlesque revues, cabaret acts, and the like--between 1890 and 1945. Through a consideration of the gestures, costuming, vocal techniques, and stagecraft developed by African American singers and dancers, Jayna Brown explains how these women shaped the movement and style of an emerging urban popular culture. In an era of U.S. and British imperialism, these women challen...

Babylon Girls: Black Women Performers and the Shaping of the Modern

Gangsters and Gold Diggers: Old New York, the Jazz Age, and the Birth of Broadway

(2003)

Once upon a time Broadway was just another street. In Gangsters & Gold Diggers, Jerome Charyn transports readers back to a swaggering, golden era in American life—the Roaring Twenties—when Broadway suddenly exploded into Broadway. Damon Runyon was the first chronicler of the Big Street. He created the myth of Broadway, invented the "slanguage." The Ziegfeld Follies became its most important institution—everybody, including Zelda Fitzgerald, wanted to be a Follies Girl. Then came Lindy’...

Gangsters and Gold Diggers: Old New York, the Jazz Age, and the Birth of Broadway

A Short History of Opera

(1965)

When first published in 1947, A Short History of Opera immediately achieved international status as a classic in the field. Now, more than five decades later, this thoroughly revised and expanded fourth edition informs and entertains opera lovers just as its predecessors have. The fourth edition incorporates new scholarship that traces the most important developments in the evolution of musical drama. After surveying anticipations of the operatic form in the lyric theater of the Greeks, medi...

History of Theatre

(2000)

This bold undertaking covers Western theatre from ancient Greece to the present day. It traces the development of dramatic art through the miracle plays, the great Shakespearean period, Moliere and Racine in France, Goethe in Germany, through the 19th century and the main movements in the 20th century. It is illustrated by numerous examples of differing styles, with some historical recordings as well and excerpts from nearly 50 plays. A fascinating journey. It is written by David Timson, the Br...

The Theatre: A Concise History

(1998)

Acting, direction, stagecraft, theater architecture and design, above all the whole extraordinary evolution of dramatic literature--here is an all-embracing and richly illustrated history, worldwide in scope and ranging from the ancient origins of the theater in the choral hymns sung around the altar of Dionysus to the fascinating variety of forms that it has taken in our own age. For this revised edition, Enoch Brater has written a new chapter, taking into account contemporary movements in the...

The Fervent Years: The Group Theatre And The Thirties

(1983)

The Group Theatre was perhaps the most significant experiment in the history of American theater. Producing plays that reflected topical issues of the decade and giving a creative chance to actors, directors, and playwrights who were either fed up with or shut out of commercial theater, the ”Group” remains a permanent influence on American drama despite its brief ten-year life. It was here that method acting, native realism, and political language had their tryouts in front of audiences who...

The Fervent Years: The Group Theatre And The Thirties

A Source Book in Theatrical History: Twenty-five centuries of stage history in more than 300 basic documents and other primary material

(1959)

A rich resource for students of theater and theater historians, this volume features an annotated collection of more than 300 unusually interesting and detailed articles. Passages by contemporary observers from ancient Greece to modern times include notes on acting, directing, make-up, costuming, stage props, machinery, scene design, and much more.

A Source Book in Theatrical History: Twenty-five centuries of stage history in more t

Musical Theatre: A History

(2010)

"Musical Theatre" is a comprehensive history of stage musicals ranging from Paris, Ancient Greece and Rome during the 1840s all the way up to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Broadway as it we know it today. Like every art form, musical theatre has been changing and evolving since its inception more than 2000 years ago. "Musical Theatre: A History" presents a comprehensive history of stage musicals from the earliest accounts of the ancient Greeks and Romans, for whom songs were common elements in stagin...

Our Musicals, Ourselves: A Social History of the American Musical Theatre

(2004)

Our Musicals, Ourselves is the first full-scale social history of the American musical theater from the imported Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas of the late nineteenth century to such recent musicals as The Producers and Urinetown. While many aficionados of the Broadway musical associate it with wonderful, diversionary shows like The Music Man or My Fair Lady, John Bush Jones instead selects musicals for their social relevance and the extent to which they engage, directly or metaphorically, c...

Our Musicals, Ourselves: A Social History of the American Musical Theatre

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