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Broadway Bookshelf — Reference Books — Page 2

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

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Reference Books Books

The Art of VIVO

(8/17/2021)

Official behind–the–scenes companion book to VIVO, the first-ever musical from Sony Pictures Animation. (Vivo will be directed by Kirk DeMicco and co-directed by Brandon Jeffords, from a screenplay by Quiara Alegría Hudes and DeMicco, and a story based on the original idea by Peter Barsocchini, with songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who voices the title character. With the voices of Ynairaly Simo, Zoe Saldana, Juan de Marcos González, Michael Rooker, Brian Tyree Henry, Nicole Byer, and...

The Art of VIVO

Perspectives on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

(8/12/2021)

With an off-putting title and a decidedly retrograde premise, the CW dramedy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a surprising choice for critical analysis. But, loyal viewers quickly came to appreciate the show’s sharp cultural critique through masterful parody, and this strategy has made it a critical darling and earned it several awards throughout its run. In ways not often seen on traditional network television, the show transcends conventional genre boundaries—the Hollywood musical, the romantic com...

Perspectives on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

The Ground on Which I Stand: 25th Anniversary Edition

(8/10/2021)

August Wilson's personal call for African American artists to seize the power over their own cultural identity and to establish permanent institutions that celebrate and preserve the singular achievements of African American dramatic art and reaffirm its equal importance in contemporary American culture. Delivered as the keynote address at TCG's conference ... refocused the agenda of the entire convening and spurred months of debate about cultural diversity in the American theatre, culminating ...

The Ground on Which I Stand: 25th Anniversary Edition

Theatre Royal Drury Lane

(6/15/2021)

Souvenir guidebook about The Theatre Royal Drury Lane of London’s Covent Garden, the oldest theater in the world in continuous use. From actor-manager David Garrick to Andrew Lloyd Webber, who has now restored the theater to its Georgian glory. From iconic shows to the first pantomimes, from rituals and superstitions to royal fisticuffs, from performers, composers and playwrights to backstage crew, the rich and colorful history of London’s oldest theater is brought to life. New photography fo...

Theatre Royal Drury Lane

In the Heights: Finding Home

(6/15/2021)

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

In the Heights: Finding Home

Modern Theatres 1950 – 2020

(4/19/2021)

An investigation of theatres, concert halls, and opera houses in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North and South America. Explores in detail thirty of the most significant theatres, concert halls, opera houses, and dance spaces that opened between 1950 and 2010. Each theatre is reviewed and assessed by experts in theatre buildings, such as architects, acousticians, consultants, and theatre practitioners, and illustrated with full-color photographs and comparative plans and sections. A further...

Modern Theatres 1950 – 2020

The Reason to Sing: A Guide to Acting While Singing

(4/9/2021)

By composer-lyricist and teacher Craig Carnelia (Working, Is There Life After High School?, Sweet Smell of Success). Step-by-step guide to making singing performances more truthful, vivid, and full of life. Utilizes detailed descriptions of sessions the author has had with his notable students and lays out a new and proven approach to help you build your skills, your confidence, and your career.

The Reason to Sing: A Guide to Acting While Singing

A Wonderful Guy: Conversations with the Great Men of Musical Theater

(4/1/2021)

In A Wonderful Guy, a follow up to Nothing Like a Dame: Conversations with the Great Women of Musical Theater, theatre journalist Eddie Shapiro sits down for intimate, career-encompassing conversations with nineteen of Broadway's most prolific and fascinating leading men. Full of detailed stories and reflections, his conversations with such luminaries as Joel Grey, Ben Vareen, Norm Lewis, Gavin Creel, Cheyenne Jackson, Jonathan Groff and a host of others dig deep into each actor's career; toget...

A Wonderful Guy: Conversations with the Great Men of Musical Theater

American Theatre Ensembles Volume 1

(11/12/2020)

First volume in series, covering the years 1970-1995. Overview of ensemble-based creation within the general historical and cultural contexts of the period, followed by a detailed study of the evolution of ensemble-based work. Contributors examine matters such as influence, funding, production and legacies, as well as the forms of collective devising and creation, while presenting close readings of the companies' most prominent works.

American Theatre Ensembles Volume 1

Singular Sensation: The Triumph of Broadway

(11/10/2020)

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

Singular Sensation: The Triumph of Broadway

Sweet Mystery: The Musical Works of Rida Johnson Young

(11/6/2020)

Part of Broadway Legacies series. Study of the musical theater works of Rida Johnson Young (ca. 1869-1926), one of the most prolific female playwrights of her time, as well as a lyricist and librettist in the musical theater. She wrote more than thirty full-length plays, operettas, and musical comedies, 500 songs, and four novels, including Naughty Marietta, Lady Luxury, The Red Petticoat, and When Love is Young. 192 pages. Using archival materials such as original typescripts, correspondence, ...

Sweet Mystery: The Musical Works of Rida Johnson Young

Time to Act: An Intimate Photographic Portrait of Actors Backstage

(10/31/2020)

In meditative portraits, often shot in the intimate space of the dressing room, Annand captures the focus and tension of world-class actors right before they go on the stage. Including Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal and Judi Dench.

Time to Act: An Intimate Photographic Portrait of Actors Backstage

The ABC's of Broadway Musicals: A Civilian's Guide

(10/26/2020)

Presents a basic understanding of this most American of art forms, the musical theatre, including a very brief history of musicals, a survey of important and well-known shows, examples of the wide and wild variety of musicals, a look at the amazing people who create musicals, and a sense of how Broadway musicals reflect and comment on our culture.

The ABC's of Broadway Musicals: A Civilian's Guide

The Song Is You: Musical Theatre and the Politics of Bursting into Song and Dance

(10/15/2020)

Are the musical's progressive politics rooted in its embrace of regressive entertainments like burlesque and minstrelsy? Shows how musicals return again and again to this question, and grapple with a guilt that its joyous pleasures are based on exploiting the laboring bodies of its performers. Rogers argues that the discourse of "integration"—which claims that songs should advance the plot—has functioned to deny the radical work that the musical undertakes every time it transitions into son...

The Song Is You: Musical Theatre and the Politics of Bursting into Song and Dance

Sing Like Never Before

(10/10/2020)

Written by New York Vocal Coaching founder Justin Stoney, the Award-winning book Sing Like Never Before was created to help Singers and Voice Teachers understand complex ideas and concepts while still keeping the fun and the Joy throughout the process. With its colorful artwork and entertaining style, Sing Like Never Before is making vocal technique practical and accessible for vocalists and pedagogues everywhere.

Sing Like Never Before

London Theatres (new edition)

(10/6/2020)

Fully revised and updated version of 2017 book by drama critic Michael Coveney, with photographs by Peter Dazeley. Stories of the architecture, the people, and the productions which have defined each theatre, with photographs of the public areas, auditorium and backstage, Updated to include ten additional theatres, including the Victoria Palace Theatre, the Sondheim Theatre, the Bridge Theatre and the Noël Coward Theatre. Foreword by Mark Rylance. 288

London Theatres (new edition)

The Complete Book of 2010s Broadway Musicals

(9/10/2020)

New volume in Dan Dietz' series of books (which previously covered the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s). Includes detailed information about every musical that opened on Broadway from 2010 through the end of 2019. Discusses the decade's major successes, notorious failures, and musicals that closed during their pre-Broadway tryouts, and also highlights revivals and personal-appearance revues. Plot summaries; cast members; names of all important personnel, including ...

The Complete Book of 2010s Broadway Musicals

Understanding Tracy Letts

(9/4/2020)

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in drama as well as Tony Awards for best play and best actor, Tracy Letts has emerged as one of the greatest playwrights of the twenty-first century. Understanding Tracy Letts, the first book dedicated to his writing, is an introduction to his plays and an invitation to engage more deeply with his work―both for its emotional power and cultural commentary.

Understanding Tracy Letts

Oklahoma!: The Making of an American Musical, Revised and Expanded Edition

(9/1/2020)

Revised edition of 2007 book which tells the full story of the beloved Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Now, Carter draws further on recently released sources, including the Rouben Mamoulian Papers at the Library of Congress, with additional correspondence, contracts, and even new versions of the working script used—and annotated—throughout the show's rehearsal process. Carter also focuses on the key players and concepts behind the musical, including Lynn Riggs's "Green Grow the Lilacs," an...

Oklahoma!: The Making of an American Musical, Revised and Expanded Edition

My White Best Friend: (And Other Letters Left Unsaid)

(9/1/2020)

Originally commissioned by The Bunker Theatre as a festival that ran in 2019. 23 letters that engage with a range of topics, from racial tensions, microaggressions and emotional labour, to queer desire, prejudice and otherness. Includes work from Zia Ahmed, Travis Alabanza, Fatimah Asghar, Nathan Bryon, Matilda Ibini, Jammz, Iman Qureshi, Anya Reiss, Somalia Seaton, Nina Segal, Tolani Shoneye, Lena Dunham, Inua Ellams, Rabiah Hussain, Mika Johnson, Jasmine Lee-Jones, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, Shi...

My White Best Friend: (And Other Letters Left Unsaid)

Break an Egg!: The Broadway Cookbook

(9/1/2020)

55 recipes inspired by favorite musicals from The Sound of Music to Hamilton, including Eggrolls for Mr. Goldstone served with a side of Too Darn Hot Sauce; Another Vodka Stinger, The Wizard and Ice, Schnitzel With Noodles, Mama’s Well-Peppered Ragu, Angel (Food Cake) of Music. With illustrations and photographs.

Break an Egg!: The Broadway Cookbook

Broadway Musical Christmas Carols

(8/31/2020)

25 well-loved Christmas carols refashioned for the hard-core fan of Broadway musicals, in new vocal arrangements with all-new lyrics related to musical theatre – funny, serious, smartass, cynical, reverent, poignant songs that will make you laugh, that will make you think, that will remind you why you love musicals so much.

Broadway Musical Christmas Carols

A Tale of Transformation: Twenty-Five Years of Beauty and the Beast on Stage

(8/27/2020)

Fully illustrated with concept art, costume designs, behind-the-scenes photography, and other rarities and never-before published visuals, along with text by renowned Disney author historian Jeff Kurtti. Also features a dozen guest essays by creative talents and performers who have been a part of, or been deeply influenced by this landmark cultural work. Disney Editions Deluxe series.

A Tale of Transformation: Twenty-Five Years of Beauty and the Beast on Stage

The Theatre and Films of Conor McPherson: Conspicuous Communities

(8/20/2020)

Offers a detailed and engaging critical analysis of the plays and films of Conor McPherson, considering issues of gender and class disparity, violence and wealth in the cultural and political contexts in which the work is written and performed, as well as the inclusion of song, sound, the supernatural, religious and pagan festive sensibilities through which initial genre perceptions are nudged elsewhere, towards the unconscious and ineffable. Supplemented by a number of contributed critical and...

The Theatre and Films of Conor McPherson: Conspicuous Communities

Stage Money: The Business of the Professional Theater 2nd edition

(8/4/2020)

For decades roughly 80 percent of commercial Broadway productions have failed to recoup their original investments. In light of this shocking and harsh reality, how does the show go on? Tim Donahue and Jim Patterson answer this question and many others in this updated edition of their popular, straightforward guide to understanding professional theater finances and the economic realities of theater production.

Stage Money: The Business of the Professional Theater 2nd edition

The Understudy

(7/1/2020)

THE UNDERSTUDY is the story of Nina Landau, an actress, living in New York City in the early '70s and trying hard to make it on Broadway. We follow her from her Broadway audition nerves to her eventual success on stage. Along the way we discover what goes on backstage during a Broadway show, how actors deal with the mistakes that occasionally occur and how exciting it is to be at an opening night party at Sardi's! Nina experiences thrilling triumphs as well as crushing setbacks and has a passio...

The Understudy

Les Miserables and Its Afterlives

(6/30/2020)

Offers analysis of both the Victor Hugo novel itself and its adaptations: more than 60 international film and television variations, numerous radio dramatizations, animated versions, comics, stage plays, and the world's longest running musical, which itself has generated a wealth of fan-made and online content. Draws together essays from across a variety of fields, combining readings of Les Misérables with reflections on some of its multimedia afterlives, including musical theater and film fro...

Les Miserables and Its Afterlives

West Side Story: The Jets, the Sharks, and the Making of a Classic (Turner Classic Movies)

(6/30/2020)

A major hit on Broadway, on film West Side Story became immortal-a movie different from anything that had come before, but this cinematic victory came at a price. In this engrossing volume, film historian Richard Barrios recounts how the drama and rivalries seen onscreen played out to equal intensity behind-the-scenes, while still achieving extraordinary artistic feats. The making and impact of West Side Story has so far been recounted only in vestiges. In the pages of this book, the backsta...

West Side Story: The Jets, the Sharks, and the Making of a Classic (Turner Classic Mo

So You Want to Sing Cabaret: A Guide for Performers

(6/15/2020)

Examines in detail the unique vocal and nonvocal requirements for professional performance within the genre of cabaret. Includes interviews from Michael Feinstein, Ann Hampton Callaway, Roy Sander, Sidney Myer, Jeff Harner and others. Produced in partnership with the National Association of Teachers of Singing and features online supplemental material, including style-specific exercises, audio and video files, on the NATS website.

So You Want to Sing Cabaret: A Guide for Performers

Tarell Alvin McCraney: Theater, Performance, and Collaboration

(6/15/2020)

This is the first book to dedicate scholarly attention to the work of Tarell Alvin McCraney (Choir Boy, Head of Passes, The Brother/Sister Plays). Featuring essays, interviews, and commentaries by scholars and artists, who consider McCraney’s innovations as a playwright, adapter, director, performer, teacher, and collaborator, bringing fresh and diverse perspectives to their observations and analyses.

Tarell Alvin McCraney: Theater, Performance, and Collaboration

The Mikado to Matilda: British Musicals on the New York Stage

(6/15/2020)

An overview of British musicals that made their way to Broadway, covering their entire history up to the present day. Covers 110 British musicals, ranging from 1750 to the present day. Each London musical is discussed first as a success in England and then how it fared in America. The plots, songs, songwriters, performers, and producers for both the West End and the Broadway (or Off-Broadway) production are identified and described

The Mikado to Matilda: British Musicals on the New York Stage

Broadway Tails: Heartfelt Stories of Rescued Dogs Who Became Showbiz Superstars (3rd edition)

(6/1/2020)

The sun always comes out tomorrow for the shelter animals Bill Berloni rescues—sometimes from death’s door—and then trains to meet the demands of the stage. Berloni was a nineteen-year-old theater apprentice more then three decades ago when he was offered his first big break: find and train a dog to appear in the original production of the Broadway hit Annie. Defying the odds, he rescued a down-on-his-luck dog from a local shelter and, together, they redefined what animal performers could...

Broadway Tails: Heartfelt Stories of Rescued Dogs Who Became Showbiz Superstars (3rd

Shakespeare in the Theatre: The National Theatre, 1963–1975: Olivier and Hall

(5/28/2020)

Paperback version of 2018 book by Robert Shaughnessy about the National Theatre's most Shakespearean period in its history, 1963-1975, one which included Laurence Olivier's Othello and Shylock, a radical all-male As You Like It, the Berliner Ensemble's Coriolanus and Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Tells the interlinked stories of the National's relationship with Shakespeare through a series of production case studies.

Shakespeare in the Theatre: The National Theatre, 1963–1975: Olivier and Hall

We Can Be Kind: Healing Our World One Kindness at a Time (audiobook)

(5/6/2020)

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

We Can Be Kind: Healing Our World One Kindness at a Time (audiobook)

The Untold Stories of Broadway Vol 1 - Kindle edition

(4/23/2020)

Chronicle of the history of Broadway through firsthand accounts from actors, directors, producers, stagehands, designers, ushers and others. Each chapter represents one Broadway theater. Volume 1 covers The Al Hirschfeld, August Wilson, Lyceum, Mark Hellinger, Marquis, Neil Simon, Richard Rodgers and Winter Garden Theatres. Free through March 27

The Untold Stories of Broadway Vol 1 - Kindle edition

Simply: A Lifetime of Lyrics

(4/21/2020)

Lyrics by Bruce Kimmel from his shows, films, TV shows, and standalone songs. Expected to ship by third week in April

Simply: A Lifetime of Lyrics

M is for MAMA (and also Merlot): A Modern Mom's ABCs

(4/1/2020)

Illustrated by Helene Weston. A board book for moms. This irreverent board book provides laughter, reassurance, confidence, honesty, and perhaps even a moment of relaxation for expectant, new, and not-so-new moms.

M is for MAMA (and also Merlot): A Modern Mom's ABCs

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