What They Did for Love: The Untold Story Behind the Making of "A Chorus Line"
The Untold Story Behind the Making of "A Chorus Line". Photography by Martha Swope.
Broadway Bookshelf — Show Book — Page 6
Biographies, show books, musical scores, history, and must-read theatre books.
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Show Book Books
The Q Guide to Broadway
The Great White Way has paved the way for some of the most legendary performers in history. But Broadway is more than a street, it’s a community. In this Q Guide, a true Broadway expert takes theater fans on the ultimate insider’s tour.
Broadway Tails: Heartfelt Stories of Rescued Dogs Who Became Showbiz Superstars
Animal stage trainer Berloni has been rescuing animals and putting them on the boards for more than 30 years, and his career memoir brings with it some expected charms-lovable, heartbreaking animal stories; giddy tales of Broadway success; and showbiz backbiting. His story begins compellingly when, as a 19-year-old intern on the set of the original 1975 production of Annie, he was charged with finding and coaching the dog that would play Sandy; miraculously, "the dog nobody wanted... that had be...
A Fine Romance: Hollywood/Broadway (The Magic, The Mayhem, The Musicals)
•Every fan of musicals will want this book •Sparkling text, glowing photographs, innovative design •Royalties from the sale of this book are being donated to The Motion Picture & Television Fund, Hollywood’s charity of choice, and The Actors’ Fund Broadway’s favorite charity. For everyone who loves movie musicals, for everyone who loves Broadway musicals, this entertaining illuminating book provides insights on exactly what happens when stage meets screen. Do sparks fly—or do t...
Lord of the Rings Official Stage Companion
A sumptuous illustrated celebration of 'The Lord of the Rings' stage show, which examines in detail through exclusive interviews and photographs the creation of one of the world's most ambitious theatre adaptations. Contains over 120 full-colour photos and illustrations combined to provide the fascinating story of how a big-budget show is born. 'The Lord of the Rings' stage show will be the biggest, most expensive production ever mounted, combining in three acts the spectacle of 'Cirque du Solei...
Forbidden Broadway: Behind the Mylar Curtain
The hilarious story of the longest-running musical revue in the world - 30 years! "The funniest show in New York!" - The New Yorker Forbidden Broadway is a no-holds-barred chronicle of the revue that has enthralled and delighted audiences in New York City, Los Angeles, London, and all around the world for three decades, spoofing shows from Les Miserables to Wicked and stars from Ethel Merman to Hugh Jackman. It is a whimsical inside glimpse at the evolution of the show in its 20 incarnations to ...
M-G-M's Greatest Musicals
M-G-M's Greatest Musicals (originally published as The World of Entertainment! Hollywood's Greatest Musicals) is not a biography of Arthur Freed (1894–1973), producer of the most outstanding series of musicals in motion picture history, but a turbulent, behind-the-scenes, film-by-film account of the making of his movies (which, to the exclusion of all else, were his life). From 1940 to 1970, under the auspices of M-G-M's celebrated Freed Unit, Hollywood's master actors, writers, directors, cho...
Broadway Babies Say Goodnight : Musicals Then and Now
This sharp-eyed view of the whole span of Broadway musical history spans seven decades of brilliant achievements--the best of which are among the finest works American artists have made.
I Got the Show Right Here: The Amazing True Story of How an Obscure Brooklyn Horn Player Became the Last Great Broadway Showman
"[A] highly entertaining showbiz memoir . . . The shows were fantastic." - The Washington Post "We laughed and we cried at Cy Feuer's wonderfully warm, brash, and colorful memoir of his life in the New York theater and happily recommend it to anyone who has ever been to a Broadway musical. . ." - Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan. This is the rags to riches story of Cy Feuer, who, after becoming the executive officer of the Air Corps film division in World War II, teamed up with the late Ernie Martin...
Oh Joy! Oh Rapture!: The Enduring Phenomenon of Gilbert and Sullivan
In Oh Joy! Oh Rapture! expert and enthusiast Ian Bradley explores the world of Gilbert and Sullivan over the last four and a half decades, looking at the way this "phenomenon" is passed from generation to generation. Taking as his starting point the expiry of copyright on the opera libretti at the end of 1961 and using fascinating hitherto unpublished archive material, Bradley reveals the extraordinary story of the last years of the old D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, the guardian of Savoy traditio...
Broadway Yearbook 2001-2002: A Relevant and Irreverent Record
Called the "theater equivalent of longtime New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael" by Matinee Magazine, critic and producer Steven Suskin chronicles the 2001-2002 theater season in his latest installment in the Broadway Yearbook series. Commenting with wit and erudition on each show that opened on Broadway between May 2001 and May 2002, Suskin's vivid descriptions recall Tony winners like Thoroughly Modern Millie and Urinetown and commercial smashes like Mamma Mia! and The Graduate. A great read fo...
Broadway Babylon
The first book of theater celebrity gossip, can you believe it? Here's the book that airs Broadway's dirty laundry! Inspired by the classic Hollywood Babylon (in print for more than forty years, more than 100,000 copies sold), Broadway Babylon presents a hyper-entertaining look at the Great White Way's biggest scandals, best-kept secrets, and most over-the-top feuds. Author Boze Hadleigh, the preeminent disher of celebrity dish, serves up 400 pages of tasty, never-before-told stories about such ...
Stars of the American Musical Theater in Historic Photographs
361 portraits, from 1860s to 1950 of over 400 stars. Informative captions. An illustrious collection, long overdue.
Second Act Trouble: Behind the Scenes at Broadway's Big Musical Bombs
If Broadway's triumphant musical hits are exhilarating, the backstage tales of Broadway failures are tantalizing soap operas in miniature. Second Act Trouble puts you with the creators in the rehearsal halls, at out-of-town tryouts, in late-night, hotel-room production meetings, and at after-the-fact recriminatory gripe fests. Suskin has compiled and annotated long-forgotten, first-person accounts of 25 Broadway musicals that stubbornly went awry. Contributions come from such respected writers a...
Great Producers: Visionaries of American Theater
Up close and personal with Broadway’s brightest lights of the past, present, and future * Firsthand accounts, rare interviews, backstage anecdotes * Insider ideas from Disney, Jujamcyn, Mackintosh, Weissler, Papp, Merrick, Ziegfeld, more! Meet the movers and shakers who shape what we see on Broadway. In this insider’s look at the producers behind the shows, Broadway’s most esteemed visionaries tell all--how they got started in the business, how they chose projects, how they raise money,...
But Darling, I'm Your Auntie Mame!: The Amazing History of the World's Favorite Madcap Aunt
When the novel Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis was first published in 1955, it became an instant hit and national bestseller. More than forty years later, it was brought back in print in a trade paperback edition and has, again, proven to be a commercial success. ABC is currently planning to air a two-hour special Auntie Mame movie starring Cher, and "Mame" is headed back to Broadway for the 2004 season. Now, industry insider Richard Tyler Jordan - who works as a senior publicist for Disney - prov...
A Day at the New Amsterdam Theatre
A photographic treasure of a day in the life of Broadway's most storied theatre Life in a Broadway theatre is a seven-day-a-week, 24-hour-a-day operation. In fact, there is always something going on at the famed New Amsterdam Theatre, home to the record-breaking Disney's The Lion King. Gino Domenico, an Associated Press photographer, has captured the wonderful essence and activity of this historic theatre. Never-before-photographed areas of the theatre are featured, and readers will see all the ...
Making Americans: Jews and the Broadway Musical
From 1925 to 1951--three chaotic decades of depression, war, and social upheaval--Jewish writers brought to the musical stage a powerfully appealing vision of America fashioned through song and dance. It was an optimistic, meritocratic, selectively inclusive America in which Jews could at once lose and find themselves--assimilation enacted onstage and off, as Andrea Most shows. This book examines two interwoven narratives crucial to an understanding of twentieth-century American culture: the sto...
The Anarchist and The Devil Do Cabaret: Using Theatre, Music and Comedy for Radical Social Change
When the internationally acclaimed, Montreal-based, rock 'n' roll cabaret band Rhythm Activism toured Europe in the 1990s, it was through a Europe in transition that they traveled-a Europe marked by political and racial tension. Here, in an extraordinary mix of fact and fiction, musician/activist/anarchist Norman Nawrocki, recounts the band's experiences alongside a whole array of fascinating characters that he met along the way.
Encyclopedia of theatre music
A comprehensive listing of more than 4000 songs from Broadway and Hollywood, 1900-1960
Broadway Musicals: A History in Posters
A History of Broadway musicals in Posters.
What Would Barbra Do? : How Musicals Changed My Life
Emma Brockes didn't always love musicals. One of her most painful childhood memories is of her mother singing "The Hills Are Alive" while young Emma crossed the street en route to a babysitting gig. Mum said the music would keep muggers at bay. Emma found it warded off friends, a social life, and any chance of appearing normal. Some people would slice off their arm with a plastic knife before they'd sit through Fiddler on the Roof or The Sound of Music. But musicals are everywhere, and it's ...
American Musical Theatre: Shows, Songs, and Stars
An anthology of this distinctly national art form includes 110 selected archival recordings of classic popular songs and textual annotations.
Something for the Boys: Musical Theater and Gay Culture
If you think this is one of those academic gay- or gender-studies-type tomes that applies a lot of incomprehensible French terms to good old-fashioned American entertainment, think again. John M. Clum may be a professor at Duke, but what this garrulous gay-inflected romp around the past 75 or so years of musical theater reveals him to be is, to use his own affectionate term, a hopeless and incurable "show queen." Indeed, Something for the Boys is so personal and idiosyncratic in its survey of th...
Backstage on Broadway
Musicals and Their Makers
The Guinness Who's Who of Stage Musicals
Compiled in A-Z format, this book chronicles the lives and careers of the artists who appeared in, wrote and directed the shows that have contributed towards the development of the stage musical throughout the 20th century. From Broadway to the West End and throughout the world, it covers shows such as "A Chorus Line", "Oklahoma", "West Side Story" and "Evita", by lyricists and composers such as Stephen Sondheim, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Rogers and Hammerstein. The performers includ...
Ten Great Musicals of the American Theatre
Includes - Of Thee I Sing - Porgy and Bess - One Touch of Venus - Brigadoon - Kiss Me, Kate - West Side Story - Gypsy - Fiddler on the Roof - 1776 - Company
Musicals Facts, Figures & Fun
From stage to screen, operettas to rock operas, the golden age to a new era: this wonderfully researched guide to musicals captures it all. Written by the author of the best-selling Elvis: A Celebration, it covers the first-night flops and long-running successes; Broadway’s best and Hollywood highs; classic tunes and genius songwriters—along with profiles of the famous (like Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly) and ten best lists. Here are old favorites, such as Gilbert and Sullivan’s greatest hi...
Off Broadway Musicals, 1910-2007
Despite an often unfair reputation as being less popular, less successful, or less refined than their bona-fide Broadway counterparts, Off Broadway musicals deserve their share of critical acclaim and study. A number of shows originally staged Off Broadway have gone on to their own successful Broadway runs, from the ever-popular A Chorus Line and Rent to more off-beat productions like Avenue Q and Little Shop of Horrors. And while it remains to be seen if other popular Off Broadway shows like St...
Rebels with Applause: Broadway's Groundbreaking Musicals
Scott Miller once again pulls back the curtain on some of the greatest, most important American musicals, taking you on a mind-blowing tour of the milestones in the history of musical theatre. These are musicals that broke all the old rules and created new ones, and changed the way we looked at musical theatre forever: the savage political satire of The Cradle Will Rock in 1937 the surprisingly dark sexuality of Pal Joey in 1940 the profound innovations of Oklahoma! in 1943 the absurdist so...
The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey
This new edition of Swain's classic award-winning text reveals how a musical drama achieves plot movement, character development and conflict through strategic placement of music in twenty impressive productions. Included is the latest research and viewpoints of contemporary critics, highlighting the various styles of important composers including Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Jerry Bock, Stephen Sondheim, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. This new edition also includes a previously unpublished essay on...
Singing a New Tune: The Rebirth of the Modern Film Musical from Evita to De-Lovely and Beyond
Critics the world over have often loudly lamented that the movie musical is a dead art form. However, while it is true that the musical no longer occupies the cherished place of prominence in American cinema that it once did, the old razzle-dazzle has had a comeback. Author and film expert John Kenneth Muir faces the music in Singing a New Tune, a rollicking study that traces the rebirth of the film musical from the dark days of the early 1990s - when all the musical numbers were cut from the fi...
The Musical from the Inside Out
An entertaining and informative new guidebook to the creation of the musical show, filled with anecdotes, practical advice, and sparkling commentary from the biggest Broadway insiders.
Musicals: Hollywood and Beyond
The profound influence of the Hollywood musical across geographical and cultural boundaries has long been neglected. This original collection of essays seeks to initiate a new critical debate by approaching classic Hollywood films from perspectives such as 'musicology'. Broadening the scope of previous studies, this volume also examines the manner in which European cinema appropriated the musical to create new meanings. It provides an innovative reading of the influence of the musical on youth c...
More Broadway Musicals: Since 1980
In the decade since Abrams published the bestsellingBroadway Musicals, some of Broadway's biggest all-time hits have appeared--Cats, 42nd Street, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables--and set new standards, begun new trends, and entranced new audiences. More Broadway Musicals presents the stories behind the major productions in this fascinating volume sure to delight those who have seen the shows, as well we those who know them only through recordings. 200 illustrations, 75 in full color.
Broadway Musicals
A colorful tribute to the great Broadway shows of our time. 395 illustrations, 112 in full color.
Flower Drum Songs: The Story Of Two Musicals
The return to New York in 2002 of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song-with a totally new book by playwright David Henry Hwang-was considered the most revolutionary chapter in the history of Broadway revivals. Why? The musical, a clear hit when it was originally produced in 1958, had later acquired a debatable reputation for quaint, racially offensive Asian stereotypes. Yet Hwang's controversial rewrite-driven at least in part by concerns about such offenses-was a box-office failure. Dr...
More Opening Nights on Broadway: A Critical Quote Book of the Musical Theatre, 1965-1981
This follow-up to Steven Suskin's 1990 volume (which covered 1943-64) is packed with juicy quotes from the reviews of every Broadway musical that opened between 1965 and 1981. That said, forget the reviews. The real reason to get this book is for the dirt Suskin has dug up on every show including the flops--especially the flops. Accompanying the statistical data on creative personnel, number of performances and profitability status, he dutifully and delightedly records the backstage fits, fights...
The Musical Theatre Cookbook: Recipes from Best-Loved Musicals
This delicious 196-page book brings you The Devil's Hot Dog from "Damn Yankees", "Enchiladas from "Bye Bye Birdie", A Seaside Clambake from "Carousel", Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pies from Sweeney Todd (with a suggested substitute for the main ingredient!) and Strawberry Tarts from "My Fair Lady". You'll also find roast beef from "Fiorello", Fiddleferns from "Into the Woods", Splashing Dressing Salad from "Guys and Dolls", Sweet Pertater Pie from "Oklahoma!", Sandy's Candies from "Brigadoon", and mu...
Ganzl's Book of the Musical Theatre
The worldwide proliferation of musical theater makes its documentation in a single volume impossible, but Ganzl's Book of Musical Theatre is a most impressive selection from this wealth of material. Companion to the respected Gustav Kobbe's Complete Opera Book (Putnam, 1954; Amer. Biog. Serv., 1987; reprint of 1963 ed.), whose form it follows, it offers information on some 300 musicals from the current world repertoire and many important works that are no longer performed. Each entry includes a...
The New American Musical: An Anthology from the End of the 20th Century
During the 1990's, a new generation of composers, lyricists and librettists emerged radically changing the face of American musical theatre. With Broadway becoming mostly a museum for revivals and Disney blockbusters, these new artists have fashioned a more highly personal and challenging form of musical theatre less interested in pure entertainment and the creation of diversions. Their work bears the influence of composers like Stephen Sondheim, Kurt Weill, Mark Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein...
Broadway Stories: A Backstage Journey Through Musical Theatre
This treasure trove presents focused narratives by men and women (one as young as 12 years old) who have made the Broadway musical theater their home. Sixteen chapters chronicle the hits and misses inherent to the musical stage, recounted by an actor or member of the creative team. With his "fly-on-the-wall" perspective, author Bell clearly captures the thespians' love for their work and respect for the musical theater tradition. Not a retrospective, this volume discusses musicals from the recen...
The Broadway Musical: Collaboration in Commerce and Art
Three out of four Broadway-bound musicals fail to get there, and many of those that do, ultimately fail. The Broadway Musical takes an engrossing look at the industry's successes and failures in an effort to understand the phenomenon of mass collaboration that is Broadway. The authors investigate the complicated machinery of show business from its birth around the turn of the century through its survival of the cost explosions of the 1980s. Through interviews with many of Broadway's top produce...
The Great American Book Musical
I'm trying to leave a record of the technique, to create a blueprint for an ancient art.- Denny Martin Flinn Devoted theatergoers fondly remember Broadway's Golden Age - when musical theatre reached its apex and creativity was infused into every time signature, witty remark, and kick-ball-change. Denny Martin Flinn analyzes the classic musicals of that era, outlining the unique artistic and theatrical qualities that elevate these great American book musicals.
Women In American Musical Theatre
Throughout the twentieth century women have made significant contributions to the creation of American musical theatre. Directing, choreographing, writing, arranging, producing and designing musicals in a variety of venues throughout America, women have played a significant role in shaping the development of musical theatre both on and off Broadway and in regional, educational, and community venues. The essays in this book examine the history of women in musical theatre, providing biographical d...
The Show Makers: Great Directors of the American Musical Theatre
In twelve portraits, Lawrence Thelen lets us see how these creative minds work, and what it takes to make musical theatre happen.. "Backstage with Lawrence Thelen we listen as these directors talk about careers and ideas. James Lapine's early involvement with photography becomes an influence on Sunday in the Park with George; Harold Prince's early desire to be a playwright is rechanneled into directing; George C. Wolfe speaks of the ongoing involvement of black artists with musicals since the l...
The Queer Encyclopedia of Music, Dance, and Musical Theater
Aficionados of music, dance, opera, and musical theater will relish this volume featuring over 200 articles showcasing composers, singers, musicians, dancers, and choreographers across eras and styles. Read about Hildegard of Bingen, whose Symphonia expressed both spiritual and physical desire for the Virgin Mary, and George Frideric Handel, who not only created roles for castrati but was behind the Venetian opera's preoccupations with gender ambiguity. Discover Alban Berg's Lulu, opera's first ...
The World Of Musical Comedy
Acclaimed through three editions for its uniquely informative and entertaining style, this fourth edition of Stanley Green’s World of Musical Comedy updates and enlarges the theatrical scope to include such recent shows as A Chorus Line, Barnum, They’re Playing Our Song, and Annie. In a format that provides biographies of all the leading figures in the musical’s development, Stanley Green manages to convey the spirit of the Broadway stage, its musical make-believe, and yet remain objective...
The Theatermania Guide to Musical Theater Recordings
The first ever comprehensive guide to musical theater recordings, this book covers the entire history of musical theater. From Jerome Kern and the Gershwins to Bernstein and Sondheim, here are capsule reviews and ratings of more than 1,000 theater recordings of the past 60 years. Organized alphabetically, each listing contains background information on the show, cast information, record label, catalog number, whether the recording is currently in print, and an overall rating of one to five stars...
Red Hot & Blue: A Smithsonian Salute to the American Musical
This luxuriant coffee table book is packed with photos, posters, design sketches and drawings that accompanied American musicals from 1866 to the present. The book was published to coincide with the Washington, DC, exhibition of the same name running through July 1997 at the National Portrait Gallery, which co-created both exhibition and book with the National Museum of American History. The book has two main strengths: One, it treats the musicals of Broadway and Hollywood as part of the same p...
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