Broadway Bookshelf - Must Read Theater Books

Chronicle of the Grammy-winning 1995 Alanis Morissette album and the new Broadway musical it inspired. Photos (Matthew Murphy) and interviews from Morissette, bookwriter Diablo Cody, creative team members, and cast members, as well as a full annotated libretto and an exploration of the album’s cultural significance

Features the words and lyrics from David Byrne's recording and subsequent theatrical concert, with artwork by Maira Kalman (who designed the art for the Broadway show’s curtain). Edited and designed by Alex Kalman/What Studio?.

A wide-ranging interdisciplinary study of live stage musicals from the mid- to late twentieth century adapted from British literature written between 1837 and 1886. Investigates musical dramatizations of works by Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Christina Rossetti, Robert Louis Stevenson, and others ... reveals what these musicals teach us about the Victorian books from which they derive and considers their enduring popularity and impact on our modern culture. Explores themes of race, religio...

The only collection of Tynan's star-studded profiles, selected and edited by his widow and biographer, Kathleen Tynan, with a foreword by Simon Callow. Kenneth Tynan was the 20th century's most influential writer on theatre and performance. Over the course of his life he wrote a series of brilliant and incisive pen-portraits of many of the most significant performers and writers of his day. Amongst the fifty assembled here are profiles of actors such as Garbo, Bogart, Cagney, Olivier and ...

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...

From the beginning of theater on the Cape in 1916 when a group of artists and writers in Provincetown mounted a production of a one-act play, Bound East for Cardiff, by a little-known playwright, Eugene O'Neill. It grew into the constantly expanding theater universe it is today. The theatrical descendants of O'Neill and the Provincetown Players continue to present classical drama, contemporary hits and new, experimental works to audiences that have come to expect the best. A tour of the theater...

Memoir of a dancer who got his start with Martha Graham. A rare firsthand view of the dance world in the 1940s and through the end of the twentieth century. He danced as Graham's partner in Appalachian Spring, Deaths and Entrances, Every Soul Is a Circus, and Errand into the Maze. Hodes shares his delight in dance as both hard work and a fantastic adventure.

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.

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.

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

In 1936 Orson Welles directed a celebrated all-black production of Macbeth that was hailed as a breakthrough for African Americans in the theater. For over a century, black performers had fought for the right to perform on the American stage, going all the way back to an 1820s Shakespearean troupe that performed Richard III, Othello, and Macbeth, without relying on white patronage.

A historical narrative of a group of musicals that cost millions, were created by world-renowned writers and directors, and that had spectacular potential... but bombed anyway.

The novel, in verse, that inspired the West End/Broadway play by Stefano Massini. Spanning three generations and 150 years, a moving epic that tells the story of modern capitalism through the saga of the Lehman brothers and their descendants. A story of immigration, ambition, and success.

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 do. S...

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.

When she was fifteen years old, Heidi Schreck earned money for her college tuition by giving speeches about the U.S. Constitution. Decades later, she traces the effect this document has had on four generations of women in her family. Deftly examining how the United States’ founding principles are inextricably linked with our personal lives, Schreck also explores the ways in which their misuse has engendered violence and inherited trauma. With passion and wit, this galvanizing new play acknowled...

Features original monologues by writers such as David Lindsay-Abaire, Clare Barron, Hilary Bettis, Hansol Jung, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Christopher Oscar Peña, Jesse Eisenberg and Monique Moses. A rich collection that can be enjoyed by actors, writers and those looking for creative responses to the global COVID-19 crisis. 144 pages.

New biography of one of the key composers of 20th-century American popular song, Eubie Blake, who created Shuffle Along with Noble Sissle and went on to compose for films and other Broadway shows, eventually finding a second career as a ragtime raconteur in the 1960s. His skills as a pianist, gifts as a storyteller and entertainer, and appearances on major TV shows from Johnny Carson and David Frost to the Today Show led him to a new career as a concert artist. The authors also illustrate the w...

Molly Picon reminisces about her upbringing and career through the relationship with her fascinating grandmother. Originally published in 1962.

All five scripts from the 43rd annual cycle of world premieres: Everybody Black by Dave Harris; The Thin Place by Lucas Hnath; The Corpse Washer, adapted for the stage by Ismail Khalidi and Naomi Wallace, from the novel of the same name by Sinan Antoon; How to Defend Yourself by Liliana Padilla; and We've Come to Believe, a collaboratively-written play by Kara Lee Corthron, Emily Feldman, and Matthew Paul Olmos

Play anthology featuring five docudramas originally commissioned by L.A. Theatre Works that each explore pivotal moments in 20th century U.S history: The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial by Peter Goodchild; The Real Dr. Strangelove by Peter Goodchild; RFK: The Journey to Justice by Murray Horwitz and Jonathan Estrin; The Chicago Conspiracy Trial by Peter Goodchild; Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers by Geoffrey Cowan and Leroy Aarons.

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

Basis for Mike Birbiglia's Drama Desk-winning 2018 Broadway show The New One. Sharing some of his darkest and funniest thoughts about the decision to have a child, his wife's pregnancy, and that first year with their child. 256 pages.

This is Not My Memoir tells the life story of André Gregory, iconic theatre director, writer, and actor. For the first time, Gregory shares memories from a life lived for art, including stories from the making of My Dinner with André. Taking on the dizzying, wondrous nature of a fever dream, This is Not My Memoir includes fantastic and fantastical stories that take the reader from wartime Paris to golden-age Hollywood, from avant-garde theaters to monasteries in India. Along the way we meet Jer...

Explores this rich, decades-long history by traversing musicals, stars, and sounds from film, Broadway, and Las Vegas to the small screen. From Rodgers and Hammerstein's appearance on the first Toast of the Town telecast and Mary Martin's iconic Peter Pan airings to Barbra Streisand's 1960s CBS specials, "The Carol Burnett Show," "Cop Rock," "Smash," "Galavant," "My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," Great Performances, and a string of one-off musical episodes of sitcoms, nighttime soaps, fantasy shows, and...

Through an archive-driven investigation of the musical Pal Joey and its music, author Lindberg offers insight into the historical moment during which Joey was born, and to the process of genre classification, canon formation, and the ensuing critical debates related to musical and theatrical maturity. More broadly, the book argues that the critique and commentary on class and gender conventions in Pal Joey reveals a uniquely American concern over status, class mobility, and progressive gender r...

Meet Alex, a photographer on a holiday with his family in the south of France. Meet Abe, a music producer with a baby on the way. Two men - both fathers, husbands, and sons - take us on a journey you will never forget. The finest actors of their generation, Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal (Sunday in the Park with George) and Tony Award nominee Tom Sturridge (1984), had audiences roaring to their feet during the sold-out Broadway engagement. Now Sea Wall / A Life, a dramatic exploration of...

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

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

The Humana Festival of New American Plays has been a leading home for extraordinary playwrights and their imaginations for more than four decades, making Actors Theatre of Louisville one of the nation’s preeminent powerhouses for new play development. For six weeks every spring, Louisville exerts a gravitational pull on producers and theatre lovers from around the country, who travel from far and wide for the adventure of seeing a diverse slate of fully-produced new plays. Many Humana Festival ...

Full of practical advice and guidelines for approaching not only acting but life. Highlighted by anecdotes from Mr. Wyman’s long, illustrious career (sixteen Broadway shows) as well as dozens of clever, amusing cartoons by the noted Broadway actor (seventeen Broadway shows) Michael X. Martin. 224 pages.

The photographer Josh Lehrer's up-close-and-personal document of the evolution, and revolution, that is Hamilton: An American Musical. Only the second official book, Hamilton: Portraits of the Revolution invites Hamilfans to experience the award-winning show in a brand-new and intimate way through more than 100 portraits of the cast, including Lin-Manuel Miranda (Alexander Hamilton), Leslie Odom Jr. (Aaron Burr), Daveed Diggs (Lafayette), Phillipa Soo (Eliza Schuyler Hamilton), and Renée Eli...

Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative to...

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.

Research guide to the history of producing theatre in the United States ... explores how traditions of investment, marketing, labor union contracts, advertising, leasing arrangements, ticket scalping, zoning ordinances, royalties, and numerous other financial transactions have influenced the art of theatre for the past three centuries ... Richard Rodgers and his keen eye for investment, Jacob Shubert and his construction of the "Bridge of Thighs" for his showgirls at the Winter Garden, the sign...

The first authorized photographic tribute to the prolific and wildly inspiring ballerina,these unique and evocative artful color photographs by the celebrated photographer Gregg Delman, capture Misty's grace and strength, and are much anticipated by the worldwide audience who can't get enough of Misty.This stunning volume of photographs captures the sculpturally exquisite and iconic ballerina. Misty Copeland has single-handedly infused diversity and personality into the insular world of ballet,...

Based on the popular play by the same name, John Cariani's Almost, Maine is an interlinked collection of heartwarming and heartbreaking YA stories that will have you thinking about love in an entirely new way. Welcome to Almost, Maine, a town that’s so far north, it’s almost not in the United States―it’s almost in Canada. And it almost doesn’t exist, because its residents never got around to getting organized. So it’s just . . . Almost. One cold, clear Friday night in the middle of winter...

A completely new full-life portrait of Leigh, covering both her professional and personal life. Using previously unseen sources from her archive, recently acquired by the V&A, the author sheds new light on her fractious relationship with Laurence Olivier, based on their letters and diaries, as well as on the bipolar disorder which so affected her later life and work.

A new book from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the award-winning songwriters of the hit Broadway show Dear Evan Hansen. When Benj Pasek and Justin Paul set out to write a pivotal song for Dear Evan Hansen, a musical they had been working on for years, they knew it had to be big and emotional and genuine. So they tapped into their main character's loneliness and allowed him to sing his way out of it. The result was "You Will Be Found," a song that sets in motion a moment that goes viral in the w...

Tony and Olivier Award–winning Bob Avian’s dazzling life story, Dancing Man: A Broadway Choreographer’s Journey, is a memoir in three acts. Act I reveals the origins of one of Broadway’s legendary choreographers who appeared onstage with stars like Barbra Streisand and Mary Martin all before he was thirty. Act II includes teaching Katharine Hepburn how to sing and dance in Coco and working with Stephen Sondheim and Michael Bennett while helping to choreograph the original productions of Company...

Features interviews with some of the most successful theatre artists currently working on and off Broadway and beyond. The interviews explore a wide range of themes, including if and how the artists' female perspective influenced their art, the social and cultural significance of their work, and how theatre and women working in theatre can participate in awakening greater social awareness. Interview subjects include Young Jean Lee, Pam MacKinnon, Dominique Morisseau, Rachel Chavkin, and Martyna...

In The Thanksgiving Play, a group of well-intentioned white teaching artists scramble to create an ambitious “woke” Thanksgiving pageant that also celebrates Native American Heritage Month. Amidst their eagerness to put on the most culturally sensitive show possible, things quickly begin to devolve into the absurd, showing how even those with good intentions can be undone by their own blind spots. Inspired by historical interest in the KKK’s collaborations with Indigenous groups, What Would Cra...

Songs from the 2020 Broadway show, with score by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. Includes "All You Wanna Do," "Don't Lose Ur Head," "Ex-Wives," "Get Down," "Haus of Holbein," "Heart of Stone," "I Don't Need Your Love," "No Way," "Six."

An exploration of Harold Pinter's work in the theatre - through interviews with the man himself and with actors and directors who worked with him. Eight actors and directors who worked with Pinter in the theatre talk candidly about what it's like to appear in a Pinter play, to direct a Pinter play, to be directed by Pinter, to work alongside Pinter as an actor. The voices belong to directors Katie Mitchell and Sam Mendes, and to actors Barry Foster, Susan Engel, Roger Lloyd Pack, Roger David...

Kathryn Harkup turns her discerning scientific eye to the Bard and the varied and creative ways his characters die. Investigates what actual events may have inspired Shakespeare, what the accepted scientific knowledge of the time was, and how Elizabethan audiences would have responded to these death scenes. A rollercoaster of Elizabethan carnage, poison, swordplay and bloodshed, with an occasional death by bear-mauling for good measure.

Play by Matthew Lopez inspired by E. M. Forster's novel Howards End, and set in New York three decades after the height of the AIDS epidemic. Premiered in London in 2018. This edition includes revisions made for the 2019 Broadway production. 336 pages.

In a series of short essays, the stage musical is re-examined from seven different perspectives, including how the musical heralded the end of an era on Broadway, its reinvention of history and biography, how the film version has influenced future stage productions and the ways in which it put child performers centre stage ... how, nearly 60 years after its stage debut, the musical has a direct impact on the modern world, through its recent iterations ... through Salzburg's recent embracing of t...

Editors Peter Gethers and Russell Perreault. selection of the most memorable and beloved lyrics of Stephen Sondheim. Includes a selection of lyrics from across his career, drawn from shows including West Side Story, Gypsy, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and more. From the introduction by Peter Gethers: "Working with Stephen was a pleasure and an education. The process was largely my asking questions that he usually answered,...

Playwrights on Television features interviews with writers of award-winning stage plays and celebrated television shows reflecting on the successes and challenges of being a playwright in the post-network television era. In these conversations, eighteen dramatists consider their professional paths and creative choices, from training and education to thoughts on craft and technique, and discuss a range of issues relevant to the development of dramatic writing today. Theatergoers and TV aficio...

From Tony Award-winning actress Laura Benanti and Met Opera soprano Kate Mangiameli comes M is for Mama (and also Merlot), a board book -- not for babies, but for their moms! Yes, motherhood is amazing, but let's face it: its not unicorns and rainbows all the time. Some days you find poo on your leg, and some days you're covered in vomit. Being able to find the humor in all the ups and downs is a mommy-must! This irreverent board book, hilariously illustrated by popular U.K. artist Helene We...