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Broadway Bookshelf - Paperback Releases


Pulitzer Prize-Winning Musicals: Of Thee I Sing to A Strange Loop (9/18/2026)

Part of Essential Musicals series. Takes a chronological look at the ten musicals that have won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Deep diving into the development of each show, unpacking the creation, production, and reception of each musical. Each chapter traces a different Prize-winning show from its inception to its opening night. Introduces the reader to each musical's key creators and company members and places them in the larger context of Broadway history. 248 pages.
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Musicals: Of Thee I Sing to A Strange Loop Cover
Secret Lovers Songbook (12/2/2025)

Companion book to Anya Turner & Robert Grusecki's tenth studio recording released in September 2024. Ten new songs inspired by their own life experience and the artistry of poet Emily Dickinson, novelist Virginia Woolf, essayist Joan Didion, Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt, New Zealand-born street artist Deborah Wood, Harlem blues singer Gladys Bentley, transgender jazz pianist Billy Tipton, and British jazz singer/pianist Liane Carroll.
Secret Lovers Songbook Cover
Jukebox Musicals: Crazy for You to MJ the Musical (9/18/2025)

Part of Essential Musicals series. A chronological look at the development of long-running hits, like Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys, tracing the jukebox musical from when it was an exception on Broadway to when it became the rule. Examining the origins and reception for ten of these shows, this volume offers an exploration of one of the most divisive sub-genres of the musical form. 240 pages.
Jukebox Musicals: Crazy for You to MJ the Musical Cover
Hirschfeld's Sondheim: A Poster Book (9/9/2025)

Contains art drawn from life before the opening night of each of Sondheim’s productions. On the reverse side are rare, ancillary images from the archives and text by Leopold (archivist and creative director of the Al Hirschfeld Foundation). 25 Al Hirschfeld portraits drawn from Stephen Sondheim’s musicals. These art prints can be easily removed and framed. All images for this book have been scanned from the archives of the Al Hirschfeld Foundation. 58 pages, 11 x 0.65 x 14 inches.
Hirschfeld's Sondheim: A Poster Book Cover
Bring the House Down (7/8/2025)

Alex Lyons always has his mind made up by the time the curtain comes down at a performance—the show either deserves a five-star rave, or a one-star pan. Anything in between is meaningless. On the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he doesn’t deliberate over the rating for Hayley Sinclair’s show, nor does he hesitate when the opportunity presents itself to have a one-night stand with the struggling actress. Unaware that she’s gone home with the theater critic who’s just written a...
Bring the House Down Cover
Scenery of the Crime (6/10/2025)

By theatre poster designer Frank "Fraver" Verlizzo. First in his Retro Broadway Mystery Series, in which "theatrical ad execs Vic Senso and Bettie Balboa find themselves navigating the far-from-glamorous world of backstage Broadway when several bizarrely executed murders rock the community. Behind the beautiful scenery lurks a myriad of potentially life-threatening hazards, raising the question: has there ever been a stage-related 'accident' that was actually a cover-up for murder?" 282 pages.
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Theater after Film (5/23/2025)

Argues that after 1945, as cinema became omnipresent in popular culture, theater had to respond to cinema's hegemony. Postwar theatrical experiment, Harries shows, often channeled and represented film's mass cultural force, while knowing that it could never possess that force. Throughout the book, Harries brings critical theory into contact with theories of performance. Although Theater after Film treats the theatrical work of many figures, its central focus falls on Tennessee Williams, Samuel ...
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Stereophonic (5/13/2025)

The place: Sausalito. The time: the mid-1970s. The carpet: brown shag. Stereophonic brings us inside the cloistered world of a recording studio as a rock band on the brink of superstardom attempts to create their sophomore album. The ensuing pressures open up cracks in the band’s once-easy camaraderie, and spats over issues like tempo and song length begin to reveal deeper problems in the band’s foundation. Running on a diet of booze, sleep deprivation, and a giant bag of cocaine, interpersonal...
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The Sound of Murder (4/3/2025)

October 3, 1959: Rodgers & Hammerstein’s latest musical, “The Sound of Music,” starring Mary Martin, has just had its world premiere in New Haven, the first stop on its road to Broadway. But for one member of the company it will prove to be the final performance. The following morning, the lifeless body of beautiful newcomer Eva Rossi – Mary Martin’s understudy – is discovered in a bizarrely-appointed hotel room, beneath a wall defaced with a bloody inscription: How do you solve a problem like ...
The Sound of Murder Cover
Manhattan Mayhem (4/2/2025)

MANHATTEN MAYHEM stories capture the mood and heartbeat of the planet's most pulsating plot of land. Rothenberg's checkered life...in theatre, politics and prisons, are reflected in these tales of hope, heartbreak and humor. They are as diverse and unpredictable as Times Square on a Saturday night.
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Places, Please, Act One: Poems Around and About Theatre (3/26/2025)

A collection of Warren Kliewer's poems about acting and the life of theater professionals. From "introduction" by Warren Kliewer: "These poems have been written perhaps in honor of, but more likely in comradeship with, actors, directors, designers, technicians, and yes even producers. The final product of their labors - that which patrons buy tickets to see and critics get free tickets to grumble about - is not my subject. Rather, it's the work itself leading to the results. My subject is the...
Places, Please, Act One: Poems Around and About Theatre Cover
Elphie (3/25/2025)

The childhood story of Wicked's Elphaba, including her promiscuous mother, her pious father, her saintly sister Nessarose, and her junior felon brother Shell. Deluxe collector’s hardcover features stenciled edges and a color illustrated map of Oz. 288 pages.
Elphie Cover
Every Day a Little Death: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Stephen Sondheim (3/22/2025)

Twenty crime stories, one inspired by a song from each of the twenty musicals with scores by Stephen Sondheim (including the made-for-TV Evening Primrose and the final show, Here We Are). Contributing authors include both widely published crime writers and people who are involved in the world of the theatre.
Every Day a Little Death: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Stephen Sondheim Cover
King of Broadway (12/10/2024)

Novel about Horatio King, an eighty-five-year old curmudgeon who happens to be the greatest musical theater composer and lyricist of his generation. Fifteen years before the story begins, his last musical, Black Hawk Down, was a flop. Now King is approached by twenty-five-year old Ben Willis who sends him a copy of his newly published children's novel, "The Worldwide Dessert Contest." Would King like to get back in the game and collaborate with a new-comer on what could be his last Broadway mus...
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The Show Goes On: Broadway Hirings, Firings and Replacements (11/27/2024)

Conducting more than a hundred interviews, Fassler has drawn from a wide range of the New York theatre community gathering dozens of stories that border on the heroic. How is a suitable replacement chosen to take over on Broadway? What goes into an actor making a role their own in the shadow of another's highly lauded performance? What happens when someone hops on the moving train that is a multi-million dollar production and replaces a flailing actor during an out of town tryout? 462 pages.
The Show Goes On: Broadway Hirings, Firings and Replacements Cover
Suffs (11/26/2024)

Written by one of the most exciting new voices in theater, this epic new musical takes an unflinching look at the unsung trailblazers of the American women’s suffrage movement. In the seven years leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, an impassioned group of suffragists—“Suffs” as they called themselves—took to the streets, pioneering protest tactics that transformed the country. They risked their lives as they clashed with the president, the public, and each other. A thrillin...
Suffs Cover
Sonny Boy: A Memoir (10/15/2024)

To the wider world, Al Pacino exploded onto the scene like a supernova. He landed his first leading role, in The Panic in Needle Park, in 1971, and by 1975, he had starred in four movies—The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon—that were not just successes but landmarks in the history of film. Those performances became legendary and changed his life forever. Not since Marlon Brando and James Dean in the late 1950s had an actor landed in the culture with such force...
Sonny Boy: A Memoir Cover
A Show Tune for Today: 366 Songs to Brighten Your Year Calendar (10/15/2024)

Day-to-day calendar (one that can be used again and again, in any year). 366 bite-size entries, with anecdotes, observations, fun facts, and other confections tied to a single song, perfect for starting each day. Tied to a show's opening date, holidays, historic dates, lyrics, or connections more surprising. 400 pages.
A Show Tune for Today: 366 Songs to Brighten Your Year Calendar Cover
The Musical: A Research and Information Guide (Routledge Music Bibliographies) 2nd Edition (10/14/2024)

2nd edition of 2011 book by William Everett. More than 1,400 annotated entries; includes reference works, monographs, articles, anthologies, and websites related to the musical. Separate sections devoted to sub-genres (such as operetta and megamusical), non-English language musical genres in the U.S., traditions outside the U.S., individual shows, creators, performers, and performance. This second edition reflects the notable increase in musical theater scholarship since 2000. Also includes mul...
The Musical: A Research and Information Guide (Routledge Music Bibliographies) 2nd Ed Cover
The Spamalot Diaries (10/8/2024)

Eric Idle shares original journal entries and raw email exchanges that reveal the sometimes bumpy, always entertaining path to the musical Spamalot's run. 208 pages.
The Spamalot Diaries Cover
Running the Room: Conversations with Women Theatre Directors (9/24/2024)

Explores, through a series of conversations with many of the leading talents working on British stages, what it takes to succeed in the field, and how each director approaches the work in their own way. Contributions from Natalie Abrahami, Annabel Arden, Milli Bhatia, Carrie Cracknell, Tinuke Craig, Marianne Elliott, Nadia Fall, Yaël Farber, Vicky Featherstone, Jamie Fletcher, Sarah Frankcom, Emma Frankland, Rebecca Frecknall, Debbie Hannan, Tamara Harvey, Natalie Ibu, Ola Ince, Lynette Linton,...
Running the Room: Conversations with Women Theatre Directors Cover
Love Me Tonight (Oxford Guides to Film Musicals) (9/6/2024)

About the musical film Love Me Tonight (1932), with individual chapters devoted to the work's genesis and development of the screenplay, the songs and instrumental music, the role censorship has played in the history of the film, and the film's reception from its time to the modern day. Informed by extensive archival holdings in several major library collections, as well as from the indispensable resources housed at the Paramount Studio archives. 208 pages.
Love Me Tonight (Oxford Guides to Film Musicals) Cover
Rocky Horror Cookbook: 50 Savory, Sweet, and Seductive Recipes from the Cult Musical (9/3/2024)

Officially licensed cookbook based on The Rocky Horror Show. 50 recipes. Examples: Magenta Mash(ed) Potato Cakes, Thrill Me Chill Me Spicy Gazpacho, Rocky’s Mussels, Riff Raff Ramen, and Slow-Cooked Thigh Ragu. "Don't dream it. Eat it." 136 pages.
Rocky Horror Cookbook: 50 Savory, Sweet, and Seductive Recipes from the Cult Musical Cover
Helen Morgan: The Original Torch Singer and Ziegfeld's Last Star (9/3/2024)

Biography on Broadway, film, and radio star Helen Morgan. 394 pages.
Helen Morgan: The Original Torch Singer and Ziegfeld's Last Star Cover
Please Be My Star (9/3/2024)

A wonderfully fun and unique reimagining of The Phantom of the Opera as a teen rom-com set in high school! Erika knows that people find her weird and off-putting. Instead of making friends, she finds solace in talking to herself and obsessing over handsome actors and pop stars. When she starts attending a new school, her loneliness takes on a life of its own and she develops a new obsession: the cutest boy in her theater class, Christian. For some reason, Christian is kind to her and even agree...
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I Danced on Broadway: Memoir of a Career on Stage (9/3/2024)

By Lee Wilson, who shares stories from her four decades of dancing on Broadway, with anecdotes about theatre legends including Agnes de Mille, Richard Rodgers, Michael Bennett, Donna McKechnie, and Bernadette Peters. She details the economic, political, and social events that led from the Golden Age to the slump of the early 1970s to the rejuvenation of Broadway with the huge success of A Chorus Line. 241 pages.
I Danced on Broadway: Memoir of a Career on Stage Cover
The Hirschfeld Broadway Tarot: Deck and Guidebook (9/3/2024)

From spiritual practitioner, tarot card reader, and former Broadway publicist Emily McGill. Deluxe, one-of-a kind deck that "casts" Broadway icons in traditional tarot roles, complete with the art of Al Hirschfeld. 78 cards (3 X 5 inches), guidebook (4 3/4 X 6 inches, 120 pages), inner card box, and magnetic closure keepsake outer box. Fully illustrated guidebook which includes images of each card, alongside card descriptions and suggested interpretations, as well as sample card spreads to guid...
The Hirschfeld Broadway Tarot: Deck and Guidebook Cover
The Songwriter's Handbook: Power Strategies for Crafting Great Lyrics (8/30/2024)

Platinum award-winning singer, songwriter, and lyricist Mark Winkler provides a handbook on writing great lyrics, chock full of songwriting exercises and engaging personal vignettes. This book crosses a variety of genres andteaches the craft of modern commercial songwriting as practiced by the likes of Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and Bruno Mars.
The Songwriter's Handbook: Power Strategies for Crafting Great Lyrics Cover
Fishamble Tiny Plays (8/14/2024)

All 70 tiny plays commissioned by Fishamble for Tiny Plays for Ireland, Tiny Plays 24/7, and Tiny Plays for a Brighter Future performed in Dublin, New York City, and Washington DC. 320 pages.
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Brian Friel: Beginnings (8/2/2024)

Based on newly discovered documents in the BBC and New Yorker archives, the book reveals Friel's youthful personality and his struggles to get noticed as a young writer. His correspondence with his first mentors - Belfast BBC radio producer Ronald Mason, New Yorker editor Roger Angell, and theatre director Tyrone Guthrie - shows how he shaped his early work, how he chose to write for the theatre, and how the patterns that became so memorable in his later plays were set in motion by his beginni...
Brian Friel: Beginnings Cover
Brian Friel: Beginnings (8/2/2024)

Based on newly discovered documents in the BBC and New Yorker archives, the book reveals Friel's youthful personality and his struggles to get noticed as a young writer. His correspondence with his first mentors - Belfast BBC radio producer Ronald Mason, New Yorker editor Roger Angell, and theatre director Tyrone Guthrie - shows how he shaped his early work, how he chose to write for the theatre, and how the patterns that became so memorable in his later plays were set in motion by his beginnin...
Brian Friel: Beginnings Cover
Watch Your Frazolagy! A Lexicon of Meredith Willson's "The Music Man" (7/16/2024)

By Cary Ginell, who analyzes over 280 period references to language, slang, commodities, household items, idiomatic expressions, and personages familiar to Iowans in 1912 that Willson incorporated into the libretto and song lyrics. Includes over 125 images to help readers visualize the items and personages mentioned in the show. 155 pages.
Watch Your Frazolagy! A Lexicon of Meredith Willson's
Appropriate/An Octoroon: Plays (6/18/2024)

Two plays by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Revised edition. 260 pages.
Appropriate/An Octoroon: Plays Cover
From The Back Of The House: Memoir of a Broadway Theatre Manager (6/14/2024)

Memoir by Broadway theater manager Dan Landon. Spanning from 1978-2018, the book shares backstage and onstage stories of encounters with theatre luminaries such as Bob Fosse, Ian McKellen, Bernadette Peters, August Wilson, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Madeline Kahn, Stephen Sondheim, Tom Stoppard, David Mamet, and more.
From The Back Of The House: Memoir of a Broadway Theatre Manager Cover
My First Book–Part 2 (6/4/2024)

Second memoir by veteran motion picture, television and Broadway producer Julian Schlossberg. Je shares stories from his 60 years in show business including new profiles of working with Peter Falk, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, George C. Scott, John Cassavetes and many others. Released 6/4/24.
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Mike Bartlett (6/3/2024)

By William C. Boles. Routledge Modern and Contemporary Dramatists series editors Maggie Gale and Graham Saunders. Includes Barlett's plays Cock, Doctor Foster, King Charles III, and Albion, a biographical introductory chapter, and new interviews with Bartlett and some of his closest and oft relied upon collaborators. 186 pages.
Mike Bartlett Cover
Jocelyn Bioh: Three Plays: Merry Wives; Nollywood Dreams; School Girls, Or, The African Mean Girls Play (5/30/2024)

First collection of plays from American contemporary playwright Jocelyn Bioh. 216 pages.
Jocelyn Bioh: Three Plays: Merry Wives; Nollywood Dreams; School Girls, Or, The Afric Cover
Too Funny for Words: Backstage Tales from Broadway, Television, and the Movies (5/21/2024)

The author recounts his career as a theater director, producer and actor that has spanned over 70 years. 240 pages.
Too Funny for Words: Backstage Tales from Broadway, Television, and the Movies Cover
Becky Nurse of Salem: A Contemporary Comedy About a Historical Tragedy (5/16/2024)

Play by Sarah Ruhl. Played at Lincoln Center Theater in the fall of 2022. 112 pages.
Becky Nurse of Salem: A Contemporary Comedy About a Historical Tragedy Cover
Christopher Oscar Peña: Three Plays: How To Make An American Son; The Strangers; A Cautionary Tail (5/16/2024)

Edited by Mark Armstrong. Introduced by Hugh Dancy. The work of Latinx American playwright and screenwriter Christopher Oscar Peña. 456 pages.
Christopher Oscar Peña: Three Plays: How To Make An American Son; The Strangers; A Ca Cover
How to Find, Choose, and Prepare Successful Audition (5/16/2024)

Takes the reader step-by-step through the process of building your audition repertoire portfolio ... helps to identify what songs are needed in which categories and explains where to find them, how to source and cut the sheet music, and how to communicate effectively with the accompanist and act the song. 184 pages.
How to Find, Choose, and Prepare Successful Audition Cover
FREE: Words on Music by a Hi-Def Critic in an MP3 World (5/15/2024)

By Lawrence Schulman ("Garland: That’s Beyond Entertainment – Reflections on Judy Garland"). Foreword by Tish Oney. Afterword by Manuel Betancourt. Schulman's writings between 2000 and 2024, on a whole host of artists and authors, including Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, Mildred Bailey, Patsy Cline, Bernard Herrmann, among others. 540 pages.
FREE: Words on Music by a Hi-Def Critic in an MP3 World Cover
The Group Theatre: An Enduring Legacy (5/15/2024)

. Examines the history and influence of the Group Theatre, which presented the first plays of Clifford Odets, Sidney Kingsley, and William Saroyan, and launched the careers of Franchot Tone, John Garfield, Elia Kazan, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, Martin Ritt, and Luther Adler. 339 pages.
The Group Theatre: An Enduring Legacy Cover
Theatre Work: Reimagining the Labor of Theatrical Production (4/29/2024)

"investigates both the history and current realities of life and work in professional theatrical production in the United States and explores labor practices that are equitable, accessible, and sustainable." 352 pages.
Theatre Work: Reimagining the Labor of Theatrical Production Cover
Playhouse Square and the Cleveland Renaissance (4/23/2024)

In-depth account of Cleveland's Playhouse Square (originally the State, Ohio, Hanna, Allen, and Palace theaters) history, beginning with the 1921 opening, through the darkening of four of their marquees by the end of the 1960s, the renovation and renaissance from the 1970s, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Illustrated and featuring interviews with the central figures involved in saving the Square. 240 pages.
Playhouse Square and the Cleveland Renaissance Cover
Song of the Season: Outstanding Broadway Songs since 1891 (4/18/2024)

Charts the progress of American showtunes alongside popular music forms as songs evolved from the waltz and ragtime to jazz, rock, rap and hip-hop. Factual analysis and historical context combine to offer a rich picture of the American songbook from Irving Berlin to Elton John. 440 pages.
Song of the Season: Outstanding Broadway Songs since 1891 Cover
Affective Memories: How Chance and the Theater Saved My Life (4/8/2024)

"This is the riveting, brutally honest story of a man’s struggle to make something of himself in the theater. Coming from meager circumstances in the Ozark Mountains, he fights his way up the shaky ladder toward fame. He makes mistakes, goes down blind alleys, fails and succeeds, again and again. But he never quits." 480 pages.
Affective Memories: How Chance and the Theater Saved My Life Cover
To Repair the World: Zelda Fichandler and the Transformation of American Theater (4/5/2024)

Biography in the form of an oral history about Zelda Fichandler, whose founding of Arena Stage in Washington, DC in 1950 shifted live professional theater away from Broadway and inspired the creation of non-profit theaters around the country. Dianne Wiest, James Earl Jones, Stacy Keach, and Jane Alexander, among many others, share their memories of this intrepid pioneering woman during Arena Stage’s early years. Fichandler was Head of New York University’s Graduate Acting Program for 25 years. ...
To Repair the World: Zelda Fichandler and the Transformation of American Theater Cover
The American Musical: Evolution of an Art Form (4/1/2024)

A portrait of the American musical's artistic evolution over the course of seven distinct, newly defined eras, with a perspective gleaned from research at more than twenty different archives across the United States. 416 pages.
The American Musical: Evolution of an Art Form Cover
The Long Revolution: Sixty Years on the Frontlines of a New American Theater (3/12/2024)

Content from sixty years of essays, speeches, and manifestos by the founding mother of the resident professional theatre movement. Founder and artistic director of Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and chair of New York University’s Graduate Acting program. Gathers Fichandler’s most prescient writing about that movement, ranging over such topics as The Institution as Art-Work, the Profit in NonProfit, Race and a Deepening Aesthetic, and Creativity and the Public Mind. Also includes intimate port...
The Long Revolution: Sixty Years on the Frontlines of a New American Theater Cover



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