Broadway Bookshelf - Must Read Theater Books

Two plays by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Revised edition. 260 pages.

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.

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.

The author recounts his career as a theater director, producer and actor that has spanned over 70 years. 240 pages.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

"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.

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. ...

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.

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...

Foreword by Sam Mendes. Afterword by Adam Redfield. William Redfield's (Guildenstern) series of letters describing the daily happenings and his impressions of them during the three months of preparation for the 1964 Hamlet, from rehearsals through out-of-town tryouts to the gala opening night on Broadway. New edition brings Redfield's classic back into print, as The Motive and the Cue, the Sam Mendes-directed play about the Gielgud production that is based in part on the book, continues its run...

In CLYDE’S, a truck stop sandwich shop offers its formerly incarcerated kitchen staff a shot at redemption. Even as the shop’s callous owner tries to keep them down, the staff members learn to reclaim their lives, find purpose, and become inspired to dream by their shared quest to create the perfect sandwich.

The author looks back over the last 30 years and writes about how his musical Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story became a Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominee and went on to have over two hundred productions spanning twenty-five countries and seventeen languages. 312 pages.

Details the life and work of Bradford Ropes, author of the bawdy 1932 novel "42nd Street," on which the classic film and its stage adaptation are based. Follows Ropes s successful career as both a performer and the author of the backstage novels "42nd Street," "Stage Mother," and "Go Into Your Dance." Ropes rebelled against the "Proper Bostonian" life, in a career that touched upon the Jazz Age, American vaudeville, and theater censorship. 330 pages.

By Arnold Aronson. Looks at the history of theatrical scenography by examining the work and contributions of fifty set, costume, lighting, and projection designers since the Renaissance ... including opera, dance, Broadway and West End commercial theatre, avant-garde performance, and even Olympic spectacles. Each chapter features one designer, with basic biographical information and a discussion of that artist's style, aesthetics, and contributions. 330 pages.

By Sean Mayes. Unveils the untold stories and perspectives of artists of color shaping the stage today, through interviews drawn from Broadway and regional productions, including André De Shields, Alex Lacamoire, Baayork Lee, and many more. 168 pages.

Tells the story of Theatre-in-Limbo, a downtown band of actors formed in 1984 by director Kenneth Elliott and playwright and drag legend Charles Busch. Elliott narrates the company's Cinderella tale of fun, heartbreak, and dishy drama. 226 pages.

Becky Nurse is an outspoken, sharp-witted tour guide at the Salem Museum of Witchcraft who’s just trying to get by in post-Obama America. She’s also the descendant of Rebecca Nurse, who was infamously executed for witchcraft in 1692—but things have changed for women since then…haven’t they? After losing her job for calling out The Crucible in front of schoolkids, Becky visits a local witch for help. One spell leads to another, and then everything really goes off the rails. A darkly comic play a...

An account of stage musicals' engagement with historically significant theories about mental distress, illness, disability, and human variance in the United States. Shows how theater dramatized serious medical conditions and social problems. Among the many Broadway productions discussed are Next to Normal, A Strange Loop, Sweeney Todd, Man of La Mancha, Dear World, Anyone Can Whistle, Gypsy, Oklahoma!, and Lady in the Dark.

On March 13, 2020, as theaters shut their doors and so many of us went into lockdown, Suzan-Lori Parks picked up her pen and set out to write a play every day. What emerged is a breathtaking chronicle of our collective experience throughout the troubling days and nights that followed. Plays for the Plague Year is at once a personal story of one family's daily lives, as well as a sweeping account of all we faced as a city, a nation, and a global community. Parks' groundbreaking new work is br...

Guide to fifty popular musicals from the comedy classics of the 1930s and 1940s to the frequently-produced darlings of modern theater. Kindle version to be released 9/15/23. 314 pages.

Brainteasers that require more than an ordinary knowledge of Broadway facts that will send even the most seasoned theater lovers looking for answers. Kindle version to be released 9/15/23. 232 pages.

Libretto for 2022 musical version of David Lindsay-Abaire's Kimberly Akimbo, with score by Jeanine Tesori. 120 pages.

Paperback version of 2021 book, with some revisions. Detailed and comprehensive reference devoted to musical theater's most prolific and admired composer and lyricist. Entries cover Sondheim's numerous collaborators; key songs; and major works. Also profiles the actors who originated roles and sang Sondheim's songs for the first time, including Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, Mandy Patinkin, and Bernadette Peters. Features a detailed biographical entry for Sondheim, a chronology of his career, a...

Play by Ben Weatherill. Published to coincide with the world premiere at Theatre Royal Windsor, in June 2023, starring Roger Allam and Ian McKellen. 80 pages.

Catalogues, categorizes, and analyzes the 269 musicals that opened on Broadway from the 2000-2001 season through the 2019-2020 season. 228 pages.

Juicy—a young, queer, Southern man, who is grappling with questions of identity—is visited by the ghost of his father (Pap) at his mother’s wedding/family barbecue. Pap demands that Juicy avenge his recent murder. How will Juicy, a sensitive and self-aware young Black man, trying to break a cycle of trauma and toxic masculinity, avenge his father’s premature death? Fat Ham reinvents Shakespeare’s masterpiece in startling and hilarious ways amidst the backdrop of a family barbeque in the America...

No matter how you approach it, Cats is so much more than a silly dance revue based on some silly poems, so much more than a punchline. Why has Cats been such a huge, longstanding commercial success around the world? Why do people see it over and over? Cats is literally about life and death. Cats is about us.

The early drama of Eugene O’Neill, with its emphasis on racial themes and conflicts, opened up extraordinary opportunities for Black performers to challenge racist structures in modern theater and cinema. By adapting O’Neill’s dramatic writing—changing scripts to omit offensive epithets, inserting African American music and dance, or including citations of Black internationalism--theater artists of color have used O’Neill’s texts to raze barriers in American and transatlantic theater.

Featuring contributions from over eighty original cast members, creatives, crew and audience members, Out For Blood pieces together the surprising, hilarious and often-moving inside story of Carrie The Musical to discover how this 'horror of a Broadway musical' lived, died and was subsequently resurrected as a mainstream success story. In 1988, following the success of its production of Les Misérables and in the wake of the commercial success of mega-musicals such as Cats, Phantom of the Opera...

Play by Jocelyn Bioh. Published to coincide with the UK premiere at the Lyric Theatre, Hampstead, in June 2023. 96 pages.

Part of two-volume set. Detailed, illustrated study that covers Schulman's writings on Garland between 1993 and 2023 that concentrate on her recordings. Utilizes published articles, reviews, liner notes, interviews, program notes, talks, and prefaces. Includes all the facts but does not exclude amusing anecdotes and unsettling stories that shed light on this complicated artist. 294 pages. Released 7/10/23.

art of two-volume set. Detailed, illustrated study that covers Schulman's writings on Garland between 1993 and 2023 that concentrate on her recordings. Utilizes published articles, reviews, liner notes, interviews, program notes, talks, and prefaces. Includes all the facts but does not exclude amusing anecdotes and unsettling stories that shed light on this complicated artist. 294 pages.

Bebe, a bookworm with an outlandish imagination, lives a peculiarly privileged life for a Black girl during the Great Depression. Her fearless father owns a hospital and an array of businesses, making him a keen target of the KKK. Her home life is filled with a panoply of distinctive family members, including a psychic mother, a terrifying "spinster" aunt who's having a secret affair with the local white sheriff, a renegade librarian aunt, a grandmother who might be the great-great-granddaughte...

Play by Lauren Yee. 96 pages.

Play by Suzie Miller. Special edition features the definitive version of the award-winning script, together with colour photos and exclusive additional content. 144 pages.

Songs from the film plus 14 more from the cast recording arranged in standard piano/vocal format with the melody in the piano part. Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard. 144 pages. Released 6/1/23.

2012 Broadway musical with a score by Tom Kitt (music), Amanda Green (lyrics), Lin-Manuel Miranda (music and lyrics). A dozen songs from the musical in vocal line with piano accompaniment arrangements: "Cross the Line," "Enjoy the Trip," "I Got You," "It Ain't No Thing," "It's All Happening," "Killer Instinct," "Legendary," "One Perfect Moment," "Something Isn't Right Here," "Tryouts," "We Ain't No Cheerleaders," "We're Not Done."

Insight into the role of the casting director. Explains the jobs of all the other people involved in the casting process and how they influence casting decisions. 176 pages. Kindle Edition released earlier.

Score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. 17 songs from the show arranged with vocal line and piano accompaniment. Titles include: "At the Old Majestic Nickel Matinee," "Baby, Let's Get Good," "A Darker Shade of Blue," "Fly, Mariposa, Fly," "He Lied When He Said Hello," "I'm California Bound," "Let's Be Bad," "Let's Dance the World Away," "Poor Little Millionaire," "Ride Out the Storm," "Some like It Hot," "Take It up a Step," "Vamp!," "What Are You Thirsty For?," "You Can't Have Me (If You Don'...

Second in a series. Includes a brief history of musicals, a brief survey of acting methods, myths about musicals and about acting, useful musical theatre terms, good books and documentaries, plus a wide array of other related topics, like using silence and stillness, the Fourth Wall, realism and naturalism, playing funny, playing sexy, acting traps, audition tips, the nature of “reality” onstage, and lots more. 80 pages.

Foreword by Blythe Danner. National network of Rehearsal Club "Cinderellas" (coined by TV Guide in the 1950s) came together to tell their stories, spanning four decades, 1940s - 1970s. Captures New York City and Broadway history while charting the journey leading to The Rehearsal Club's incorporation in 2019. Carol Burnett, Blythe Danner and others are recognizable, well-known RC Alums. 264 pages. Hardcover released 4/15/23. Audiobook on CD and Audible Audiobook with bonus materials to be relea...

Play by Emma Donoghue. This updated and revised edition was published to coincide with the Broadway premiere in Spring 2023, which has been cancelled, so publishing may change. 96 pages. [A 2017 version is available on Amazon in Kindle format.]

Lavishly illustrated hands-on account of the creation of new theatre spaces spanning a century. A compelling history that is part memoir, part impassioned call to rethink the design of our theatre spaces and the future of live theatre. 256 pages.

Surveys 201 of the most significant selections from the Great American Songbook, ranging from celebrated masterpieces to forgotten gems. Year by year, Suskin puts songwriters and their contributions in their context, and explains what makes each song such a distinctive treat - whether felicitous melody, colorful harmony, compositional originality, or merely the sheer, irreducible joy of listening to it. 200 black & white and 96 full-color illustrations. 296 pages.

A unique view of the theater's backstage life, props, wardrobe collections and rehearsal spaces through unprecedented access to life behind the scenes. All captured by Angela Moore's photographs. 200 pages.

The critically acclaimed biography of Judy Garland that reads like a novel. 200 photos, many published for the first time, from private collections around the world.

The author uses her life story to empower and encourage anyone seeking to find and live their best life with beauty, dignity and a grace that radiates from within. 172 pages.