Lee Wilson's New Memoir I DANCED ON BROADWAY to be Released This Fall

Lee Wilson's New Memoir, "I Danced on Broadway," Will Be Released This Fall. The publisher is McFarland & Company. The release date on Amazon.com is October 13, 2024, and the book is available for pre-orders now.

Lee Wilson danced on Broadway in four successive decades. She danced in hits, like "Hello, Dolly!," and flops that closed out of town, like "Lolita, My Love." In this honest, upbeat memoir, she shares stories about theatre legends, including Agnes De Mille, Richard Rodgers, Michael Bennett, Donna McKechnie, and Bernadette Peters. She describes the economic, political, and social events that led from the Golden Age to the slump of the early 1970s (when almost half of the Broadway audience disappeared) to the rejuvenation of Broadway with the huge success of "A Chorus Line." Wilson describes the thrill of joining most of the original cast of "A Chorus Line" for the West Coast premiere in 1976, and performing in the record-breaking show in 1983. Wilson's feminist viewpoint gives new insight into well-known musicals and illuminates the reasons that Golden Age musicals are still relevant to Broadway audiences today.

Wilson says she still remembers the first time she heard the song "You've Got to Be Taught" from "South Pacific" when she was a child. She says, "the lyrics hit me like thunderbolts because it had never occurred to me that prejudice was taught, but, as I listened to Oscar Hammerstein's lyrics, I realized that indoctrination began at birth. No lecture or book could have hit me with the power of that song. Never again could I hear a generalization about race or gender without questioning its purpose and its accuracy. That is the power of musical theatre."

Book jacket photo by Lesley Bohm