Armed with medicines, feeding tubes, and various medical accoutrement, Mary Jane is a single mother and a one-woman army when it comes to the care of her chronically ill son. A moving new play about the stalwart endurance of a devoted mother, Mary Jane by acclaimed playwright Amy Herzog demonstrates the prevailing strength of human will when fueled by unconditional love.
1780. Albany, New York.
As the war for American Independence carries on, two newlyweds are settling into their new adventure: marriage. But the honeymoon's over, and Alexander Hamilton and Eliza Schuyler are learning firsthand just how tricky wedded life can be. Alex is still General George Washington's right-hand man and his attention these days is nothing if not divided--much like the colonies' interests as the end of the Revolution draws near. Alex & Eliza's relationship is tested furthe...
An eye-opening history of Manhattan told through its most celebrated street.
Broadway takes us on a mile-by-mile journey that traces the gradual evolution of the seventeenth-century’s Brede Wegh, a muddy cow path in a backwater Dutch settlement, to the twentieth century’s Great White Way. We learn why one side of the street was once considered more fashionable than the other; witness construction of the Ansonia Apartments, Trinity Church, and the Flatiron Building and the burning of P. T. Ba...
Strike Up the Band, Of Thee I Sing, and Let ’Em Eat Cake). The decade also saw the last musicals by Gershwin, Jerome Kern, and Vincent Youmans; found Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in full flower; and introduced both Kurt Weill and Harold Arlen’s music to Broadway.
In The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals, Dan Dietz examines in detail every musical that opened on Broadway from 1930 through 1939. This book discusses the era’s major successes, notorious failures, and musicals that closed...
Known for her distinctive lyrical dialogue and powerful sociopolitical themes, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks is one of the most innovative and ambitious playwrights in the contemporary theatre world. In reaction to the extraordinary events of the first 100 days of the presidency of Donald J. Trump, one of America’s most distinguished artists has created a unique and highly personal response to one of the most tumultuous times in our history. For each day, Parks created a pl...
Will Eno's latest work is an existential meditation on the way human beings tend to labor through life forgetting to appreciate the smaller things -- moments of laughter, the natural beauty of the world, and especially one another. In Wakey, Wakey, the joyful and moving new play by master of seriocomedy Will Eno, a man in hospice care resolves to spend the remainder of his dwindling days on Earth discovering ways to celebrate his life.
The Street Where I Live is at once an intimate biography of three great shows?My Fair Lady, Gigi, and Camelot?and a candid account of the life and times of Alan Jay Lerner, one of America’s most acclaimed and popular lyricists. Large-hearted, humorous, and often poignant in its reverence for a celebrated era in the American theater, it is the story of what Lerner calls “the sundown of wit, eccentricity, and glamour.” Try as he might to keep himself out of these pages, Lerner reveals himself to ...
Moment Work is an impassioned argument for moving beyond the stale conventions of realism and naturalism that modern theater has been stuck in for more than a century. Twenty years ago Moisés Kaufman and the members of his Tectonic Theater Project set out to find an art form that speaks to us today, that uses new forms to express new ideas. Rather than thinking of theater as merely in service to a text, they wanted to find ways to fully exploit all the other elements of the stage in creating a ...
Fifteen years after Nora Helmer slammed the door on her stifling domestic life, a knock comes at that same door. It is Nora, and she has returned with an urgent request. However, before Nora can get what she needs, she must reckon with the people she left in her wake, who have some choice words for the former Mrs. Helmer. Lucas Hnath's funny, probing, and bold new play is at once a continuation of Ibsen's complex exploration of traditional gender roles while also creating a sharp contemporary t...
A revelatory portrait of the creative partnership that transformed musical theater and provided the soundtrack to the American Century
They stand at the apex of the great age of songwriting, the creators of the classic Broadway musicals Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music, whose songs have never lost their popularity or emotional power. Even before they joined forces, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II had written dozens of Broadway shows, but tog...
Sweeney Todd, the gruesome tale of a murderous barber and his pastry chef accomplice, is unquestionably strange subject matter for the musical theatre - but eight Tony awards and enormous successes on Broadway and the West End testify to its enduring popularity with audiences. Written by Hugh Wheeler, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, the musical premiered in 1979 and has seen numerous revivals, including Tim Burton's 2007 film version. Aaron C. Thomas addresses this darkly funny piece...
For nearly a decade, Jackie Apodaca and Michael Kostroff shared duties as advice columnists for the actors’ trade paper, Backstage. Their highly popular weekly feature, "The Working Actor," fielded questions from actors all over the country. A cross between "Dear Abby" and the Hollywood Reporter, their column was a fact-based, humorous, compassionate take on the questions actors most wanted answered. Using some their most interesting, entertaining, and informative columns as launch points, Answ...
The name Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. (1867–1932) is synonymous with the decadent revues that the legendary impresario produced at the turn of the twentieth century. These extravagant performances were filled with catchy tunes, high-kicking chorus girls, striking costumes, and talented stars such as Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, Marilyn Miller, W. C. Fields, and Will Rogers. After the success of his Follies, Ziegfeld revolutionized theater performance with the musical Show Boat (1927) and continued making...
America has gone Hamilton crazy. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony-winning musical has spawned sold-out performances, a triple platinum cast album, and a score so catchy that it is being used to teach U.S. history in classrooms across the country. But just how historically accurate is Hamilton? And how is the show itself making history?
Historians on “Hamilton” brings together a collection of top scholars to explain the Hamilton phenomenon and explore what it might mean for our understanding of Amer...
(Piano/Vocal/Guitar Songbook). A musical drama biopic chronicling P.T. Barnum (played by Hugh Jackman) and his founding of the Barnum & Bailey Circus, this December 2017 film features a stunning soundtrack by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul of La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen fame. Our songbook features piano/vocal/guitar arrangements of 9 songs: Come Alive * From Now On * The Greatest Show * A Million Dreams * Never Enough * The Other Side * Rewrite the Stars * This Is Me * Tightrope.
The Actor Uncovered is certainly not a set of rigid rules advocating one "method" or one singular "truth." Departing from the common guidebook format, Michael Howard uses a unique approach to teaching acting, reflecting on his own history and sharing his own experiences as an actor, director, and teacher. How he writes about the process and craft of acting is at once intensely personal and relatable by others.
Readers are invited to participate as though present in this master teacher's clas...
The Miracle Worker. The Patty Duke Show. Valley of the Dolls. Those perennial film and television titles still reverberate with audiences entranced with Academy Award-winning film actress and Broadway and television icon Patty Duke.
The oral history of Angels in America, as told by the artists who created it and the audiences forever changed by it--a moving account of the AIDS era, essential queer history, and an exuberant backstage tale.
When Tony Kushner's Angels in America hit Broadway in 1993, it won the Pulitzer Prize, swept the Tonys, launched a score of major careers, and changed the way gay lives were represented in popular culture. Mike Nichols's 2003 HBO adaptation starring Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, and Mary-Lo...
The script for the stage production of Khaled Hosseini's first and internationally bestselling novel, The Kite Runner, as adapted by playwright Matthew Spangler.
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. Now adapted for the stage, the story is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the po...
Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss, and by fate. As they endure the ever-escalating dangers around them--in their home, as well as in the streets of Kabul--they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense,...
In a series of interviews with fifty playwrights from the US and UK, this book offers a fascinating study of the voices, thoughts, and opinions of today's most important dramatists.
Filled with probing questions, Fifty Playwrights on their Craft explores ideas such as how does playwriting help a global dialogue; where do dramatists find the ideas that become the stories and narratives within their plays; how can the stage inform the writer's creative process; how does crossing boundaries bet...
This musical adaptation of the 1993 film starring Robert De Niro and Chazz Palminteri was released on Broadway in December 2016 featuring the music of Alan Menken and Glenn Slater. Our vocal selections folio includes standard piano/vocal arrangements with the melody in the piano part. Songs include: Ain't It the Truth · Belmont Avenue · The Choices We Make · Hurt Someone · I like It · In a World like This · Look to Your Heart · Nicky Machiavelli · One of the Great Ones · Out of Your Head · Roll...
Beyond being just fuel for the body, food carries symbolic importance used to define individuals, situations, and places, making it an ideal communication tool. In musical theater, food can be used as a shortcut to tell the audience more about a setting, character, or situation. Because everyone relates to eating, food can also be used to evoke empathy, amusement, or shock from the audience. In some cases, food is central to show’s plot. This book looks at popular musical theater shows to exami...
(Vocal Selections). The careers and rivalry of entrepreneurs Elizabeth Ardena and Helena Rubinstein is the centerprice of this 2017 Broadway musical based on the 2004 book of the same name by Lindy Woodhead. Our vocal selections feature 13 songs in vocal lines with piano accompaniment penned by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie: Back on Top * Beauty in the World * Behind the Red Door * Better Yourself * Dinosaurs * Face to Face * Fire & Ice * Forever Beautiful * If I'd Been a Man * Inside of the ...
Often dismissed as kitsch sentimentalism, The Sound of Music (1959) has proven enduringly popular and surprisingly influential, both within the field of musical theatre and the wider world. The Broadway production won five Tony Awards, the London production became the longest-running West End musical, and the movie version became the highest-grossing film of all time. Over sixty years it has become a cultural icon, with wildly shifting significance in different cultures, but the stage musical h...
After an eight year absence from big musical theatre, Jeremy Stanford suddenly finds himself cast in a leading role of one of the most expensive and eagerly anticipated Australian musicals ever; Priscilla Queen of the Desert - The Musical. Involved from the outset, starting with the workshop of the first script, he navigates the auditions, the nerve-wracking rehearsals and finally, the incredibly fraught lead up to the world premier of this hit show. It's a wild bus trip through a landscape of ...
A letter that was never meant to be seen, a lie that was never meant to be told, a life he never dreamed he could have. Evan Hansen is about to get the one thing he's always wanted: a chance to finally fit in. Both deeply personal and profoundly contemporary, DEAR EVAN HANSEN is a new American musical about life and the way we live it.
The book-produced by Melcher Media, the team behind Hamilton, Wicked, Rent, and many more-tells the story of the musical from its conception nearly a decade a...
Composer, pianist, author, television teacher, Harvard lecturer, cultural icon, humanist and conductor without peer, Leonard Bernstein's versatility was legendary. He captivated Broadway with such hits as On the Town and West Side Story and introduced middle America to classical music with his Young People's Concerts on television. He composed three symphonies and a full-length opera, and he inspired the world's leading orchestras to give some of the most memorable performances of the twentieth...
This edited volume provides new readings of the life and career of iconic actress Vivien Leigh (191367), written by experts from theatre and film studies and curators from the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. The collection uses newly accessible family archives to explore the intensely complex relationship between Vivien Leigh's approach to the craft of acting for stage and screen, and how she shaped, developed and projected her public persona as one of the most talked about and photographed a...
Broadway Rhythm is a guide to Manhattan like nothing you've ever read. Author Dominic Symonds calls it a performance cartography, and argues that the city of New York maps its iconicity in the music of the Broadway songbook. A series of walking tours takes the reader through the landscape of Manhattan, clambering over rooftops, riding the subway, and flying over skyscrapers. Symonds argues that Broadway's songs can themselves be used as maps to better understand the city though identifiable pat...
An essential introductory textbook that provides a comprehensive and student-friendly overview of the key processes involved in developing and managing a theatre in the 21st century. It covers a complete range of topics fundamental to successful commercial and not-for-profit theatre management, from developing a mission statement to communicating with stakeholders, from marketing and promotion to fund development platforms, and from governance structures to community engagement. With over two d...
7 songs from the stage musical adapted from Victor Hugo's 1831 novel of the same name and the music from the 1996 Disney animated feature film. This collection includes vocal line arrangements with piano accompaniment for the songs: The Bells of Notre Dame * Esmeralda * Flight into Egypt * God Help the Outcasts * Hellfire * In a Place of Miracles * Made of Stone * Rest and Recreation * Someday * Top of the World * and more.
When Sholem Asch wrote God of Vengeance in 1907, he didn’t imagine the height of controversy the play would eventually reach. Performing at first in Yiddish and German, the play’s subject matter wasn’t deemed contentious until it was produced in English, when the American audiences were scandalized by the onstage depiction of an amorous affair between two women. Paula Vogel’s newest work traces the trajectory of the show’s success through its tour in Europe to its abrupt and explosive demise on...
The glorious world of P.T. Barnum and the holiday movie The Greatest Showman come to life in this lavish art book. Featuring unit photography and concept art of stars Hugh Jackman, Zac Ephron, Michelle Williams, and Zendaya as well as behind-the-scenes tales of the film’s making. Lyrics to the movie musical’s showstopping tunes, by the song-writing team behind La-La Land. Foreword by Director Michael Gracey.
The complete memoirs of Neil Simon, the greatest—and most successful—American playwright of all time, the author of such iconic works as Lost in Yonkers, The Odd Couple, Biloxi Blues, and The Goodbye Girl, now with an insightful Introduction by Nathan Lane.
This omnibus edition combines Neil Simon’s two memoirs, Rewrites and The Play Goes On, into one volume that spans his extraordinary five-decade career in theater, television, and film. Rewrites takes Simon through his first love, his firs...
The final work from the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer, actor, and musician, drawn from his transformative last days
In searing, beautiful prose, Sam Shepard’s extraordinary narrative leaps off the page with its immediacy and power. It tells in a brilliant braid of voices the story of an unnamed narrator who traces, before our rapt eyes, his memories of work, adventure, and travel as he undergoes medical tests and treatments for a condition that is rendering him more and more dependent on th...
Founded in 1910, Detroit's Players Club is an all-male club devoted to the production of theater by members for other members' enjoyment. Called simply "The Players," members of the club design, direct, and act in the shows, including playing the female roles. In Detroit on Stage, Marijean Levering takes readers behind the scenes of the club's private "frolics" to explore the unique history of The Players, discover what traditions they still hold dear, and examine why they have survived relativ...
Beyond being just fuel for the body, food carries symbolic importance used to define individuals, situations, and places, making it an ideal communication tool. In musical theater, food can be used as a shortcut to tell the audience more about a setting, character, or situation. Because everyone relates to eating, food can also be used to evoke empathy, amusement, or shock from the audience. In some cases, food is central to show’s plot. This book looks at popular musical theater shows to exami...
In late 2016, Lin-Manuel Miranda released this "mixtape" album of 23 tracks from the score to the mega-hit, Tony Award-winning Broadway sensation Hamilton as performed by several recording artists. This songbook features piano, voice and guitar arrangements for 22 of these songs: Dear Theodosia (Regina Spektor feat. Ben Folds) * Helpless (Ashanti feat. Ja Rule) * History Has Its Eyes on You (John Legend) * It's Quiet Uptown (Kelly Clarkson) * My Shot (The Roots) * Satisfied (Sia feat. Miguel & ...
Nicol Williamson became famous overnight for his performance in John Osborne’s Inadmissible Evidence in 1964 at London’s Royal Court Theatre, going on to gain a reputation as perhaps the best – and most difficult – British actor of his generation and ending the ‘60s with a Hamlet which became as legendary as it was controversial. The following year he was invited to perform at the White House – the first actor ever to receive such an invitation – but Williamson’s spectacular early success was n...
The official behind-the-scenes book of the new hit musical.
A letter that was never meant to be seen, a lie that was never meant to be told, a life he never dreamed he could have. Evan Hansen is about to get the one thing he's always wanted: a chance to finally fit in. Both deeply personal and profoundly contemporary, DEAR EVAN HANSEN is a new American musical about life and the way we live it.
The book-produced by Melcher Media, the team behind Hamilton, Wicked, Rent, and many more-tells...
"Do You Mind If I Smoke?" tells the story of Fenella Fielding's remarkable 65-year career in theatre, radio, TV and film. Best known for her 1960s film appearances in classic comedies such as "Carry On Screaming", "Doctor in Clover" and "Carry On Regardless", Fielding's sublime talents also brought her success in serious roles on the stage, including title roles in "Hedda Gabler" and "Colette". Spiced with star-studded anecdotes and personalized with moving stories about innocence and experienc...
In a career spanning six decades, Agnes Moorehead (1900-1974) was perhaps unique among 20th-century American actresses in making her name in four entertainment media--radio, theater, film and television--after age 40. Focusing on 25 of her most representative performances, this retrospective analyzes her work on radio serials like Mayor of the Town (1942-1949) and Suspense (1942-1962), her stage productions of Don Juan in Hell and Gigi, her television appearances on Bewitched and The Twilight Z...
The list of Nicholas Hytner's accomplishments is long and distinguished: as Artistic Director of London's National Theatre from 2003-2015, he directed and produced a great number of their most popular and memorable plays and musicals, many of which have come to Broadway: Carousel, Richard Bean's One Man, Two Guvnors, David Hare's Stuff Happens among them. He directed both the London and Broadway productions of Miss Saigon, each of which ran for ten years. He directed Alan Bennett's The Madness ...
Ever wondered why actors don’t wear green onstage? Or never wish each other “good luck”? Or avoid whistling in the dressing room? Or refuse to mention a certain Shakespeare play by name? “BREAK A LEG!” A TREASURY OF THEATRE TRADITIONS AND SUPERSTITIONS is a fascinating compendium of facts and fancies about theatre life, exploring the origin of the colorful traditions and superstitions that are as vital a part of theatre as the plays onstage. Includes entries on: Cats, Candles & Curtains • Peaco...
The Lion King debuted July 8, 1997, at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, and was an instant success before premiering at the New Amsterdam Theatre on November 13, 1997. It is Broadway's highest grossing production of all time, having grossed more than $1 billion. The show won six 1998 Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Direction of a Musical, making Julie Taymor the first woman in theatrical history bestowed with the honor. The Lion King has also earned more than 70 major arts award...
Drawing on his own life and career and the rich lore of The Lion King, Alton Fitzgerald White, Broadway's longest running "King," delivers his message of service -- taking responsibility for and deriving happiness from commonplace achievements -- as a philosophy that anyone can get through each day with satisfaction, pride and a sense of accomplishment.
If you've ever wondered how an actor can perform the same role hundreds of times without burning out, in White's book you'll meet someone who ...
This amazing new collection features over 600 Broadway songs arranged with melody, lyrics and chords for C instruments. Definitely a must-own resource for any gigging or auditioning musician or actor! Includes: All at Once You Love Her * All I Ask of You * Alone in the Universe * Always Look on the Bright Side of Life * And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going * Another Op'nin', Another Show * Any Dream Will Do * Anything Goes * Aquarius * Be Our Guest * Bess, You Is My Woman * Big Spender * Body and...
Biography of lyricist, bookwriter, librettist John Treville Latouche (Cabin in the Sky, Beggar's Holiday, The Golden Apple, Candide ). The book draws widely on archival materials such as Latouche's diaries and the papers of Bernstein, Ellington, Moore, Moross, and many others, to tell for the first time, the story of this fascinating man and his work. 592 pages.
