For generations, residents of New York's Capital District have flocked to the region's numerous theaters. The history behind the venues is often more compelling than the shows presented in them. John Wilkes Booth brushed with death on stage while he and Abraham Lincoln were visiting Albany. The first exhibition of broadcast television was shown at Proctor's Theater in Schenectady, although the invention ironically contributed to the downfall of theaters across the nation. A fired manager of the...
The music of Broadway is one of America's most unique and popular calling cards. In Broadway to Main Street: How Show Tunes Enchanted America, author Laurence Maslon tells the story of how the most beloved songs of the American Musical Theater made their way from the Theater District to living rooms across the country.
The crossroads where the music of Broadway meets popular culture is an expansive and pervasive juncture throughout most of the twentieth century--from sheet music to radio bro...
This book offers a wealth of resources, critical overviews and detailed analysis of Ivo van Hove's internationally acclaimed work as the foremost director of theatre, opera and musicals in our time. Stunning production photos capture the power of van Hove's directorial vision, his innovative use of theatrical spaces, and the arresting stage images that have made his productions so popular among audiences worldwide over the last 30 years. Van Hove's own contribution to the book, which includes a...
From whimsical comedies to nail-biting chillers, Julia Cho is one of the most versatile playwrights in the contemporary theatre scene. For the past fifteen years, her stunning plays have been performed all over the country. Contained in this new anthology is a captivating sampling of her widely-lauded work featuring The Language Archive and including Aubergine, Office Hour, The Piano Teacher, and Durango.
Starting from humble beginnings under his grandmother's care, Leon takes us to unexpected places in his ascent to the top from the house off the dirt road without electricity in rural Florida to being the first African American director to win a Tony Award. In TAKE YOU WHEREVER YOU GO, Kenny reflects on the lessons he learned every step of the way from the most important people in his life-from his grandmother's sagacious and encouraging motivations to the deep artistic influence of iconic Amer...
From The Lion King to Moose Murders and from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to Agatha Christie?s The Mousetrap, celebrate the Drama Desk Award-winning artwork of Frank "Fraver" Verlizzo with more than 250 of his theatre poster designs from Broadway, Off-Broadway, and around the globe. For the first time in his five-decade career, this monograph collection will take you behind-the-scenes into the world of theatrical advertising through a rare look at 40 unpublished poster sketches for some of Broadway's ...
Beneath the deadpan back-and-forth of a seemingly typical city council board meeting lies the whiff of something distinctly sinister in Tracy Letts's new play The Minutes. Known for his keen ability to illustrate the faults and cracks under humanity's surface, Letts delivers an acutely thrilling new work that pulls you in with laughter before grabbing you by the throat.
Whenever You’re Ready is an intimate account of the career of Nora Polley, who — in her 52 years at the Stratford Festival — has learned from, worked with, and cared for some of the greatest directors, actors, stage managers, and productions in Canadian theatrical history. In so doing, Nora became one of the greatest stage managers this country has ever seen.
Here is an account of the Stratford Festival’s history like no other. From her childhood forays into a theater her father, Victor, w...
In Anne Washburn's disquieting new drama, a group of old friends -- most of whom have widely lost touch -- are reunited for the funeral of one their own. Washburn's expertise in blurring the lines between the real and surreal compounds the unease as the friends scour their memories of the past and cope with stark reminders of their own mortality.
In this poetic and inspiring memoir, one of America’s most revered actresses uses the imagery of flowers and the art of Ikebana to depict the unique creative bond that she has had with her mother throughout the years—and how, together, they are facing her mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Marcia Gay Harden knew at a young age that her life would be anything but ordinary. One of five lively children born to two Texas natives—Beverly, a proper Dallas lady, and Thad, a young officer i...
Once hailed by John Osborne as "the greatest actor since Brando", latterly known as a ruined genius whose unpredictable, hellraising behavior was legendary, Nicol Williamson always went his own way. Openly dismissive of "technical" actors, or others who played The Bard as if "their finger was up their arse", Williamson tore up the rule book to deliver a fast-talking canon of Shakespearean heroes, with portrayals marked by gut-wrenching passion. According to one co-star, Williamson was like a to...
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.
One of the most-talked about new plays of the 2016 Off-Broadway season, Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves opened to enthusiastic acclaim, including two sold-out, extended runs at The Playwrights Realm/The Duke on 42nd Street.
The Wolves follows the 9 teenage girls?members of an indoor soccer team?as they warm up, engage in banter and one-upmanship, and fight battles big and small with each other and themselves. As the teammates warm up in sync, a symphony of overlapping dialogue spills out their co...
In David Mamet’s searing new drama, Charles, a psychiatrist, is thrown into a firestorm of controversy when he refuses to testify on behalf of a gay client accused of killing ten people. He claims his refusal is a principled defense of the Hippocratic oath, enshrining the confidentiality of the doctor-client relationship. The client’s defense claims it is bigotry. As Charles is subjected to a Job-like barrage of misfortune, The Penitent asks the question: What is the cost of standing up for wha...
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...
From West Side Story in 1957 to Road Show in 2008, the musicals of Stephen Sondheim and his collaborators have challenged the conventions of American musical theater and expanded the possibilities of what musical plays can do, how they work, and what they mean. Sondheim's brilliant array of work, including such musicals as Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, and Into the Woods, has established him as the preeminent composer/lyricist of his, if not all, time.
Steph...
The “First Lady of Show Business” and the “Last of the Red Hot Mamas,” Sophie Tucker was a star in vaudeville, radio, film, and television. A gutsy, song-belting stage performer, she entertained audiences for sixty years and inspired a host of younger women, including Judy Garland, Carol Channing, and Bette Midler. Tucker was a woman who defied traditional expectations and achieved success on her own terms, becoming the first female president of the American Federation of Actors and winning man...
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...
In his Upper East Side atelier, a bespoke tailor, Anselm Kassar, is persuaded by the vulgar real estate mogul turned presidential candidate Kurt Seaman to make him the perfect suit. A suit to “stun them” at the final debate before the election, a suit for him to wear while he takes on his unnamed female opponent. Kassar agrees to make Seaman a suit with magical powers of persuasion, to allow him to “close the deal with the American people.”
Like the age-old feud between the Montagues and Capulets in Romeo and Juliet, the enduring rivalry between the Boston Celtics and the LA Lakers makes for great drama. Macbeth's career began with promise but ended in ruin--not unlike Pete Rose's. Twelfth Night's Viola disguising herself as a boy to enter into a man's world is echoed in Babe Didrickson Zaharias challenge to the pro golf patriarchy when she competed in the Los Angeles Open.
Exploring parallels between Shakespeare's plays and famo...
A fresh take on a classic by the Tony Award-winning playwright of The Humans
“Mr. Karam’s plays aren’t tearful, but they are often about loss—of love, of health, of innocence—and the messy, haphazard, necessary ways we get on with our lives afterward… He specializes in painful comedies that really shouldn’t be as funny as they are. Karam is a mature writer, very much in command of his gifts.” —New York Times
“Stephen Karam is among the very best of his generation of playwrights.” —New Yor...
Following his acclaimed performance in the hit film Dunkirk, Oscar and three-time Tony winner Mark Rylance returns to the stage in Farinelli and the King. This captivating new play arrives on Broadway after sold-out runs at Shakespeare’s Globe and on London’s West End. It tells the true story of Philippe V (Rylance), a Spanish monarch on the brink of madness.
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...
In 1975, the Broadway musical Chicago brought together a host of memes and myths - the gleefully subversive character of American musical comedy, the reckless glamour of the big-city newspaper, the mad decade of the 1920s, the work of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon (two of the greatest talents in the musical's history), and the Wild West gangsterville that was the city of Chicago itself.
The tale of a young woman who murders her departing lover and then tricks the jury into letting her off, Chica...
When The Sound of Music was released in 1965, it took the world by storm, capturing five Oscars (including Best Picture) and holding the number-one spot box-office record for five years. For millions of viewers, the film is a rare combination of a powerful and moving story, superb music, and breathtaking scenery.
The Sound of Music: The Making of America’s Favorite Movie is not only an unequalled tribute to this beloved movie musical but also the most complete behind-the-scenes acc...
A fresh insight into the mind of one of the UK’s greatest playwrights via intimate letters to and from his first wife, Pamela Lane. John Osborne was the original ‘Angry Young Man’ of British Theater. His ground-breaking play 'Look Back in Anger' (1956) was based on their turbulent marriage.
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...
Dame Maggie Smith stands as a remarkable example of the concomitance - in a performer's career - of typecasting and characterisation, that is the ability to impersonate `against type' infinitely various screen or stage characters. This book of appreciation essentially aims at correcting the preconceived image that the general public has of Dame Maggie Smith. Focusing on the last twenty-five years, it examines, through the many parts she has played since the early 1990s, her ability to go beyond...
Leslie Odom. Jr, burst on the scene in 2015, originating the role of Aaron Burr in the Broadway musical phenomenon Hamilton. Since then, he has performed for sold-out audiences, sung for the Obamas at the White House, and won a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. But before he landed the role of a lifetime in one of the biggest musicals of all time, Odom put in years of hard work as a singer and an actor.
With personal stories from his life, Odom asks the questions that will help...
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...
"An extraordinary theatrical triumph" The Times, London A radical new version of Federico Garcia Lorca’s masterpiece, set in contemporary London. Billie Piper won the Olivier award for best actress for her portrayal of a young woman driven to the unthinkable by her desperate desire to have a child. Piper repeated the role in the New York production, which played at the Park Avenue Armory in March and April 2018. Simon Stone is an award-winning Australian film and theater director, writer and ac...
(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.
Bob Fosse (1927-1987) is recognized as one of the most significant figures in post-World War II American musical theater. With his first Broadway musical, The Pajama Game in 1954, the "Fosse style" was already fully developed, with its trademark hunched shoulders, turned-in stance, and stuttering, staccato jazz movements. Fosse moved decisively into the role of director with Redhead in 1959 and was a key figure in the rise of the director-choreographer in the Broadway musical. He also became th...
"You have the luck of Croesus on stilts (as my Auntie Vi would have said) if you’ve had the sort of career, ups and downs, warts and all that I have in that wondrous little corner of show business called musical theatre."
One of the most successful and distinguished artists of our time, Andrew Lloyd Webber has reigned over the musical theatre world for nearly five decades. The winner of numerous awards, including multiple Tonys and an Oscar, Lloyd Webber has enchanted millions worldwide with...
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...
All the Ways to Say I Love You by Neil LaBute, directed by Leigh Silverman, is a thoughtful, psychological solo play centered around the character Faye Johnson, performed by multiaward-winning actress Judith Light (Transparent, American Crime Story, Who's the Boss?). Reflecting on an event from her past, Johnson confronts the defining question of her life: What is the weight of a lie?
All the Ways to Say I Love You received its world premiere production at the MCC Theater in September of 201...
Alan Jay Lerner wrote the lyrics for some of the most beloved musicals in Broadway and Hollywood history. Most notably, with composer Frederick Loewe he created enduring hits such as My Fair Lady, Gigi, Camelot, and Brigadoon. In The Complete Lyrics of Alan Jay Lerner, editors and annotators Dominic McHugh and Amy Asch bring all of Lerner's lyrics together for the first time, including numerous draft or alternate versions and songs cut from the shows. Compiled from dozens of archival collection...
A big-shouldered, big-trouble thriller set in mobbed-up 1920s Chicago—a city where some people knew too much, and where everyone should have known better—by the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of The Untouchables and Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright of Glengarry Glen Ross.
Mike Hodge—veteran of the Great War, big shot of the Chicago Tribune, medium fry—probably shouldn’t have fallen in love with Annie Walsh. Then, again, maybe the man who killed Annie Walsh have known better than to trifle wit...
40th anniversary edition with a new introduction by Mike Leigh. Forty years on from its first performance at the Hampstead Theatre and original screening on BBC1 soon after, Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party - telling of two marriages spectacularly unravelling at an awkward neighbourhood drinks party - remains a pinnacle of British theatre. Here is the original script, complete with a new introduction by Mike Leigh describing the play's unlikely genesis, how it came to be made and where he believes ...
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.
All the world's a stage . . . but what happens behind the curtain is pure magic—literally!
Jory and the rest of the Backstagers have one goal this semester: to put on the best show their town’s ever seen. But best laid plans aren’t easy to achieve when there’s an entire magical world that lives beyond the curtain! When one of the actors suddenly goes missing, the Backstagers must band together to save their comrade and maintain the natural balance of . . . theater.
James Tynion IV (Detec...
