The first comprehensive study of August Wilson's drama introduces the major themes and motifs that unite Wilson's ten-play cycle about African American life in each decade of the twentieth century. Framed by Wilson's life experiences and informed by his extensive interviews, this book provides fresh, coherent, detailed readings of each play, well-situated in the extant scholarship. It also provides an overview of the cycle as a whole, demonstrating how it comprises a compelling interrogation of ...
In this follow-up to her critically acclaimed memoir, Home, Julie Andrews shares reflections on her astonishing career, including such classics as Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, and Victor/Victoria. In Home, the number one New York Times international bestseller, Julie Andrews recounted her difficult childhood and her emergence as an acclaimed singer and performer on the stage. With this second memoir, Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years, Julie picks up the story with her arrival...
In the Long Run: A Cultural History of Broadway?s Hit Plays presents in-depth analysis of 15 plays that ran over 1,000 performances, examining what made each so popular in its time?and then, in many cases, fall into obscurity. Covering one hundred years of theatre history, it traces the long-running Broadway play as a distinct cultural phenomenon that rises and falls from 1918 to 2018. Each chapter focuses on the longest-running plays of a particular decade, synthesizing historical research ...
This updated edition of one of the bestselling and comprehensive Broadway reference books, first published in 1985, has been expanded to include many of the most important and memorable productions of American musical theater, including revivals. Arranged chronologically, beginning with musicals from just after the Civil War, each successive edition of the book has added valuable updates about trends in musical theater as well as capsule features on the most significant musicals of the day. The...
Come From Away: Welcome to the Rock - a fully illustrated companion volume to the hit Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, featuring the book and lyrics for the first time in print. Come From Away tells the remarkable true story of 38 planes and 6,579 passengers that were forced to land in Gander, Newfoundland, on September 11, 2001, doubling the population of one small town on the edge of the world. The people of Newfoundland opened their arms to the displaced, offering food, shelter, and f...
The book commemorates the tenth anniversary of the playwright?s death and coincides with Pinter at the Pinter, a celebratory season staging twenty of his one-act plays at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London, 2018.
The book commemorates the tenth anniversary of the playwright?s death and coincides with Pinter at the Pinter, a celebratory season staging twenty of his one-act plays at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London, 2018.
John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask?s Hedwig and the Angry Inch opened on Valentine?s Day,1998, in New York City, and ever since it and its genderqueer heroine have captivated audiences around the world. As the first musical to feature a genderqueer protagonist as its lead, the show has had an extraordinary life on film, Broadway and in the music field. A glam rock musical with a complex relationship to issues related to art, eroticism and matters of identity formation, Hedwig and the Angry...
More often, theatrical producers who make it big on Broadway start their climb from the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, not the raucous frontier. Even fewer would dream of becoming a successful theatre owner in the storied West End of London. A third generation Oklahoman, Max Weitzenhoffer?s life story is as unique and colorful as you will find, a remarkable blend of risk-taking, glamour and glitz that has been enriched by saloon keepers, oil wildcatters, wealthy art patrons, art...
Hollywood's conversion to sound in the 1920s created an early peak in the film musical, following the immense success of The Jazz Singer. The opportunity to synchronize moving pictures with a soundtrack suited the musical in particular, since the heightened experience of song and dance drew attention to the novelty of the technological development. Until the near-collapse of the genre in the 1960s, the film musical enjoyed around thirty years of development, as landmarks such as The Wizard of O...
Celebrating its eightieth birthday since being rebuilt in 1938, Liverpool's Royal Court Theatre is a vital part of the city's cultural identity. There has been a theatre on the site for nearly two hundred years, since Cooke's New Circus started life as the result of an argument about a broken sewer in 1826. Quickly renamed the Royal Amphitheatre (and affectionately known as the Amphi), the theatre went on to serve the city in a number of guises. From an establishment where horses were the enter...
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints adopted the vocal and theatrical traditions of American musical theater as important theological tenets. As Church membership grew, leaders saw how the genre could help define the faith and wove musical theater into many aspects of Mormon life. Jake Johnson merges the study of belonging in America with scholarship on voice and popular music to explore the surprising yet profound link between two quintessentially American institutions. Throughout t...
This book showcases a lesser-known aspect of Maurice Sendak's oeuvre--his set designs for operas and ballets. Maurice Sendak is well-known for his acclaimed children's books, but he was also an avid music lover and designed a number of opera and ballet productions, among them Mozart's Magic Flute, Jan cek's Cunning Little Vixen, Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, and an opera composed by Oliver Knussen based on Where the Wild Things Are. This book brings together n...
Continuing in her tradition of crafting thought-provoking, socially-conscious dramas, Lynn Nottage?s latest offering tells the story of Mlima, a majestic elephant struck down by poachers for his tusks. Beginning in a game park in Kenya and traveling around the world to a billionaire?s penthouse in the West, the play tracks the trajectory of Mlima?s tusks through the ivory trade market while Mlima?s phantom follows close behind?marking all those involved as complicit in his death. Inspired by th...
One of the few studies covering both Broadway and Hollywood musicals, this book explores most of the most famous musicals of the past two centuries, along with many others. Presented as an introductory text for musical, dance and theater majors, as well as for musical lovers, the book includes references for nearly 1000 internet video examples of dance and song.
No one's any right to be what father is - never questioned, never answered back... First staged in 1912 and described as "the most powerful play produced in England in this decade," Githa Sowerby's Edwardian classic on family and labour enjoyed huge success in London and New York before disappearing from view. In a Northern industrial town, John Rutherford rules both factory and family with an iron will. But even as the furnaces burn relentlessly at the Glassworks, at home his children be...
In this fast-moving, candid, conversational, and entertaining memoir, Harold Prince, the most honored director/producer in the history of the American theater looks back over his seventy-year (and counting!) career. In 1974, Prince released his first book, Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-Six Years in the Theatre. Although Contradictions has since attained cult status among producers, directors, and actors alike, Prince, in hindsight, believes he wasn't ready to publish such a tome at that po...
In this fast-moving candid conversational and entertaining memoir Harold Prince the most honored director/producer in the history of the American theater looks back over his seventy-year (and counting!) career. In 1974 Prince released his first book Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-Six Years in the Theatre . Although Contradictions has since attained cult status among producers directors and actors alike Prince in hindsight believes he wasn't ready to publish such a tome at that point in his ...
The Theatre of Eugene O'Neill offers a new comprehensive overview of O'Neill's career and plays in the context of the American theatre. Organised thematically, it considers his modernist intervention in the theatre, offers readers detailed analysis of the plays, and assesses the recent resurgence in his reputation and new approaches to staging his work. It includes a study of all his major plays?The Emperor Jones, The Hairy Ape, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day?s Journey Into Night, A Moon for the...
The most frequently asked question about writing musicals is, "Which comes first, the music or the lyrics?" As anyone on Broadway will tell you, the answer is, "The book." Tony-winning book writer Robert L. Freedman takes you through the process of writing a new musical, including story structure, song placement, dialogue, character development, and more that led to the creation of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder , the 2014 Best Musical Tony winner. With candor and insight, Freedman desc...
Academy Award, Tony Award, and Golden Globe Award winning performer, Joel Grey's early passion for flowers and plants helped form a life-long love for nature's beauty. From the tender age of just 10 years old, Grey recalls a childhood spent poring over seed catalogs searching for the perfect flower he hoped to someday nurture with love. Growing up adjoining an undeveloped parcel of land just outside of Cleveland, Ohio, Grey enjoyed the magic and splendor of flora while exploring this dark an...
?The deftly crafted blend of shocking exaggeration and believability, politeness and fury?makes Appropriate land with the kind of thump you rarely encounter in the theater.? ?Chicago Tribune ?So energetic, funny, and entertainingly demented, you can?t look away.? ?New York on An Octoroon A double-volume containing two astonishing breakout plays from one of the theatre's most exciting and provocative young writers. In Appropriate, strained familial dynamics collide with a tense un...
For the 50th anniversary of The Who?s most legendary album, Tommy, comes the definitive illustrated guide to the album, featuring a foreword from Pete Townshend as well as new interviews with the legend himself and showcasing original art from the artist of the album's iconic case. On May 23, 1969, The Who released their breakthrough album, Tommy. It was their fourth studio album and would sell more than twenty million copies, receive wide critical acclaim, and be inducted into the Grammy Ha...
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...
On Streisand begins with a broad year-by-year outline of the landmark achievements, followed by a short biography, some chapters exploring key points in the artistry, then-the major part of the book-a work-by-work analysis. The work-by-work section is broken down into separate chapters, each organized chronologically: the stage shows, then the television shows and concerts, then the movies, and last (because longest) the recordings. Throughout, Mordden follows Streisand's independence, which he...
Since man first walked the Earth...in heels, no other art form has wielded as unique an influence on pop culture as Drag. Drag artists have now sashayed their way to snatch the crowns as the Queens of mainstream entertainment. Through informative and witty essays chronicling over 100 years of drag, readers will embark on a Priscilla-like journey through pop culture, from television shows like The Milton Berle Show, Bosom Buddies, and RuPaul's Drag Race, films like Some Like It Hot, To Wong Foo...
Norma Jeane Baker of Troy is a partly spoken, partly sung performance piece by poet, essayist, and scholar Anne Carson, and an exploration of the lives and myths of Marilyn Monroe and Helen of Troy?iconic beauties who lived millennia apart. A thrilling and thoughtful meditation on the destabilising and destructive power of beauty, this had its world premiere at The Shed in New York City, starring Ben Whishaw and Ren e Fleming.
The Art and Making of Aladdin offers the ultimate behind-the-scenes look into the 2019 live-action adaptation of the Disney classic Aladdin. Filled with striking imagery and fascinating behind-the-scenes details, The Art and Making of Aladdin examines the creation of Disney?s latest addition to their lineup of live-action adaptations of classic animated favorites. This deluxe book features an in-depth look at never-before-seen concept art, unit photography, and other gorgeous visual details....
In Theater of the Word:Selfhood in the English Morality Play, Julie Paulson sheds new light on medieval constructions of the self as they emerge from within a deeply sacramental culture. The book examines the medieval morality play, a genre that explicitly addresses the question of what it means to be human and takes up the ritual traditions of confession and penance, long associated with medieval interiority, as its primary subjects. The morality play is allegorical drama, a ?theater of the...
Grandma?s birthday approaches. Beverly is organizing the perfect dinner, but everything seems doomed to go awry?the silverware is all wrong, the radio is on the fritz, and the rest of the family can?t be bothered to lift a hand to help. And yet, what appears at first to be a standard family dramedy takes a sharp, sly turn into a startling examination of deep-seated paradigms about race in America.
The definitive guide to making a career in theater?to Broadway and beyond Tiffany Haas knows how to make it on Broadway. After 72 rejections in a row?72 auditions and 72 rejections?she finally landed a role in Broadway?s long-running smash hit Wicked and later became ?Glinda the Good.? Now she wants to share her advice for starting and nurturing a career in the theater. Waiting in the Wings is the essential guide for anyone who wants to have a theatrical career, whether they?re complete newb...
Opera in the Tropics is an engaging exploration of theater with music in Brazil from the mid 1500s to the early 1820s. Author Rog rio Budasz delves into the practices of the actors, singers, poets, and composers who created and performed Jesuit moral plays, Spanish comedias, and Portuguese vernacular operas and entremezes during the colonial period, as well as the Italian operas that celebrated the new independent nation in 1822. A Brazilian producer claimed in 1825 that the goal of music-theat...
15 songs from this Broadway musical which was named as a New York Times Critics Pick presented in vocal lines with piano accompaniment. Includes: The Acceptance Song * Alyssa Greene * Barry Is Going to Prom * Changing Lives * Dance with You * It's Not About Me * It's Time to Dance * Just Breathe * The Lady's Improving * Love Thy Neighbor * Tonight Belongs to You * Unruly Heart * We Look to You * You Happened * Zazz.
During the Twenties, the Great White Way roared with nearly 300 book musicals. Luminaries who wrote for Broadway during this decade included Irving Berlin, George M. Cohan, Rudolf Friml, George Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein II, Lorenz Hart, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Sigmund Romberg, and Vincent Youmans, and the era?s stars included Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Ruby Keeler, and Marilyn Miller. Light-hearted Cinderella musicals dominated these years with such hits as Kern?s long-runnin...
During the Twenties, the Great White Way roared with nearly 300 book musicals. Luminaries who wrote for Broadway during this decade included Irving Berlin, George M. Cohan, Rudolf Friml, George Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein II, Lorenz Hart, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Sigmund Romberg, and Vincent Youmans, and the era’s stars included Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Ruby Keeler, and Marilyn Miller. Light-hearted Cinderella musicals dominated these years with such hits as Kern’s long-runnin...
This powerful anthology brings together reflective and raw plays by American playwrights surrounding the psychic and political boundaries of the many faces and shadows of terrorism.
Allan Havis's introduction addresses a variety of terrorism cases from the last 25 years, examines several theories of the root causes of modern terrors, and underscores how theatre forms a unique contour to social and philosophical thought on terrorism.
Now updated and expanded, this second edition of The Stage Producer?s Business and Legal Guide is the ultimate survival kit for anyone presenting live entertainment. The information contained in this handbook is essential for those working in Broadway, regional, stock, or university theater; concert halls; opera houses; and more. Attorney, producer, and playwright Charles Grippo provides comprehensive advice on every aspect of the theater business and the law, including: Crowdfunding Your Prod...
“A raunchy riff on Dr Seuss’s yuletide tale… The little tyke has become a bottle-blonde adult who spends her days in a trailer appointed with Airstream functionality and seasonal kitsch…brassy, very funny…a holiday offering that dirties up Christmas while ultimately reveling in its spirit.”
Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Times
“This irreverent, adults-only sequel…dares to be as tasteless as possible while replicating Seuss’s trademark rhythms…flawless…juggling comedy, musical interlude...
The stage debut for the legendary detective John Rebus in this brand new, original story by Ian Rankin, written alongside the award-winning playwright Rona Munro. John Rebus is not as young as he was, but his detective instincts have never left him. And after the daughter of a murder victim turns up outside his flat, he's going to need them at their sharpest. Enlisting the help of his old friend DI Siobhan Clarke, Rebus is determined to solve this cold case once and for all. But Clarke ha...
"Since the nineteen-sixties and seventies, New York's experimental-theatre scene has toned down its wild-man character, but Lee Breuer is the grand old man of the movement."?The New Yorker Since he first arrived on the New York art/theatre/performance scene in 1970, Lee Breuer has been at the forefront of the American theatrical avant-garde, creating challenging works both independently and with Mabou Mines, the company he co-founded with JoAnne Akalaitis, Philip Glass, Ruth Maleczech and Da...
Disney Theatrical Productions: Producing Broadway Musicals the Disney Way is the first work of scholarship to comprehensively examine the history and production practices of Disney Theatrical Productions (DTP), the theatrical producing arm of the studio branch of the Walt Disney Corporation.
This book uncovers how DTP has forged a new model for producing large-scale musicals on Broadway by functioning as an independent theatrical producer under the umbrella of a large entertainment corporatio...
Have you ever thought about investing in a Broadway show? Or wondered how it worked? Ever imagine would what it would like to have been an investor in Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, or even Hamilton? Broadway investing, while without a doubt a high-risk investment, can be a fun, fulfilling and yes, even a profitable experience. That's why I often call investing in Broadway shows, ?The riskiest investment you?ll love to make.? Despite the risks, it is possible to find and invest in shows t...
More than a chronicle, America in the Round is a critical history that reveals how far Washington D.C.’s Arena Stage could go with its budget and racially liberal politics, and how Arena both disputed and duplicated systems of power. With an innovative “in the round” approach, the narrative simulates sitting in different parts of the arena space to see the theatre through different lenses—economics, racial dynamics, and American identity.
Standing in front of a full-length mirror in my dressing room at ITV studios, waiting to go on to the set of Backchat, I had a brief conversation with my reflection. 'Michael, what the f*** do you think you're doing?' Theatrical agent Michael Whitehall spent a career pushing others into the spotlight. He had been involved behind the scenes with the careers of many prominent actors, including Colin Firth, Richard Griffiths, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tom Courtenay, Ian Ogilvy, Judi Dench, Edward Fo...
From the star of Broadway's The Book of Mormon and HBO's Girls, the heartfelt and hilarious coming-of-age memoir of a Midwestern boy surviving bad auditions, bad relationships, and some really bad highlights as he chases his dreams in New York City
When Andrew Rannells arrived in New York City from Omaha in 1997, he, like many, saw the city as a chance to break free. To start over. To transform the fiercely ambitious but sexually confused teenager he saw in the mirror into the Broadway leadi...
In this memoir of a roller coaster career on the New York stage, former actor and dancer Bettijane Sills offers a highly personal look at the art and practice of George Balanchine, one of ballet’s greatest choreographers, and the inner workings of his world-renowned company during its golden years.
After getting her start on the stage as a child actor on Broadway, Bettijane Sills joined the New York City Ballet in 1961 as a member of the corps de ballet, working her way up to the level of s...
How do you develop the craft and skills of stage management for today's theatre industry? And how can these same skills be applied in a variety of entertainment settings to help you develop a rewarding and successful career? Drawing on his diverse experience working with companies from across the performing arts spectrum in venues from the Hollywood Bowl to the Barbican Centre in London, Michael Vitale offers a practical resource on the art of stage management for new and established stage m...
Best remembered for his role as the Scarecrow in the 1939 MGM musical The Wizard of Oz, Ray Bolger led a rich and extraordinary career in the decade before and more than four decades after the creation of the film. Ray Bolger: More Than a Scarecrow is the first biography of this classic American entertainer, covering the luminous and forgotten career of the eccentric dancer outside of his burlap mask.
The product of a fragmented, working-class Boston Irish family, Bolger learned tap and ecc...
Betty Comden and Adolph Green were the writers behind such classic stage musicals as On the Town, Wonderful Town, and Bells Are Ringing, and they provided lyrics for such standards as "New York, New York," "Just in Time," "The Party's Over," and "Make Someone Happy," to name just a few. This remarkable duo, the longest-running partnership in theatrical history, also penned the screenplays for such cinematic gems as Singin' in the Rain and The Band Wagon. In the process they worked with such art...
16 selections in standard piano/vocal format with the melody in the piano part from this 2018 Broadway musical based on the story of the 1990 film of the same name, composed by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance. Includes: Anywhere but Here * Don't Forget to Dance * Freedom * I Can't Go Back * Long Way Home * Luckiest Girl in the World * Never Give up on a Dream * On a Night like Tonight * Rodeo Drive * Something About Her * This Is My Life * Together Forever * Welcome to Hollywood * Welcome to Our W...
