Theatre has long been considered a feminine interest for which women consistently purchase the majority of tickets, while the shows they are seeing typically are written and brought to the stage by men. Furthermore, the stories these productions tell are often about men, and the complex leading roles in these shows are written for and performed by male actors. Despite this imbalance, the feminist voice presses to be heard and has done so with more success than ever before.
London's West End is a global success story, staging phenomenal hit shows that have delighted millions of spectators and generated billions of pounds in revenue. In Good Nights Out, Aleks Sierz provides a thematic survey of such popular theatre shows that were enormous commercial successes over the past 75 years. He argues that these outstanding hits have a lot to say about the collective cultural, social and political attitudes and aspirations of the country, and about how our national identit...
From Anything Goes to Kiss Me, Kate, Cole Porter left a lasting legacy of iconic songs including "You're the Top," "Love For Sale," and "Night and Day." Yet, alongside his professional success, Porter led an eclectic personal life which featured exuberant parties, scandalous affairs, and chronic health problems. This extensive collection of letters (most of which are published here for the first time) dates from the first decade of the twentieth century to the early 1960s and features correspon...
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 ...
From Audra McDonald to Liza with a "Z," this is a showstopping rythmic alphabet book featuring your favorite leading ladies of the Broadway stage!
Step into the spotlight and celebrate a cavalcade of Broadway's legendary leading ladies. Start with "A" for six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald, then sing and dance your way through the alphabet with beloved entertainers like Carol Channing, Angela Lansbury, Patti LuPone, Bernadette Peters, Chita Rivera, Lea Salonga, and Liza Minnelli!
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Hasa Diga Eebowai
In 2011, a musical full of curse words and Mormon missionaries swept that year’s Tony Awards show and was praised among major media outlets as a triumphant return of the American musical. Has everyone gone insane, or is this show a new milestone for musical theatre? This book explores the inherent achievements and failures of The Book of Mormon--one of the most ambitious, and problematic, musicals to achieve widespread success. The metaphor of boxing helps to explore the me...
Filled with detailed explanations, captivating illustrations, and entertaining trivia, this clearly written, lively, and uniquely designed book offers a comprehensive introduction to the world of the theater from the box office to backstage, and beyond. Readers enter via the front door, where the people and activities of the "front of house" can be examined. And then it's on to the behind-the-scenes magic of the "back of house" is revealed.
Using the successful array of Disney's shows as exam...
(Vocal Collection). Contents: AMELIE: Thin Air * ANASTASIA: My Petersburg * Still * ANNIE: You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile * THE BAND'S VISIT: Papi Hears the Ocean * Answer Me * BE MORE CHILL: Michael in the Bathroom * THE BOOK OF MORMON: I Believe * CANDIDE: Bon Voyage * CATCH ME IF YOU CAN: Goodbye * DEAR EVAN HANSEN: Waving Through a Window * For Forever * Words Fail * EVER AFTER: Right Before My Eyes * FINDING NEVERLAND: If the World Turned Upside Down * Neverland * FROZEN THE BR...
(Vocal Collection). Contents: AMAZING GRACE: I Still Believe * AMELIE: Times Are Hard for Dreamers * Tour de France * Sister's Pickle * ANASTASIA: In My Dreams * Once Upon a December * Journey to the Past * Crossing a Bridge * BIG FISH: Two Men in My Life * THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY: To Build a Home * CARNIVAL: Mira * Yes, My Heart * DARLING: The View from Here * DOCTOR ZHIVAGO: When the Music Played * FINDING NEVERLAND: All That Matters * FROZEN THE BROADWAY MUSICAL: For the First Time in ...
(Vocal Collection). Contents: THE ADDAMS FAMILY: Just Around the Corner * AVENUE Q: Mix Tape * THE BAND'S VISIT: It Is What It Is * Omar Sharif * THE BOOK OF MORMON: Sal Tlay Ka Siti * BRING IT ON: THE MUSICAL: Tryouts * COME FROM AWAY: I Am Here * DAMN YANKEES: A Little Brains, a Little Talent * DEAR EVAN HANSEN: So Big/So Small * FROZEN: THE BROADWAY MUSICAL: Let It Go * Monster * GROUNDHOG DAY: One Day * Playing Nancy * HAMILTON: That Would Be Enough * Burn * INTO THE WOODS: Moments in the W...
(Vocal Collection). Contents: THE BAND'S VISIT: The Beat of Your Heart * Haled's Song About Love * BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (2017 FILM): Evermore * BIG FISH: How It Ends (cut) * THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY: When I'm Gone * A BRONX TALE: Look to Your Heart * CABARET: Why Should I Wake Up? * CAMELOT: The Seven Deadly Virtues * CATCH ME IF YOU CAN: The Man Inside the Clues * CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY: The Candy Man * Pure Imagination * DOCTOR ZHIVAGO: Yurii's Decision * THE FROGS: Ariadne * ...
Few people in recent memory have dedicated themselves as devotedly to the story of twentieth- century American music as Rob Kapilow, the composer, conductor, and host of the hit NPR music radio program, What Makes It Great? Now, in Listening for America, he turns his keen ear to the Great American Songbook, bringing many of our favorite classics to life through the songs and stories of eight of the twentieth century’s most treasured American composers―Kern, Porter, Gershwin, Arlen, Berlin, Rodg...
Still Here is the first full telling of Elaine Stritch’s life. Rollicking but intimate, it tracks one of Broadway’s great personalities from her upbringing in Detroit during the Great Depression to her fateful move to New York City, where she studied alongside Marlon Brando, Bea Arthur, and Harry Belafonte. We accompany Elaine through her jagged rise to fame, to Hollywood and London, and across her later years, when she enjoyed a stunning renaissance, punctuated by a turn on the popular televis...
In the overwhelming quiet of the woods, six runaways from city life embark on a silent retreat. As these strangers confront internal demons both profound and absurd, their vows of silence collide with the achingly human need to connect. Filled with awkward and insightful humor, Bess Wohl’s beguiling and compassionate new play brilliantly captures the unique eloquence of a silent retreat and asks how we address life’s biggest questions when words fail us.
A major hit of the 2015–16 Off Br...
(Vocal Selections). This folio features 16 vocal selections from the uproarious TONY Award-winning Broadway musical that features music and lyrics by David Yazbek. Songs include: I Won't Let You Down * The Most Important Night of My Life * Talk to Me Dorothy * Unstoppable * Whaddya Do * Who Are You? * and more.
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...
A MOMENT ON THE CLOCK OF THE WORLD is an invitation to consider how we make the world, together. It collects the voices of people who respond to this invitation with their living lives and prolific work: artists, social justice practitioners, cultural critics and public intellectuals — Cornel West, Taylor Mac, Alisa Solomon, Robin D.G. Kelley and Laura Flanders among them — whose own inquiries intersected with that of the award-winning Foundry Theatre across its 25-year history.
(Vocal Selections). This folio features 15 vocal selections from the TONY AWARD -nominated Broadway musical about a cynical TV weatherman who is sent to cover the annual Groundhog Day event in the small town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Caught in a time loop, he's forced to relive the same day again and again ... and again. The musical features music and lyrics by Tim Minchin ( Matilda the Musical ) who wrote an in-depth forward to this souvenir collection. The book also includes performance ...
The titanic choreographer, creator of memorable ballets, master of Broadway musicals, legendary show doctor and director, now revealed in his own words--the closest we will get to a memoir/autobiography--from his voluminous letters, journals, notes, diaries, never before published. Edited, and with commentary by Amanda Vaill, author of Robbins's biography, Somewhere, 2006 ("I can't imagine a better book about Robbins ever being written"--Terry Teachout, chief drama critic, The Wall Street Journ...
From the Wall Street Journal's opera critic, a wide-ranging narrative history of how and why the New York City Opera went bankrupt―and what it means for the future of the arts
In October 2013, the arts world was rocked by the news that the New York City Opera―“the people’s opera”―had finally succumbed to financial hardship after 70 years in operation. The company had been a fixture on the national opera scene―as the populist antithesis of the grand Metropolitan Opera, a nurturing home for yo...
When she was fifteen years old, Heidi Schreck earned money for her college tuition by giving speeches about the U.S. Constitution. Decades later, she traces the effect this document has had on four generations of women in her family. Deftly examining how the United States? founding principles are inextricably linked with our personal lives, Schreck also explores the ways in which their misuse has engendered violence and inherited trauma. With passion and wit, this galvanizing new play acknowl...
“I am over the moon that Albert Poland has written STAGES, a fascinating and revelatory memoir of his life in the world of New York Theater and beyond.” –ALAN MENKEN
Albert Poland
Legendary Broadway and Off Broadway Producer and General Manager
presents
STAGES – A THEATER MEMOIR
Musical theatre is an international form, not just an American one. It can take root anywhere. Few people would realise that such hit standards as “The Glow Worm”, “Brazil”, “Mack the Knife”, “I Will Wait for You” and “El Condor Pasa” came from foreign language musicals.
When his friend George Gershwin persuaded Vladimir Dukelsky to change his name to Vernon Duke, what the music world already knew became apparent to the public at large—the man had two musical personas—one as a composer, the other as a tunesmith. One wrote highbrow music, the other lowbrow. Yet the two sides complemented each other. Neither could function without the other.
Born and classically trained in imperial Russia, Vladimir Dukelsky (1903–1969) fled the Bolshevik Revolution with his fa...
Lorraine Hansberry, who died at thirty-four, was by all accounts a force of nature. Although best-known for her work A Raisin in the Sun, her short life was full of extraordinary experiences and achievements, and she had an unflinching commitment to social justice, which brought her under FBI surveillance when she was barely in her twenties. While her close friends and contemporaries, like James Baldwin and Nina Simone, have been rightly celebrated, her story has been diminished and relegated...
In 2008, in an alternate universe where anything can happen, a woman named Hillary Clinton is running for president in the United States of America. Struggling in Iowa against her more charismatic opponent (?The Other Guy?), she calls on her husband Bill for support. Bill offers her a deal, but when Hillary agrees to his help, she gets far more than she bargained for. Bucking the traditional trappings of the political play, Hnath takes a layered look at a political climate much like our own and...
Richard Wesley was witness to a revolution. As both a celebrated participant and eager student of the Black Theater Movement in the late 1960s, he became part of a seismic force in American culture, breaking down barriers and helping to disrupt the cultural landscape. It?s Always Loud in the Balcony: A Life in Black Theater, from Harlem to Hollywood and Back is both history and memoir, tracing Wesley?s roots from riot-torn Newark, New Jersey, across the rocky terrain of Harlem, and finally to H...
Never have musicals been more popular than they are today. With live television broadcasts of shows like Rent and Hairspray and films like Mean Girls and Shrek being adapted to the stage, musicals?as well as the creators and artists who bring them to life?are at the forefront of popular culture. In 100 Most Important People in Musical Theatre, Andy Propst profiles the individuals who have helped shape this beloved art form. Songwriting greats such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodge...
A comprehensive companion to the six-part Emmy-winning PBS documentary series, Broadway: The American Musical is the gold standard of musical theater history books, tracing the roots of the art form at the turn of the twentieth century through the smashing successes of the new millennium. The in-depth text is lavishly illustrated with a treasure trove of photographs, scenic renderings, production stills, and rehearsal shots, many previously unpublished. With a foreword by Julie Andrews, thi...
With an Introduction by the author. "The prolific master of suburban mayhem has still got his mojo."?Evening Standard Time of My Life "One of Mr. Ayckbourn's most virtuosic experiments in postmodern narrative."?Wall Street Journal Neighbourhood Watch "Ayckbourn?s tartly topical, pitch-black comedy, a startling evocation of the panic induced by nightmarish notions of ?broken Britain?... An arresting, nastily comic cautionary tale."?The Times Arrivals and Departures "Ayckbourn's ge...
Andr and Madeleine have been in love for over fifty years. This weekend, as their daughters visit, something feels unusual. A bunch of flowers arrive, but who sent them? A woman from the past turns up, but who is she? And why does Andr feel like he isn't there at all? Christopher Hampton's translation of Florian Zeller's The Height of the Storm was first performed at Richmond Theatre, London, and opened in the West End at Wyndham's Theatre in October 2018.
Seventeen-year-old Emma Nolan wants only one thing before she graduates: to dance with her girlfriend at the senior prom. But in her small town of Edgewater, Indiana, that's like asking for the moon. Alyssa Greene is her high school's "it" girl: popular, head of the student council, and daughter of the PTA president. She also has a secret. She's been dating Emma for the last year and a half. When word gets out that Emma plans to bring a girl as her date, it stirs a community-wide uproar...
The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical is dedicated to the musical?s evolving relationship to American culture in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. In the past decade-and-a-half, international scholars from an ever-widening number of disciplines and specializations have been actively contributing to the interdisciplinary field of musical theater studies. Musicals have served not only to mirror the sociopolitical, economic, and cultural tenor of the times, but have helped shap...
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 ...
The life of a beloved American composer reflected through his music, writings, and letters.
New York City native and gifted pianist George Gershwin blossomed as an accompanist before his talent as a songwriter opened the way to Broadway, where he fashioned his own brand of American music. He composed a long run of musical comedies, many with his brother Ira as lyricist, but his aspirations reached beyond commercial success.
A lifetime learner, Gershwin was able to appeal to listeners on b...
Actor. Director. Visionary. Sam Wanamaker is best known as the man who spent the last twenty five years of his life campaigning to reconstruct Shakespeare?s Globe near its original site in London. Born in the USA, he trained as an actor in Chicago and began his career during the golden age of radio drama, before moving on to Broadway. A vocal left wing activist, Wanamaker moved to the UK during the turbulent era of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the anti-Communist witch hunts. H...
There has never been a show business book quite like The Show Won't Go On, the first comprehensive study of a bizarre phenomenon: performers who died onstage. From the comedy magician who dropped dead on live television to the amateur thespian who expired during a play called The Art of Murder, the book is a celebration of lives both famous and obscure, as well as a dramatic and accurate recounting of events leading to the moments they died "doing what they loved." The Show Won't Go On covers a...
(Vocal Selections). This 2018 Broadway adaptation of the hit 2004 movie about the cut-throat social status of a group of teenage girls features lyrics by Nell Benjamin with music by Jeff Richmond and was nominated for several Tony Awards . Our folio includes 16 vocal selections: Apex Predator * A Cautionary Tale * Fearless * I See Stars * I'd Rather Be Me * It Roars * Meet the Plastics * More Is Better * Revenge Party * Sexy * Someone Gets Hurt * Stop * Stupid with Love * What's Wrong with Me? ...
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...
Celebrate the incredible journey of Phoebe Waller-Bridge's outrageously funny, blazingly forthright Fleabag, from fringe theatre hit to international cultural phenomenon, in this special edition – featuring the original playscript, never-before-seen colour photos, and exclusive bonus content by Phoebe, director Vicky Jones and key members of the creative team.
In 2013, Fleabag made its debut as a one-woman show in sixty-seater venue the Big Belly, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe's Underbell...
A Journey through the Founding of America A richly illustrated and concise companion book to Hamilton: The Exhibition which delves into the historical events that inspired the phenomenally popular musical about Alexander Hamilton?s life and the Revolutionary War era. The Hamilton musical, says Lin-Manuel Miranda, is ?a story about America then, told by America now.? The phenomenally popular show has inspired a hunger for knowledge about the American Revolution and Alexander Hamilton, unti...
The Road to Wicked examines the long life of the Oz myth. It is both a study in cultural sustainability-- the capacity of artists, narratives, art forms, and genres to remain viable over time--and an examination of the marketing machinery and consumption patterns that make such sustainability possible. Drawing on the fields of macromarketing, consumer behavior, literary and cultural studies, and theories of adaption and remediation, the authors examine key adaptations and extensions of Baum's 1...
Leo, Misha, Ralph, and Dawn are old friends. The two couples have a lot in common?good educations, progressive politics, a taste for culture. But when a racially motivated incident with the cops leaves Leo shaken, he decides he must take extreme measures in order to survive. Suzan-Lori Parks? newest work reveals how easily fissures can form in the social contracts we build with one another when confronted with difficult questions about race and identity.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Cost of Living, Martyna Majok has quickly earned recognition for her ability to give a voice to the voiceless through her work. In this new collection, which includes her plays queens, Ironbound, and Sanctuary City, Majok tells the stories of those who would otherwise go unheard?stories about immigrant women and the challenges they face while trying to make it in America. Throughout the plays in the collection, Majok explores the vulnerability...
Chicago is a bona fide theater town, bursting with an explosive, innovative vitality that?s fed every sector of the entertainment industry?from Hollywood to Broadway to Studio 8H?for as long as it?s delighted adoring local fans. Ensemble is an in-depth, first-of-its-kind history of Chicago?s internationally celebrated theater scene, spanning 65 years and told through first-person accounts from the people who made it happen. Among many other topics, this book explores the early days of the fa...
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...
At the age of 25 Orson Welles co-wrote, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane, widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. But this was not the first achievement in the young artist’s career. A few years earlier he terrorized America with his radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. And even before he conquered the airwaves, Welles had made a name for himself in New York theatre, with his dynamic stagings of Shakespeare classics and the politically charged musical The Cradle Will Roc...
This volume contains the complete short plays of Harold Pinter from The Room, first performed in 1960, to Celebration, which premiered in 2000.
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.
With a foreword by Antonia Fraser.
‘The foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the twentieth century.’
Swed...
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.
