A coming-of-age tale by theatrical producer Jeffrey Seller. From Detroit to New York City, finding his voice through musical theatre and making a name for himself. Through the 1980s, from working as an office assistant to Rent, Avenue Q, In the Heights and Hamilton. 368 pages.
Anderson's personal ode to the theatre community, including more than 100 of her photographs taken behind the scenes of the most iconic shows of the last decade: Hamilton, Wicked, The Lion King, Kinky Boots, Sweeney Todd, Waitress, Hadestown, Phantom of the Opera, and many, many more. Rare photography of performers like Glenn Close, Patti LuPone, Hugh Jackman, Chita Rivera, Jonathan Groff, and Gavin Creel. A privileged glance behind the curtains of the world's most prestigious theaters and the ...
The childhood story of Wicked's Elphaba, including her promiscuous mother, her pious father, her saintly sister Nessarose, and her junior felon brother Shell. Deluxe collector’s hardcover features stenciled edges and a color illustrated map of Oz. 288 pages.
The journey of a musical from potential disaster to success, and the Broadway industry that managed to stay alive during the pandemic shutdown of 2020-22. Told through personal stories, anecdotes from the cast, production shots, behind-the-scenes photos, and insights from the creators. 280 pages.
From the founding of The Walnut Street Theatre and the beginning of the American circus to the world premiere performance of Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman, and from censorship and opposition to riots and deadly fires, this engaging collection of short, focused narratives introduces the reader to the often overlooked and frequently underappreciated topic of the history of theater in Philadelphia, and offer a new way of approaching the wider history of this unique and important America...
First full-length biography devoted to the life of Ira Gershwin. Draws on extensive archival sources and often using Ira's own words. 30 illustrations. 400 pages.
The first lyricist to win the Pulitzer Prize, Ira Gershwin (1896–1983) has been hailed as one of the masters of the Great American Songbook, a period which covers songs written largely for Broadway and Hollywood from the 1920s to the 1950s. Now, in the first full-length biography devoted to his life, Michael Owen brings Ira out at las...
Tells the stories of over 300 inspiring women who wrote Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals that Publishers Weekly calls "an exhaustive tribute to women whose contributions to Broadway musical history have often been overlooked." Covers prolific and celebrated Broadway writers like Betty Comden and Jeanine Tesori, women who have written musicals but gained fame elsewhere like Dolly Parton and Sara Bareilles, and dramatists you’ve never heard of—but definitely should have. 408 pages.
Author Richard Schloch makes the case that Sondheim's greatness–beyond the clever lyrics and adventurous music–rests in his ability to tell stories that relate to us all. From Louise's desire for freedom to Sweeney Todd's thirst for revenge, we as an audience relate easily to Sondheim's characters. Follows the arc of Sondheim's career and includes stories about productions and iconic performers, deep readings of his music and lyrics, and insights into his creative process. 304 pages.
A historical account and love letter to the performing arts, a chronicle of New York's cultural evolution, and a business saga of revival and triumph. More than 175 photographs, untold stories, and intimate portraits of stage legends and the intricate process of preserving a landmark not only of bricks and mortar but of dreams and memories. 200 pages.
Extensive photo collection revealing both intimate family memories and images with some of the most significant figures from entertainment and politics. MacLaine reflects on each photo, exploring ambition, love, friendship, motherhood, art, political activism, curiosity, and more. 272 pages.
To the wider world, Al Pacino exploded onto the scene like a supernova. He landed his first leading role, in The Panic in Needle Park, in 1971, and by 1975, he had starred in four movies—The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon—that were not just successes but landmarks in the history of film. Those performances became legendary and changed his life forever. Not since Marlon Brando and James Dean in the late 1950s had an actor landed in the culture with such force...
Eric Idle shares original journal entries and raw email exchanges that reveal the sometimes bumpy, always entertaining path to the musical Spamalot's run. 208 pages.
Explores, through a series of conversations with many of the leading talents working on British stages, what it takes to succeed in the field, and how each director approaches the work in their own way. Contributions from Natalie Abrahami, Annabel Arden, Milli Bhatia, Carrie Cracknell, Tinuke Craig, Marianne Elliott, Nadia Fall, Yaël Farber, Vicky Featherstone, Jamie Fletcher, Sarah Frankcom, Emma Frankland, Rebecca Frecknall, Debbie Hannan, Tamara Harvey, Natalie Ibu, Ola Ince, Lynette Linton,...
Memoir by Kelly Bishop, spanning her six decades in show business from Broadway to Hollywood with A Chorus Line, Dirty Dancing, Gilmore Girls, and much more. Also includes a special collection of personal and professional photographs. 288 pages.
Platinum award-winning singer, songwriter, and lyricist Mark Winkler provides a handbook on writing great lyrics, chock full of songwriting exercises and engaging personal vignettes. This book crosses a variety of genres andteaches the craft of modern commercial songwriting as practiced by the likes of Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and Bruno Mars.
About the remarkable mid-Roaring Twenties stagecraft to have been truly transnational, with a stellar cast of producers, performers and creators boldly experimenting worldwide. Revues, musical comedies, zarzuelas and operettas formed part of a thriving theatrical ecosystem, with many works - and their leading artists - now unpredictably defying genres. Demonstrates how fresh approaches became highly successful, with established leads like Marie Tempest and Fred Stone appearing in new production...
All 70 tiny plays commissioned by Fishamble for Tiny Plays for Ireland, Tiny Plays 24/7, and Tiny Plays for a Brighter Future performed in Dublin, New York City, and Washington DC. 320 pages.
Looks at the Great American Songbook's craft and its mastery through essential elements of the beloved songs, investigating the qualities that make the songbook a unique staple of American culture. With anecdotes, each chapter looks at a variety of songs thematically and dives into the lives of songwriters. 210 pages.
Actor/dancer/choreographer/director Grover Dale (West Side Story, Billy, The Unsinkable Molly Brown) takes us behind the scenes of seven decades of entertainment history, providing intimate insights into industry movers and shakers like Jerome Robbins, Noël Coward, and Gene Kelly, all while sharing his own inspiring life lessons. 336 pages.
By William C. Boles. Routledge Modern and Contemporary Dramatists series editors Maggie Gale and Graham Saunders. Includes Barlett's plays Cock, Doctor Foster, King Charles III, and Albion, a biographical introductory chapter, and new interviews with Bartlett and some of his closest and oft relied upon collaborators. 186 pages.
From the late 19th to the early 21st centuries, female impersonation was a hugely popular performance genre. Long before today's popular television shows, men in colleges, business, and even the military formed drag clubs and put on musicals and variety shows of all kinds with little fear of negative judgment. But no female impersonator was as famous, successful, or highly-regarded as Julian Eltinge (1881-1941). Eltinge, born William Dalton just outside Boston, started playing female characters...
Takes the reader step-by-step through the process of building your audition repertoire portfolio ... helps to identify what songs are needed in which categories and explains where to find them, how to source and cut the sheet music, and how to communicate effectively with the accompanist and act the song. 184 pages.
. Examines the history and influence of the Group Theatre, which presented the first plays of Clifford Odets, Sidney Kingsley, and William Saroyan, and launched the careers of Franchot Tone, John Garfield, Elia Kazan, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, Martin Ritt, and Luther Adler. 339 pages.
Rouben Mamoulian, director of the original stage productions of Porgy and Bess, Carousel, and Oklahoma!, as well as films including Love Me Tonight, Queen Christina, City Streets, and Silk Stockings. Famously fired from the film version of Porgy and Bess in a dispute over publicity and quit Cleopatra after arguments over a single scene. Drawing upon Mamoulian's unfinished memoir and diaries, as well as interviews with surviving collaborators. Also explores Mamoulian's aesthetic principles and s...
Published with Hachette, Relentless will be available in both English and Spanish and shares the story of Luis’ life and career – from his early days as a Puerto Rican activist to the decades of political strategy and Latino community organizing. Readers will experience the thrill of the ascendency of Hamilton, created by his son Lin-Manuel Miranda, the family’s remarkable humanitarian action after the devastation of Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria, and all the grit, triumphs, and challenges of ...
History of the multi-award winning Off-Broadway Irish Repertory Theatre Company, from its beginning in 1988 to its thirty-fifth season in 2023. Considers how the Irish Rep's plays and musicals reflect the Irish diaspora, the relationship between Ireland and America, and what it means to be Irish and Irish American, both historically, and in the twenty-first century. 185 pages.
"investigates both the history and current realities of life and work in professional theatrical production in the United States and explores labor practices that are equitable, accessible, and sustainable." 352 pages.
Judi Dench opens up about every Shakespearean role she has played throughout her seven-decade career in a series of intimate conversations with actor and director Brendan O'Hea. Interspersed with vignettes on audiences, critics, company spirit and rehearsal room etiquette, she serves up priceless revelations on everything from the craft of speaking in verse to her personal interpretations of some of Shakespeare's most famous scenes.
Charts the progress of American showtunes alongside popular music forms as songs evolved from the waltz and ragtime to jazz, rock, rap and hip-hop. Factual analysis and historical context combine to offer a rich picture of the American songbook from Irving Berlin to Elton John. 440 pages.
Coffee table book by Eila Mell and The American Theatre Wing. Foreword by Audra McDonald. Commemorating over 75 years of Broadway greatness with never-before told stories, rare photos from the American Theatre Wing's archives, and more than 100 interviews with past and present Tony winners, including actors, producers, writers, and costume designers. 400+ color and black-and-white photographs. 320 pages.
"This is the riveting, brutally honest story of a man’s struggle to make something of himself in the theater. Coming from meager circumstances in the Ozark Mountains, he fights his way up the shaky ladder toward fame. He makes mistakes, goes down blind alleys, fails and succeeds, again and again. But he never quits." 480 pages.
Biography in the form of an oral history about Zelda Fichandler, whose founding of Arena Stage in Washington, DC in 1950 shifted live professional theater away from Broadway and inspired the creation of non-profit theaters around the country. Dianne Wiest, James Earl Jones, Stacy Keach, and Jane Alexander, among many others, share their memories of this intrepid pioneering woman during Arena Stage’s early years. Fichandler was Head of New York University’s Graduate Acting Program for 25 years. ...
A show business romance crossing 7000 miles and 70 years, Broadway Melody lands securely in the confines of Times Square and the Theater District, as a crackerjack trumpet player and a blue-collar spotlight operator vie for the love of an aspiring ingenue who holds them both in thrall for their entire lifetimes. Filled with theater lore and history, vivid characters both real and imagined, and a great number of songs in its heart, this novel delivers the ultimate valentine to Broadway then and n...
A portrait of the American musical's artistic evolution over the course of seven distinct, newly defined eras, with a perspective gleaned from research at more than twenty different archives across the United States. 416 pages.
Content from sixty years of essays, speeches, and manifestos by the founding mother of the resident professional theatre movement. Founder and artistic director of Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and chair of New York University’s Graduate Acting program. Gathers Fichandler’s most prescient writing about that movement, ranging over such topics as The Institution as Art-Work, the Profit in NonProfit, Race and a Deepening Aesthetic, and Creativity and the Public Mind. Also includes intimate port...
The author traces Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? from its origins in Greenwich Village's bohemian enclave, through its tormented production process, to its explosion onto screens across America and a permanent place in the canon of cinematic marriages. 368 pages.
In CLYDE’S, a truck stop sandwich shop offers its formerly incarcerated kitchen staff a shot at redemption. Even as the shop’s callous owner tries to keep them down, the staff members learn to reclaim their lives, find purpose, and become inspired to dream by their shared quest to create the perfect sandwich.
Fifty articles (from the the Guardian, the Observer, the Financial Times, and the Evening Standard) arranged in chronological order of each actor’s demise, constituting a vivid history of postwar theatre through the lives of the actors. There are happy/sad juxtapositions of shooting stars Robert Stephens and Alan Bates; tragic niece and aunt, Natasha Richardson and Lynn Redgrave; classical queens Diana Rigg and Barbara Jefford; and versatile showtime hoofers Una Stubbs and Lionel Blair. 256 pag...
By David Mamet, with illustrations by David Mamet. The author " shares scandalous and laugh-out-loud tales from his four decades in Hollywood where he worked with some of the biggest names in movies." Audiobook narrated by Jim Frangione. 256 pages.
Explores the shifting representations of schoolteachers and professors in plays and performances primarily from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in the United States. Examining various historical and recurring types, such as spinsters, schoolmarms, presumed sexual deviants, radicals and communists, fascists, and emasculated men teachers, the author shines the spotlight on both well-known and nearly-forgotten plays. 230 pages.
By Sean Mayes. Unveils the untold stories and perspectives of artists of color shaping the stage today, through interviews drawn from Broadway and regional productions, including André De Shields, Alex Lacamoire, Baayork Lee, and many more. 168 pages.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece "The Color Purple," as well as the acclaimed 1985 film from Steven Spielberg, the Tony-winning Broadway musical, and the all-new film adaptation. An exploration of the novel’s enduring legacy, featuring contributions from Alice Walker, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Colman Domingo, Fantasia Barrino, Danny Glover, and more. Oral histories and fresh anecdotes based on more than fifty original interviews, as well as vibr...
Barbra Streisand's memoir detailing her life from growing up in Brooklyn to the early days of her career, including her breakout performance in the musical and film versions of Funny Girl, and the years after. Audiobook narrated by the author. 992 pages.
