Hailed as "absolutely the best reference book on its subject" by Newsweek, American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle covers more than 250 years of musical theatre in the United States, from a 1735 South Carolina production of Flora, or Hob in the Well to The Addams Family in 2010. Authors Gerald Bordman and Richard Norton write an engaging narrative blending history, critical analysis, and lively description to illustrate the transformation of American musical theatre through such incarnations as the ballad opera, revue, Golden Age musical, rock musical, Disney musical, and, with 2010's American Idiot, even the punk musical. The Chronicle is arranged chronologically and is fully indexed according to names of shows, songs, and people involved, for easy searching and browsing. Chapters range from the "Prologue," which traces the origins of American musical theater to 1866, through several "intermissions" (for instance, "Broadway's Response to the Swing Era, 1937-1942") and up to "Act Seven," the theatre of the twenty-first century. This last chapter covers the dramatic changes in musical theatre since the last edition published-whereas Fosse, a choreography-heavy revue, won the 1999 Tony for Best Musical, the 2008 award went to In the Heights, which combines hip-hop, rap, meringue and salsa unlike any musical before it. Other groundbreaking and/or box-office-breaking shows covered for the first time include Avenue Q, The Producers, Billy Elliot, Jersey Boys, Monty Python's Spamalot, Wicked, Hairspray, Urinetown the Musical, and Spring Awakening. Discussion of these shows incorporates plot synopses, names of principal players, descriptions of scenery and costumes, and critical reactions. In addition, short biographies interspersed throughout the text colorfully depict the creative minds that shaped the most influential musicals. Collectively, these elements create the most comprehensive, authoritative history of musical theatre in this country and make this an essential resource for students, scholars, performers, dramaturges, and musical enthusiasts.
This volume chronicles every Broadway production as well as every major off-Broadway show as its coverage extends into the 50s and 60s. Noted theatrical historian Gerald Bordman moves from play to play and from season to season, offering plot summaries, production details, the names of directors, leading players and roles, as well as quotes from drama critics and any special or unusual aspects of individual shows.
Gerald Bordman's American Musical Theatre has become a landmark book since its original publication in 1978. In this third edition, he offers authoritative summaries on the general artistic trends and developments for each season on musical comedy, operetta, revues, and the one-man and one-woman shows from the first musical to the 1999/2000 season. With detailed show, song, and people indexes, Bordman provides a running commentary and assessment as well as providing the basic facts about each production.
This book concludes Gerald Bordman's acclaimed survey of American non-musical theatre. It deals with the years 1930 to 1969, a period when the number of yearly new plays was shrinking, but a period during which American drama as a whole entered the world stage and became a dominant force. With works like Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, American theater finally reached adulthood both dramatically and psychologically. Bordman's lively, authoritative study covers every Broadway production, as well as every major off-Broadway show. His discussion moves season by season and show by show in chronological order; he offers plot synopses and details the physical production, directors, players, theaters, and newspaper reviews. This book stands together with the preceding volumes of American Theatre as the premier history of American drama.
This is a volume in Bordman's monumental history of the non-musical American theatre. It analyses each Broadway show chronologically from 1914 to 1930 - the period when American drama was most prolific and productive.
First published in 1984, Gerald Bordman's Oxford Companion to American Theatre is the standard one-volume source on our national theatre. Critics have hailed its "wealth of authoritative information" (Back Stage), its "fascinating picture of the volatile American stage" (The Guardian), and its "well-chosen, illuminating facts" (Newsday). Now thoroughly revised, this distinguished volume once again provides an up-to-date guide to the American stage from its beginnings to the present. Completely updated by theater professor Thomas Hischak, the volume includes playwrights, plays, actors, directors, producers, songwriters, famous playhouses, dramatic movements, and much more. The book covers not only classic works (such as Death of a Salesman) but also many commercially successful plays (such as Getting Gertie's Garter), plus entries on foreign figures that have influenced our dramatic development (from Shakespeare to Beckett and Pinter). New entries include recent plays such as Angels in America and Six Degrees of Separation, performers such as Eric Bogosian and Bill Irwin, playwrights like David Henry Hwang and Wendy Wasserstein, and relevant developments and issues including AIDS in American theatre, theatrical producing by Disney, and the rise in solo performance. Accessible and authoritative, this valuable A-Z reference is ideal not only for students and scholars of theater, but everyone with a passion for the stage.
This three-volume work will accomplish for the American non-musical theatre what Bordman's American Musical Theatre did for our song-and-dance entertainments: it chronicles, in order by opening, every Broadway comedy and drama, show by show, season by season, offering a plot synopsis, principal players, and important statistics. Scenery and costumes are described where they might be of interest, and comments of the plays' contemporary critics are quoted. In many instances, extended excerpts from the play are included to give the reader a fuller understanding of its nuances and its period dialogue. Also included, and worked chronologically into the text, are details about cheap-priced, cliff-hanging melodramas, such as Bertha, the Sewing Machine Girl and His Sister's Shame, which were among America's most popular diversions in theatres catering to blue-collar playgoers until silent films drew away their audiences. Examples of shows produced and designed for other than New York are included. This volume deals with the great expansion of American theatre after the Civil War, the careers of such prominent actors and actresses as Edwin Booth, Mrs. Fiske, the Drew and Barrymore families, the first important American playwrights like Clyde Fitch, producers like David Belasco, and the influence of foreign plays and players. This stage history, besides giving a sense of each production, touches on the literary worth of the plays, provides brief biographies of major figures, and sets all of this against the economic and social backgrounds of the time. Readers will close the book feeling they, like their parents and grandparents, have sat through performances of these shows of another era.
Gerald Bordman's American Musical Theatre has become a landmark book since its original publication in 1978. In this third edition, he offers authoritative summaries on the general artistic trends and developments for each season on musical comedy, operetta, revues, and the one-man and one-woman shows from the first musical to the 1999/2000 season. With detailed show, song, and people indexes, Bordman provides a running commentary and assessment as well as providing the basic facts about each production.
The American Theatre series discusses every Broadway production chronologically--show by show and season by season. It offers plot summaries, production details, names of leading actors and actresses--the roles they played, as well as any special or unusual aspects of individual shows. This second volume in the series, covers what is probably the richest period in American theater, the years 1914 through 1930. Bordman includes most of Eugene O'Neill's work, along with playwrights as diverse as Elmer Rice and George Kaufman. Among the era's stars one finds John and Ethel Barrymore, Helen Hayes, Katherine Cornell, and Lynn Fontaine and Alfred Lunt. Considering the sheer number of productions, American theater climbed to its all-time high in the 1920s; by mid-decade, nearly 300 new plays appeared on Broadway each year. America saw more theatrical activity--in every sense of the word-- than any time before or since.
First published in 1984, Gerald Bordman's Oxford Companion to American Theatre is the standard one-volume source on our national theatre. Critics have hailed its "wealth of authoritative information" (Back Stage), its "fascinating picture of the volatile American stage" (The Guardian), and its "well-chosen, illuminating facts" (Newsday). Now thoroughly revised, this distinguished volume once again provides an up-to-date guide to the American stage from its beginnings to the present. Completely updated by theater professor Thomas Hischak, the volume includes playwrights, plays, actors, directors, producers, songwriters, famous playhouses, dramatic movements, and much more. The book covers not only classic works (such as Death of a Salesman) but also many commercially successful plays (such as Getting Gertie's Garter), plus entries on foreign figures that have influenced our dramatic development (from Shakespeare to Beckett and Pinter). New entries include recent plays such as Angels in America and Six Degrees of Separation, performers such as Eric Bogosian and Bill Irwin, playwrights like David Henry Hwang and Wendy Wasserstein, and relevant developments and issues including AIDS in American theatre, theatrical producing by Disney, and the rise in solo performance. Accessible and authoritative, this valuable A-Z reference is ideal not only for students and scholars of theater, but everyone with a passion for the stage.
After 15 years working as an engineer in the Middle East, George Booth returns home to find that tragedy has struck! While attempting to piece together the facts, simple revenge turns into the discovery of the mother of all conspiracies that began more than 13,000 years ago. At a time when Earths ecology needs no help from today's fantastic technology, George and his friends discover that stories of the past that had been dismissed as myths were in fact true historical accounts of humanities affect on the planet...Why did the North Pole freeze, covering areas like London and New York as we know them today in sheets of ice 2 miles thick in moments? Why didn't the South Pole freeze at the same time, giving justifi cation and authenticity of ancient maps documenting the South Pole with no ice? As if these weren't big enough questions, why then did the northern ice melt, sending sea level up hundreds of feet that would leave many coastal Cities and Harbours under water? Why was the Fertile Sahara turned to desert, and why did the South Pole eventually freeze? George and his friends discover answers to many enigmas of our ancient past and why humanity has been allowed to advance the way it has. What is the connection to the past? The answers are clearly there, but are not able to be understood until the events occurred. Who are keeping these secrets from humanity, and to what end?
In this book Professor Berkowitz studies the diversity of American drama from the stylistic, experimental plays of O'Neill, through verse, tragedy and community theatre, to the theatre of the 1990s. The discussions range through dramatists, plays, genres and themes, with full supporting appendix material. It also examines major dramatists such as Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, Sam Shephard, Tennessee Williams and August Wilson and covers not only the Broadway scene but also off Broadway movements and fringe theatres and such subjects as women's and African-American drama.
When Robert Preston shouted "Ya got trouble!" in River City, when Carol Channing glided down a gilded staircase while waiters serenaded her with "Hello, Dolly!," when Barbra Streisand defied us to rain on her parade in Funny Girl, audiences were instantly enchanted. Showstoppers! is all about Broadway musicals' most memorable numbers—why they were so effective, how they were created, and why they still resonate. Much of it is told through the eyes of the performers, songwriters, directors, and choreographers who first built these explosive numbers and lit the fuse. Gerald Nachman interviewed dozens of iconic musical theater figures, including Patti LuPone, John Raitt, Jerry Herman, Edie Adams, Dick Van Dyke, Joel Grey, Marvin Hamlisch, John Kander, Tommy Tune, Sheldon Harnick, and Harold Prince, uncovering priceless untold anecdotes and details.
Small enough to carry to the courtroom or classroom, this handy 4-by-6 inch guide: Lists objections alphabetically, with thumb tabs for quick reference; Follows each objection with accurate responses; Cross-references the relevant Texas rules; Offers practice tips crucial to understanding each objection; Reproduces the entire Texas Rules of Civil Evidence
She lived at full throttle on stage, screen, and in real life, with highs that made history and lows that finally brought down the curtain at age forty-seven. Judy Garland died over thirty years ago, but no biography has so completely captured her spirit -- and demons -- until now. From her tumultuous early years as a child performer to her tragic last days, Gerald Clarke reveals the authentic Judy in a biography rich in new detail and unprecedented revelations. Based on hundreds of interviews and drawing on her own unfinished -- and unpublished -- autobiography, Get Happy presents the real Judy Garland in all her flawed glory. With the same skill, style, and storytelling flair that made his bestselling Capote a landmark literary biography, Gerald Clarke sorts through the secrets and the scandals, the legends and the lies, to create a portrait of Judy Garland as candid as it is compassionate. Here are her early years, during which her parents sowed the seeds of heartbreak and self-destruction that would plague her for decades ... the golden age of Hollywood, brought into sharp focus with cinematic urgency, from the hidden private lives of the movie world's biggest stars to the cold-eyed businessmen who controlled the machine ... and a parade of brilliant and gifted men -- lovers and artists, impresarios and crooks -- who helped her reach so many creative pinnacles yet left her hopeless and alone after each seemingly inevitable fall. Here, then, is Judy Garland in all her magic and despair: the woman, the star, the legend, in a riveting saga of tragedy, resurrection, and genius.
Hailed as "absolutely the best reference book on its subject" by Newsweek, American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle covers more than 250 years of musical theatre in the United States, from a 1735 South Carolina production of Flora, or Hob in the Well to The Addams Family in 2010. Authors Gerald Bordman and Richard Norton write an engaging narrative blending history, critical analysis, and lively description to illustrate the transformation of American musical theatre through such incarnations as the ballad opera, revue, Golden Age musical, rock musical, Disney musical, and, with 2010's American Idiot, even the punk musical. The Chronicle is arranged chronologically and is fully indexed according to names of shows, songs, and people involved, for easy searching and browsing. Chapters range from the "Prologue," which traces the origins of American musical theater to 1866, through several "intermissions" (for instance, "Broadway's Response to the Swing Era, 1937-1942") and up to "Act Seven," the theatre of the twenty-first century. This last chapter covers the dramatic changes in musical theatre since the last edition published-whereas Fosse, a choreography-heavy revue, won the 1999 Tony for Best Musical, the 2008 award went to In the Heights, which combines hip-hop, rap, meringue and salsa unlike any musical before it. Other groundbreaking and/or box-office-breaking shows covered for the first time include Avenue Q, The Producers, Billy Elliot, Jersey Boys, Monty Python's Spamalot, Wicked, Hairspray, Urinetown the Musical, and Spring Awakening. Discussion of these shows incorporates plot synopses, names of principal players, descriptions of scenery and costumes, and critical reactions. In addition, short biographies interspersed throughout the text colorfully depict the creative minds that shaped the most influential musicals. Collectively, these elements create the most comprehensive, authoritative history of musical theatre in this country and make this an essential resource for students, scholars, performers, dramaturges, and musical enthusiasts.
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