Product Description

Musical theater has captivated American audiences from its early roots in burlesque stage productions and minstrel shows to the million-dollar industry it has become on Broadway today. What is it about this truly indigenous American art form that has made it so enduringly popular? How has it survived, even thrived, alongside the technology of film and the glitz and glamour of Hollywood? Will it continue to evolve and leave its mark on the twenty-first century? Bringing together exclusive and previously unpublished interviews with nineteen leading composers, lyricists, librettists, directors, choreographers, and producers from the mid-1900s to the present, this book details the careers of the individuals who shaped this popular performance art during its most prolific period. The interviewees discuss their roles in productions ranging from On the Town (1944) and Finian's Rainbow (1947) to The Producers (2001) and Bounce (2003). Readers are taken onto the stage, into the rehearsals, and behind the scenes. The nuts and bolts, the alchemy, and the occasional agonies of the collaborative process are all explored. In their discussions, the artists detail their engagements with other creative forces, including such major talents as Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, Jule Styne, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, Alan Jay Lerner, Zero Mostel, and Gwen Verdon. They speak candidly about their own work and that of their peers, their successes and failures, the creative process, and how a show progresses from its conception through rehearsals and tryouts to opening night. Taken together, these interviews give fresh insight into what Oscar Hammerstein called "a nightly miracle" - the creation of the American musical.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #325921 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 308 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Bryer and Davison, co-editors of The Actor's Art, collect interviews with leading lyricists, composers, librettists, producers and directors who created the masterpieces of late 20th-century musical theater. Conversations with talent like Kander and Ebb, Susan Stroman, and Harold Prince shed light on the various ways to combine music and dance, which resulted in hits such as Cabaret, The Producers and Fiddler on the Roof, respectively. Each interview includes a brief bio and an appraisal of triumphs and failures, though the primary goal is to reveal the secret to successful theatrical collaboration. But that isn't really possible, according to Stephen Sondheim, since "the performing arts involve the final collaborator, the audience." While this work gives a good overview of how the genre has evolved over time, the editors often give too many details without sufficient context, making for tedious reading. Theater professionals and fans will enjoy the backstage gossip, but the real benefactors will be those who want to get into the business. The chance to apprentice with today's greats is rare; reading about them is the next best thing. 14 b&w illus. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"It's a rare interview book that contains as many insights into the joys and dilemmas of life in the theater as this one."

About the Author
Jackson R. Bryer is a professor of English at the University of Maryland. He is the editor of The Playwright's Art and coeditor of The Actor's Art. Richard A. Davison is a professor of English at the University of Delaware. He is the coeditor of The Actor's Art and has published books on Frank, Charles, and Kathleen Norris and numerous articles in major literary journals.

Customer Reviews

Delights and Duds
I've resd lots of Conversations books over the years. Usually the interviewers uncover some sharp talkers as well as some duds. Here the unpleasant event is Jason Robert Brown, who seems like an egomaniacal nitwit with nothing good to say about anybody, who blames the failure of PARADE on the stupidity of American theater audiences, yet allows that there's no reason really for anyone to have a good time while seeing it.

Tommy Tune wins the Congeniality Award for admitting that the later Antonio Banderas revival of NINE was at least as good as the production he had pioneered himself way back when. That took a lot of balls I think, for anyone else might have merely sniffed and indicated otherwise. Some of the participants have been around in musical theater for only five minutes and yet they are the ones who yammer on and on just as fully as if their careers had lasted back into the 1920s. Speaking of lengthy careers, Burton Lane is very mysterious about his problems with Alan Jay Lerner in ON A CLEAR DAY, and the focus is on his Broadway work which precludes him from talking much about his wonderful work with the Freed Unit.

Arthur Laurents seems more balanced here than he did in his memoir, while I felt sad for Betty Comden and Adolph Green who it seems never got over the failure of their DOLLS LIFE musical. They seem stuck on it, like the lion with the thorn in his paw he just can't seem to get out.

The interviewers seem sharp and pretty well prepared. In a couple of cases I felt they had been warned not to discuss certain sensitive issues with their subjects, for there are some gaping holes in the narratives of, say, Sheldon Harnick and Tommy Tune. The biggest laugh? Charles Strouse's insistence that ANNIE WARBUCKS is as great a musical treat as ANNIE. He just doesn't leave it alone. It's his King Charles' head as Dickens used to say.