Product Description

Countering the misperceptions about Broadway performers leading glamorous lives, the words of more than 150 Broadway stars provide unprecedented insight into their struggle for stardom. With an introduction by Jason Alexander and candid interviews with today's most celebrated Broadway stars, this book offers stories to entertain and astonish theater lovers, as well as serve as a sobering reality check for those considering careers on the stage. This book shares firsthand accounts of professional actors' difficult yet fulfilling journeys to Broadway: moving to New York, finding survival jobs, auditioning, landing roles, avoiding pitfalls, forging a family life, and much more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #93265 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-01
• Released on: 2004-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From the Publisher
MAKING IT ON BROADWAY (Allworth Press) goes beyond the glitz and the glamour to show what really happens both on a Broadway stage and in the personal lives of Broadway actors. In their own words, Jason Alexander, Terrence Mann, Donna Murphy, Lea Salonga, and more than 150 of today’s Broadway performers—including fifty-five Tony Award® winners and nominees—talk candidly about living and working in the new era of the mega-musical.

From first stepping foot in New York City with only a suitcase and a dream, to stepping up to the podium and accepting a Tony Award®, the actors in this book discuss all aspects of their lives and careers. No matter how personal or controversial the topic, they tell it like it is, how it was, and how it’s possibly going to be. Whether it’s paying the rent, maintaining a family, performing eight times a week, or dealing with the "Disneyfication" of Broadway, the contributors to this book handle it all in the same way: with frankness and humor.

From the Author
What makes this book so different from other books on Broadway?

MAKING IT ON BROADWAY is not a book about musical theater. Rather, it is a book about those who have dreamed of a life on Broadway and pursued those dreams - and the reality which waits once those dreams are fulfilled. Over the past several years, much of the intimacy which once existed on Broadway has been lost. Today, Times Square has a theme park quality to it, and, more than ever, Broadway is becoming an industry as opposed to an art form. Unlike other theater books, MAKING IT ON BROADWAY addresses these seismic changes in an honest and forthright manner through the voices of those who have lived it and are living it today.

What are some of the more controversial aspects of this book?

There are many within the Broadway community who are very protective of its secrets. As Antonio Banderas explains, "it is good for the audience to think that we are glamorous...we want to entertain and pretend to be a certain way." There is no pretending in this book. Here, performers speak out and tell it like it is. In addition to going deep into the private lives of performers, the book addresses how actors have been marginalized by corporate theater. In the chapter "The Base of the Tony is Plastic," Tony winners and nominees speak candidly about the real worth of a Tony Award. In the chapter "Broadway, Inc.," actors talk about the games they play on stage during a Broadway show to keep themselves "entertained." As one contributor from The Lion King explains, if people knew the messing around which occurs on stage, they would be "blown away." This book tells the audience what, until now, only some actors within the Broadway community had previously known. Among the many controversial issues addressed, performers reflect on how there is actually peer pressure not to act when performing on a Broadway stage. They explain why, even after getting cast as a lead in a new Broadway show, they know that, once the show closes, they may never work on Broadway again.

From the Inside Flap
ADVANCE PRAISE

"This book is one of insight and delight to anyone who has reason to walk through the doors of a Broadway theater...If you dream of working on Broadway, this book will help to prepare you for what it takes to 'make it,' maintain it, and go on loving it. If you live to see a Broadway show, this book will give you insight into the joys and struggles that go into serving you, the audience."
JASON ALEXANDER - Tony Award Winner and star of Seinfeld

"If you think working in theater is glitzy and ritzy, you've gotta read 'Making It on Broadway.' It's a heartbreaking, humbling, and hilarious look at today's Great White Way, told by pros who know every stage of showbiz."
WAYMAN WONG - New York Daily News and Playbill.com

"The Broadway performers reporting in this devastating multiple-memoir on the real life of actors are hilarious, grim, rueful, resigned, even forgiving, but somehow, in every mood, their recollections are inspiring and transparently honest. Loving intensely what they're looking for, and even looking for it in what should be the right place - Broadway - they're pretty much shocked by the reality. But like saints and lunatics, they never lose the vision, see it as real, and sometimes, even for a moment, find it. When you start out in New York with little money, and with rats in the walls of a closet you're supposed to think of as a whole apartment, it is not, God knows, any part of the dream that got you there. And then, when you find out later that life after 'making it' is not all that different, and certainly not different enough - there's reason to be discouraged. But like a torturous love affair, there is, after all, at the bottom of it, love. So, if this book is a warning, it is also PR for a hard, still proud, way of life."
LEON KATZ - Emeritus Professor, Yale School of Drama

"How is a life in the theater possible when 'making it' is a false concept and 'Broadway' is no one's permanent address? This book is a wise, uncompromising, and invaluable document, featuring the passionate voices of those wrestling with the question and living the answer. Long live their history!"
MEL SHAPIRO - Head of Acting and Musical Theater, UCLA

"Usually, when you climb to the top of the beanstalk, you discover a giant monster. This book describes that trip up, and what’s there when you arrive. Some of the contributors to this book were once told what life would be like once they finally 'made it' on Broadway...but they didn’t believe it. Now, the actors in this book tell it like it is - they destroy the myths and inject the truth. Yet, will it discourage any young artist? Not likely."
ARTHUR BARTOW - Artistic Director, Undergraduate Department of Drama, NYU Tisch School of the Arts

"Making It on Broadway strips away the thin veneer of glitz on Broadway and exposes the true iron and steel needed to 'make it' on the Great White Way. It's the truth, spoken by the soldiers in the trenches. This book doesn't sugarcoat the experience of being a Broadway actor. It shows the real blood, sweat, and tears that makes up our profession. It shows through the B.S. and tells it like it is."
RICK SORDELET - Broadway Fight Director

Customer Reviews

An absolute must read
For everyone who is in school or training for a career in musical theatre, this book is the priceless information you will receive that a lot of times is not told to you at your school or studio. From the moment I started reading the book I couldnt stop reading. It takes you on an ubelievable journery from the beginning of their lives in this business to where they are now. It is so beautifully crafted. The book is literally story after story, but the way they were streamlined together makes it like one person reciting an autobiography. If there was ever a time that all of the tears of joy and pain from trying to "make it" were combined, it is in this book. It will inspire you to work even harder, not to be a broadway star, but to just work and do what we love. The only reason I put the book down was to run on stage for an entrance, seriously!

Great
This is a must-have for anyone who wants to work in the musical theater business on Broadway. At it's best it is uplifting and dreamlike, and it's worst is suicidally depressing. But if you want to get onto the Great White Way, you can't allow yourself to be brought down by fear or depression. This book gives you that knowledge straight from the horse's mouth.

Beyond the Great White Way
For theatre people or anyone interested in acting this book is a MUST!! It actually is more about making "it" on Broadway. The Great White Way is strewn with many funny, sad stories. These are actors who make a living at their craft. Most of them are not household names but they work primarily in Broadway musicals. This book painfully tells of their youth, their dreams and their struggles. All in their own words.
Some of it is very funny and some is very sad. They express anger at what Broadway has become and tell of the hard work and discipline that is required of them. There are some very amusing anecdotes about things that go horribly awry during a production.
Dave Clemmons tells a very touching and sad story of a little girl who came to see him in "Les Miserables" in Salt Lake City. It has a happy ending but really tugs at your heart strings.
The theatres are old and dirty, and most of the time the pay is not that great. But they do it because they love the theatre. The are all Broadway Babys. Read it, you won't regret one word.