Book picks similar to
Rodgers Hammerstein by Ethan Mordden


theatre
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Brooklyn Boy


Donald Margulies - 2005
    He explores the queasy relationships between life and art, love and estrangement, and the bane that is American identity drift, with unsparing but compassionate candor.” –Misha Berson, Seattle Times“Margulies’s remarkable gift of building characterization through realistic dialogue is undiminished. Full of aching ruefulness that underlies the comedy, Brooklyn Boy’s scenes are written with precision and humor. The play isn’t about Brooklyn, nor is it about a boy—it’s about a man without a home.” –Don Shirley, Los Angeles TimesThis new play by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Dinner with Friends follows the career of Eric Weiss, a writer whose novel hits the bestseller list the same time his life begins to unravel. His wife is out the door, his father is in the hospital, and his childhood friend thinks he has sold himself to the devil. A funny and emotionally rich look at family, friends and fame.Donald Margulies received the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Dinner with Friends. The play received numerous awards, including the American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, the Dramatists Guild/Hull-Warriner Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award and a Drama Desk nomination, and has been produced all over the United States and around the world. In addition to his adaptation of God of Vengeance, his many plays include Collected Stories, The Country House, Sight Unseen, The Model Apartment, The Loman Family Picnic, What’s Wrong with This Picture? and Time Stands Still. Mr. Margulies currently lives with his wife and their son in New Haven, Connecticut, where he teaches playwriting at Yale University.

Peter and the Starcatcher: The Annotated Script of the Broadway Play


Rick Elice - 2012
    Filled with behind-the-scenes information and photos of the cast and crew, this annotated script will enchant and entertain fans of the book and the play alike.

The Movie Musical!


Jeanine Basinger - 2019
     From Fred Astaire, whom she adores, to La La Land, which she deplores, Basinger examines a dazzling array of stars, strategies, talents, and innovations in the history of musical cinema. Whether analyzing a classic Gene Kelly routine, relishing a Nelson-Jeanette operetta, or touting a dynamic hip hop number (in the underrated Idlewild), she is a canny and charismatic guide to the many ways that song and dance have been seen--and heard--on film. With extensive portraits of everyone from Al Jolson, the Jazz Singer; to Doris Day, whose iconic sunniness has overshadowed her dramatic talents; from Deanna Durbin, that lovable teen-star of the '30s and '40s; to Shirley T. and Judy G.; from Bing to Frank to Elvis; from Ann Miller to Ann-Margret; from Disney to Chicago . . . focusing on many beloved, iconic films (Top Hat; Singin' in the Rain; Meet Me in St. Louis; The Sound of Music) as well as unduly obscure gems (Eddie Cantor's Whoopee!; Murder at the Vanities; Sun Valley Serenade; One from the Heart), this book is astute, informative, and pure pleasure to read.

Amadeus


Peter Shaffer - 1979
    Devout court composer Antonio Salieri plots against his rival, the dissolute but supremely talented Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. How far will Salieri go to achieve the fame that Mozart disregards? The 1981 Tony Award winner for Best Play. An L.A. Theatre Works full cast performance featuring: Steven Brand as Baron van Swieten James Callis as Mozart Michael Emerson as Salieri Darren Richardson as Venticello 2 Alan Shearman as Count Orsini-Rosenberg Mark Jude Sullivan as Venticello 1 Simon Templeman as Joseph II Brian Tichnell as Count Johann Kilian Von Strack Jocelyn Towne as Constanze Directed by Rosalind Ayres. Recorded in Los Angeles before a live audience at The James Bridges Theater, UCLA in September of 2016.

Almost Heaven: Coming of Age in West Virginia


Jerry S. Horton - 2014
    A very well written book that will be hard for anyone to put down!This is a must read.Jerry's interesting and riveting account of his childhood years and transition to a young adult and Infantry NCO are truly endearing! His honest and impelling novel reminds one of why we serve, fight, and are willing to lay down our lives for God, Country, and our fellow man. God Bless the Infantryman!!Thank the Lord for Soldiers and West Virginia !This book is a great read. This honest account of growing up in West Virginia and becoming a Sergeant in Vietnam is sometimes thrilling and sometimes heart wrenching. Through a lot of true grit, thank goodness Jerry Horton survived to tell this story. I highly recommend this book. It is a Winner.This is an inspiring memoir written about a young man coming of age in West Virginia in the 1960's. It is a memoir but also a real thriller story as we follow Jerry from the streets surrounding Lincoln playground to Chicago Steel mills to the French Quarter in New Orleans and to San Francisco in the Summer of Love 1967. The book then moves you to the Central Highlands in Vietnam where Jerry is an infantry platoon sergeant. Jerry's interesting and truthful account of his childhood years and transition to an adult and Infantry Sergeant are truly endearing. It is an honest and compelling story. It gives a first person narrative of hand-to-hand combat in the trenches of Vietnam that can leave you scared, glad to be alive and eternally grateful to those who died for our freedom. Jerry joined the army to simply be able to afford to go to college. Forty years later he has a PhD and multiple degrees but they were earned at a heavy price for this patriot. Jerry shares his experiences in Vietnam in an articulate, honest and direct assessment of his time in Vietnam, the men he served with and the horrors of war. It is an incredible story of leadership and survival.We see Jerry develop as a young boy who is very independent and then see him being schooled on the streets of Charleston, West Virginia learning how to come to grips with the breakup and divorce in his family. He takes refuge in becoming the best he could be as a basketball player on the courts of Lincoln playground. Later we see him leaving home for the mean streets of the Chicago Steel mills and then on to Louisiana where he completes one year of college and then goes flat broke. Then the book shifts to New Orleans Louisiana and the excitement of the French Quarter. Jerry's life is rocked by the turbulent waters in New Orleans; he had no money no plan and is drifting. He seeks out another lifestyle in California hitching to and then living in San Francisco during the Summer of Love 1967. He describes how it was, the music and time and place and he takes you there through his vivid descriptions. Once again, his life spins into turmoil and as he tries to get back on the path to achieve his life's dream of going to college he is drafted in the Army. He finds himself becoming a leader, an infantry sergeant. His goal is to bring himself and his men back home alive, the reader gets the sense that all his life Jerry has been prepared for this moment. The reader is taken through and sees through Jerry's eyes what combat is really like.This story covers much ground and has something for everyone. You live through Jerry 's experiences of what it's like to conquer your own demons, you read about his mother's courage having Jerry in the Salvation Army by herself, the excitement and freedom of the 1960's and you learn what it is like to want something so bad you lay your life down for it. It is a book you truly won't lay down once you start reading.

The Theatre: A Concise History


Phyllis Hartnoll - 1968
    He surveys new trends in theatre, including performance art, mixed-media stagings, multi-cultural theatre, feminism and theatre, dance theatre and ethnic drama, with a wealth of new illustrations and up-to-date reference material.

Theatre of the Unimpressed: In Search of Vital Drama


Jordan Tannahill - 2015
    There were of course those rare moments of transcendence that kept me coming back. But why did they come so few and far between?A lot of plays are dull. And one dull play, it seems, can turn us off theatre for good. Playwright and theatre director Jordan Tannahill takes in the spectrum of English-language drama – from the flashiest of Broadway spectacles to productions mounted in scrappy storefront theatres – to consider where lifeless plays come from and why they persist. Having travelled the globe talking to theatre artists, critics, passionate patrons and the theatrically disillusioned, Tannahill addresses what he considers the culture of ‘risk aversion’ paralyzing the form.Theatre of the Unimpressed is Tannahill’s wry and revelatory personal reckoning with the discipline he’s dedicated his life to, and a roadmap for a vital twenty-first-century theatre – one that apprehends the value of ‘liveness’ in our mediated age and the necessity for artistic risk and its attendant failures. In considering dramaturgy, programming and alternative models for producing, Tannahill aims to turn theatre from an obligation to a destination.

Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare


Stephen Greenblatt - 2004
    How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained? Stephen Greenblatt brings us down to earth to see, hear, and feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life, could have become the world’s greatest playwright.

A Piece of My Heart


Shirley Lauro - 1988
    The play portrays each young woman before, during, and after her tour in the war torn jungle and ends as each leaves a personal token at The Wall in Washington.A Piece of My Heart premiered in New York at Manhattan Theatre Club, and now has enj

Broadway: The American Musical


Laurence Maslon - 2004
    A companion to the six-part PBS documentary series, BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL is the first comprehensive history of the musical, from its roots at the turn of the 20th century through the smashing successes of the new millennium. The compelling, in-depth text is lavishly illustrated with a treasure trove of photographs, sheet-music covers, posters, scenic renderings, production stills, rehearsal shots, and caricatures, many previously unpublished. Complementing the narrative are lively sidebars that highlight the stars, the shows, and the songs--the key ingredients that make the musical great. Each chapter also included essays written by some of Broadway's most fascinating luminaries, past and present. An entertaining amalgam of unpublished material, candid and production photographs, and a trunkful of anecdotes and Broadway lore, BROADWAY will appeal to eighth-graders in their first high school musical as well as to connoisseurs of the art form.

The Pain and the Itch


Bruce Norris - 2007
    Someone - or something - is leaving bite marks in the avocados, Clay and Kelly's little daughter has an itch, and Carol can't remember who played Gandhi. This work takes a look at phoney liberal values.

Shakespeare's Restless World: A Portrait of an Era in Twenty Objects


Neil MacGregor - 2012
    Think of Hamlet, trapped in indecision, or Macbeth’s merciless and ultimately self-destructive ambition, or the Machiavellian rise and short reign of Richard III. They are so vital, so alive and real that we can see aspects of ourselves in them. But their world was at once familiar and nothing like our own. In this brilliant work of historical reconstruction Neil MacGregor and his team at the British Museum, working together in a landmark collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the BBC, bring us twenty objects that capture the essence of Shakespeare’s universe. A perfect complement to A History of the World in 100 Objects, MacGregor’s landmark New York Times bestseller, Shakespeare’s Restless World highlights a turning point in human history. This magnificent book, illustrated throughout with more than one hundred vibrant color photographs, invites you to travel back in history and to touch, smell, and feel what life was like at that pivotal moment, when humankind leaped into the modern age. This was an exhilarating time when discoveries in science and technology altered the parameters of the known world. Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation map allows us to imagine the age of exploration from the point of view of one of its most ambitious navigators. A bishop’s cup captures the most sacred and divisive act in Christendom. With A History of the World in 100 Objects, MacGregor pioneered a new way of telling history through artifacts. Now he trains his eye closer to home, on a subject that has mesmerized him since childhood, and lets us see Shakespeare and his world in a whole new light.

Poetics


Aristotle
    Taking examples from the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, The Poetics introduces into literary criticism such central concepts as mimesis (‘imitation’), hamartia (‘error’), and katharsis (‘purification’). Aristotle explains how the most effective tragedies rely on complication and resolution, recognition and reversals, centring on characters of heroic stature, idealized yet true to life. One of the most powerful, perceptive and influential works of criticism in Western literary history, the Poetics has informed serious thinking about drama ever since.Malcolm Heath’s lucid English translation makes the Poetics fully accessible to the modern reader. It is accompanied by an extended introduction, which discusses the key concepts in detail and includes suggestions for further reading.

Men Around The Messenger: The Companions Of The Prophet


Khalid Muhammad Khalid
    The sixty-four Companions presented here are representative of that unique generation, a generation without any parallel in history. They come from all walks of life and character. These are stories of real people which can be historically verified. These stories will touch the souls of believers, for they will find in them yet another proof of that conviction that fills their hearts, though it may be denied and its signs effaced by wielders of power in the Muslim lands through treachery and cowardice.

100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater


Sarah Ruhl - 2012
    She has written a stunningly original book of essays whose concerns range from the most minimal and personal subjects to the most encompassing matters of art and culture. The titles themselves speak to the volume's uniqueness: "On lice," "On sleeping in the theater," "On motherhood and stools (the furniture kind)," "Greek masks and Bell's palsy."100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write is a book in which chimpanzees, Chekhov, and child care are equally at home. A vibrant, provocative examination of the possibilities of the theater, it is also a map to a very particular artistic sensibility, and an unexpected guide for anyone who has chosen an artist's life.