Over the course of eighteen shows, Mordden demonstrates that Sondheim is a classical composer who happens to write musicals. Sondheim has intellectualized the musical by tackling serious content usually reserved for the spoken stage: nonconformism (in Anyone Can Whistle, 1964), history (in Pacific Overtures, 1976), and cannibalism as a metaphor for class warfare (Sweeney Todd, 1979). Yet his work combines complex music and intellectual plots with a masterly skill for the fabric of theatre. His shows are all intensely theatrical, produced with flair and brilliance, whether in the lush operetta of A Little Night Music (1973) or the quixotic fairy-tale magic of Into the Woods (1987).Mordden provides fresh insights and analyses of every Sondheim show, from his first hit (West Side Story, 1957) to his most recent title (Road Show, 2008). Each musical has a dedicated chapter, including articles on Sondheim's life and his major influences, and comprehensive bibliographical and discographical essays place the Sondheim literature and recordings in perspective. Writing with his usual blend of the scholarly and the popular - with a wicked sense of humor - Ethan Mordden reveals why Stephen Sondheim has become Broadway's most significant voice in the last fifty years.

    The 1990s was a decade of profound change on Broadway. At the dawn of the nineties, the British invasion of Broadway was in full swing, as musical spectacles like Les Miserables, Cats, and The Phantom of the Opera dominated the box office. But Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard soon spelled the end of this era and ushered in a new wave of American musicals, beginning with the ascendance of an unlikely show by a struggling writer who reimagined Puccini’s opera La Bohème as the smash Broadway show Rent. American musical comedy made its grand return, culminating in The Producers, while plays, always an endangered species on Broadway, staged a powerful comeback with Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. A different breed of producers rose up to challenge the grip theater owners had long held on Broadway, and corporations began to see how much money could be made from live theater. And just as Broadway had clawed its way back into the mainstream of American popular culture, the September 11 attacks struck fear into the heart of Americans who thought Times Square might be the next target. But Broadway was back in business just two days later, buoyed by talented theater people intent on bringing New Yorkers together and supporting the economics of an injured city. “Told with all the wit and style readers could wish for” (Booklist) Michael Riedel presents the drama behind every mega-hit or shocking flop. From the bitter feuds to the surprising collaborations, all the intrigue of a revolutionary era in the Theater District is packed into Singular Sensation. Broadway has triumphs and disasters, but the show always goes on.

    But in the late 1960s, Barbara’s extraordinary talent onstage was threatened by debilitating depression and alcoholism that forced her to step away from the limelight and out of the public life. Emerging from the shadows in the early 1970s, Barbara reinvented herself as the country’s leading concert and cabaret artist, performing the songs of Stephen Sondheim and other masters, while establishing a reputation as one of the greatest and most acclaimed interpreters of the American songbook.Taking us deep into her life and career, from her childhood in the South to the Great White Way, Then and Now candidly and poignantly describes both her personal difficulties and the legendary triumphs, detailing the extraordinary working relationships she shared with many of the key composers, musicians, actors and performers of the late twentieth century, among them Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Elaine Stritch, and Robert Preston.Hailed by the Financial Times of London as "the greatest singer in the world",  but preferring to think of herself as "a work in progress", Barbara Cook here delivers a powerful, personal tale of pain and triumph, as straight forward, unflinchingly honest, and open hearted as her singing.

    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.Interviews Include These Award-Winning Actors:• Jason Alexander• Daisy Eagan• Heather Headley• Wilson Heredia• Randy Graff• Donna McKechnie• Donna Murphy• John Rubinstein• Lea Salonga• Scott Wise• Chita Rivera

    Barbara Isenberg interviewed the men and women behind the original production, the film and significant revivals-- Harold Prince, Sheldon Harnick, Joseph Stein, Austin Pendleton, Joanna Merlin, Norman Jewison, Topol, Harvey Fierstein and more-- to produce a lively, popular chronicle of the making of Fiddler. Published in celebration of Fiddler's 50th anniversary, Tradition! is the book for everyone who loves Fiddler and can sing along with the original cast album.

    . Is it possible to read those lyrics, let alone hear them, without mentally filling in: Remember me to Herald Square? Have you begun to hum or sing it to yourself, with the words and notes carrying you back in time to the Broadway of George M. Cohan and the heyday of Tin Pan Alley?For most people who've grown up with and shared America's musical heritage, such a phrase opens the floodgates to a wealth of memories and feelings because, after all, that's what great songs do.What a delight, then, to be able to promise you the same experience in an entire course. For in Professor Bill Messenger's Great American Music: Broadway Musicals, you get the story and the music, as well—and not only in the examples expertly played by Professor Messenger at the piano to illustrate insights, techniques, or subtleties of composition.You'll also hear rare recordings of groundbreaking artists such as Nora Bayes, the singer selected by Cohan to record his unofficial World War I anthem, "Over There,"and Fanny Brice, the great star immortalized in Funny Girl. And you'll hear contemporary recreations that reconstruct the sound of early musical theater, as well. You'll listen in on recorded interviews that take you behind the scenes of some of Broadway's biggest hits and most memorable moments.Beyond Nostalgia: A Complete Learning ExperienceBut Great American Music: Broadway Musicals is far more than just an immersion in musical nostalgia. Professor Messenger ranges across the entire culture of which music is a part, teaching you some of the intricacies of musical composition and song construction—and how they were used to create specific effects—as well as the social and historical backdrop against which musical theater needs to be considered.You'll learn, for example, how Jerome Kern dealt with what was perhaps Broadway's first attempt to use music's technical subtleties as a way to suggest time and place when he was writing Show Boat, deliberately incorporating into his music for "Ol' Man River" a five-note pentatonic scale often used in Negro spirituals.Professor Messenger tells how "You're a Grand Old Flag," today one of Cohan's most memorable songs, was greeted with dismay and anger when Cohan introduced it in his 1906 musical, George Washington, Jr., with its original and affectionate title and lyric, "You're a Grand Old Rag." Though Cohan quickly rewrote the song in the form we know today, sheet music for the original version—at a time when sheet music was immensely popular—had already reached stores all over New York City. Visiting one store after another, Cohan managed to retrieve almost every copy, burning them and replacing them with the new version. Today, there are only a half-dozen very valuable copies of the original in existence.A Stage that Is Never Far from the Real WorldBut the harsh reception given the original version of Cohan's song is far from the only reminder this course offers that the Broadway stage, as wondrous an escape as it might be, is still an illusion, with only the flimsiest of curtains separating it from the real-world passions—and even life-and-death conflicts—from which it draws.Consider just one moment in the life of Jerome Kern, a moment marked by the clanging of an alarm clock he did not hear.After his heart had been broken by a flashy showgirl and vowing never again to be taken advantage of, Kern had met and married a timid 19-year-old English girl 10 years his junior and brought her back to America, an overwhelming experience for her. On the morning he was to sail to England with his producer, Charles Frohman, Kern overslept. By the time his still-timid wife had decided to awaken him, Kern had missed his voyage. The ship was the ill-fated Lusitania, and Frohman was one of 1,198 who perished on it. Kern survived to complete a fruitful career that would include, 11 years later, his remarkable score for Show Boat, with melodies, like its haunting "Ol' Man River," that are still enjoyed today.In today's era of songs written and produced specifically for compact discs, it's easy to forget that an overwhelming number of standards that have both delighted and helped mend the broken hearts of Americans for decades—and will undoubtedly still be doing so a century from now—were, like "Ol' Man River," originally written for the stage."My Funny Valentine," for example, came from Rodgers and Hart's Babes in Arms; "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!; "Someone to Watch Over Me" from George and Ira Gershwin's Oh, Kay!; "Begin the Beguine" from Cole Porter's Jubilee; and "Almost Like Being in Love" from Lerner and Loewe's Brigadoon.We've heard these songs—and hundreds more like them—for as long as we can remember. In many ways, they're the soundtrack of America. For millions of us the music makes up the soundtrack of our own lives, as well; if you were somehow able to remove them from our collective memory, it's hard to imagine any of us as quite the same people.But the total creative output of the extraordinary roster of artists who gave us these songs tells only part of the story, which would be incomplete even with the addition of the performers, writers, choreographers, directors, and others who also helped create the stage magic that launched these songs into immortality.A Capsule View of Two Vibrant CenturiesThat's because American musical theater, much as we often concentrate on the so-called "golden age" of the 1950s, spans the history of two vibrant centuries: the era of the minstrel show, whose contributions to American music were immense, in spite of the embarrassment we still feel at many of its images; vaudeville; ragtime; the revue; and the age of fully integrated book musicals launched by the 1927 production of Show Boat.And that history, moreover, has an importance that goes beyond music. "Musicals, the great ones, speak to us in voices we both recognize and pay attention to," notes Professor Messenger."Half a century after the show Carousel premiered, Billy Bigelow still speaks to our sense of right and wrong. We don't want him to commit that robbery! We regret that he does."The paradox of the Broadway musical is that it's an escape from reality, while simultaneously being a confrontation with it. The betrayal that destroys Camelot is with us here and now."It's difficult to imagine a finer teacher for this material than Professor Messenger; he is a scholar, teacher, and professional musician. His course, Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion, makes clear, even to those with no musical training, the techniques, principles, and innovations that make it possible for music to embody so much.In bringing those skills to Great American Music: Broadway Musicals, Professor Messenger has created a complete learning experience—educational, insightful, and sublimely enjoyable—that can forever change the way you experience musical theater.transcript book

    Written with the full co-operation of Sondheim himself, it examines each of Sondheim's masterpieces - including West Side Story, Gypsy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods - as well as the other Sondheim productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in repertory, as revivals, as opera, on film, and on television. this account is based on hundreds of hours of interviews with Sondheim and his associates.

    Broadway was forever changed and we, who stand on the shoulders of our brilliant ancestors, are charged with the very often elusive task of carrying that torch into our present.--Billy Porter, Tony, Grammy, and Emmy Award-winning actorIf Hamilton, Rent, or West Side Story captured your heart, you'll love this in-depth look into the rise of the 1921 Broadway hit, Shuffle Along, the first all-Black musical to succeed on Broadway. No one was sure if America was ready for a show featuring nuanced, thoughtful portrayals of Black characters--and the potential fallout was terrifying. But from the first jazzy, syncopated beats of composers Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, New York audiences fell head over heels.Footnotes is the story of how Sissle and Blake, along with comedians Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, overcame poverty, racism, and violence to harness the energy of the Harlem Renaissance and produce a runaway Broadway hit that launched the careers of many of the twentieth century's most beloved Black performers. Born in the shadow of slavery and establishing their careers at a time of increasing demands for racial justice and representation for people of color, they broke down innumerable barriers between Black and white communities at a crucial point in our history.Author and pop culture expert Caseen Gaines leads readers through the glitz and glamour of New York City during the Roaring Twenties to reveal the revolutionary impact one show had on generations of Americans, and how its legacy continues to resonate today.Praise for Footnotes: A major contribution to culture.--Brian Jay Jones, New York Times bestselling author of Jim Henson: The BiographyWith meticulous research and smooth storytelling, Caseen Gaines significantly deepens our understanding of one of the key cultural events that launched the Harlem Renaissance.--A Lelia Bundles, New York Times bestselling author of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. WalkerAbsorbing...--The Wall Street Journal

    One of the best-known and best-loved singing voices in the world, Nixon dubbed songs for Natalie Wood in West Side Story, Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, and Deborah Kerr in The King and I. She was the voice of Hollywood’s leading ladies, arriving in filmland after a debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at 17 and continuing her career with Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Charles Ives, Stephen Sondheim, Rogers and Hammerstein, and many others. Her inspiring autobiography reveals Nixon as a singer, an actress, and a woman fighting for artistic recognition. Today, a survivor of breast cancer, she works on Broadway and television’s Law & Order SVU, tours with her own stage show, and teaches master classes in voice. I Could Have Sung All Night reveals the woman behind the screen in a frank, funny biography that is as remarkable as the woman whose story it tells.

    In this authorized, affectionate biography, the first time she has cooperated in the telling of her story, Dench talks of those who have most influenced her work and her way of life and reflects upon her most illustrious career, including her recent ascent to superstar status in America.

    Geniuses—Monteverdi, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini—produced some of the landmark artistic achievements of all time in this form. With Professor Robert Greenberg to show you how, you can learn to understand, appreciate—even to love—opera in just 24 hours of lectures that are a pleasure to hear.With the knowledge of opera from this course, you will understand how music has the power to reveal truths beyond the spoken word; how opera is a unique marriage of words and music in which the whole is far greater than its parts. You will learn the reasons for opera's enduring popularity. And you will be able to explore in great depth the extraordinary and compelling world of opera.Professor Greenberg is to the lecture what Mozart was to opera. Brilliant, irreverent toward his subject and yet awed by it, he is ingenious in his approach to ensure that his work will have its intended effect on the listener.The music is transcendently beautiful. In this course, you will listen to some of the most extraordinary artistic works of all time.The history of opera is traced from its beginning in the early 17th century to around 1924. The lectures examine landmark operas; musical, cultural, and social developments that influenced opera's growth; and the influence of national languages and cultures on opera.Part I: The Full Flower and Its OriginsThe first eight lectures are foundational. You examine the origins of opera and the adaptations of other musical forms that allowed opera to achieve its full effects, first accomplished in Monteverdi's Orfeo of 1607.But Professor Greenberg does not hide the result while waiting on history to get us there. The course opens with one of the most powerful moments in opera—the dramatically loaded aria "Nessun dorma" ("No one shall sleep") from Giacomo Puccini's Turandot.In Turandot, you are exposed to opera's unique incorporation of soliloquy, dialogue, scenery, action, and continuous music into an incredibly expressive and exciting whole.This famous aria shows us the power of the composer—the power of creating music that goes beyond the words of the libretto to express thoughts and feelings that cannot be expressed in words.The study continues with a discussion of how music reveals character and the unconscious state. You are introduced to operatic archetypes such as Figaro and Carmen.You examine how the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman culture contributed to the riches of the Renaissance. You see the evolution of the madrigal, a form that was ultimately rejected in favor of a more expressive vocal medium: early opera.Part I of the course concludes with an analysis of the first successful attempt to combine words and music into musical drama, Monteverdi's Orfeo of 1607.Part II: The Aria, the Golden Age, Opera Seria, Opera BuffaRecitative, the essence of Monteverdi's style, made music subservient to words, but because of its forward-driving nature, recitative cannot express personal reflection.You learn how the invention of the aria gave opera composers a powerful tool to stop the dramatic action for characters' moments of self-reflection.Gluck's reforms and his Orfeo ed Euridice of 1762 are addressed as the starting point for the modern opera repertory. The explosion of operas in the Golden Age–Dark Age of opera is discussed. You learn how different voice types are assigned different roles, and how this has varied by culture.The rise of opera seria and its characteristics are discussed, along with an analysis of the second act of Mozart's Idomeneo—opera seria transcendent.You examine the development of opera buffa, from its origins in the popular folklore of the Commedia dell'Arte to its eventual replacement of opera seria. Mozart's brilliant The Marriage of Figaro is discussed as one of the greatest contributions to the opera buffa genre.Part III: Rossini and Verdi: The Development of French OperaYou see how the Italian language and culture gave rise to the bel canto style, with its comic plots, one-dimensional characters, appealing melodies, and florid melodic embellishments.Dr. Greenberg reveals how highly pressurized the business of opera was in the 18th century. Rossini once remarked, "In my time, all the impresarios of Italy were bald by 30." You are introduced to Rossini's The Barber of Seville of 1816 as the quintessential bel canto opera.You learn how Giuseppi Verdi broke the bel canto mold. He dominated Italian opera for over half a century by virtue of his lyricism, his emphasis on human emotions and psychological insight, and his use of the orchestra and parlante to drive the dramatic action and maintain musical continuity.Verdi's Otello is discussed as one of the greatest operas of all time.You next study French opera and why it became a distinctly different genre from Italian opera. Nineteenth-century French opera—grand opera, opéra comique, and lyric opera—are three distinctive French genres. You'll hear why in Act 2 of Bizet's dramatically powerful Carmen .Part IV: Wagner, Strauss, PucciniYou see how German singspiel, a play with music, grew from humble origins as a low-class entertainment to high art with Mozart's The Rescue from the Harem (1782) and The Magic Flute (1791). You learn how Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz established 19th-century German opera.You then study Richard Wagner: his personal beliefs, musical theories, and operatic innovations. Wagner turned to the ancient Greek ideal for inspiration, and from it he conceived the idea of an all-encompassing artwork, or music drama, in which the orchestra plays the role of a purveyor of unspoken truths. Dr. Greenberg cites Wagner's Tristan und Isolde as the most influential composition of the 19th century, next to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.Richard Strauss and his controversial opera Salome exemplifies late Romantic German opera.You examine Russian opera and nationalism. The late development of Russian opera is outlined from Mikhail Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila to Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. You see how the Russian language shaped the vocal style of Russian opera.The course concludes with an overview of opera verismo, a 19th- and 20th-century genre that favors depictions of the darker side of the human condition; a transcendent example of it is in the pivotal second act of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca.The essence of opera is debated as you hear part of a scene from Richard Strauss's Capriccio. Is it words, or is it music? It is an indefinable combination of both, with the whole greater than the parts.

    One of the most gifted popular composers of our time, Marvin Hamlisch has written an unforgettable book--outrageously funny, witty, tender, and moving--about the remarkable career that brought him three Academy Awards and international fame by the age of thirty.

    Reserved seats went on sale at premium prices. Audience members dressed up and arrived early to peruse the program during the overture that preceded the curtain's rise. And when the show began, it was--a rather disappointing film musical.In Roadshow!, film historian Matthew Kennedy tells the fascinating story of the downfall of the big-screen musical in the late 1960s. It is a tale of revolutionary cultural change, business transformation, and artistic missteps, all of which led to the obsolescence of the roadshow, a marketing extravaganza designed to make a movie opening in a regional city seem like a Broadway premier. Ironically, the Hollywood musical suffered from unexpected success. Facing doom after its bygone heyday, it suddenly broke box-office records with three rapid-fire successes in 1964 and 1965: Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady, and The Sound of Music. Studios rushed to catch the wave, but everything went wrong. Kennedy takes readers inside the making of such movies as Hello, Dolly! and Man of La Mancha, showing how corporate management imposed financial pressures that led to poor artistic decisions-for example, the casting of established stars regardless of vocal or dancing talent (such as Clint Eastwood in Paint Your Wagon). And Kennedy explores the impact of profound social, political, and cultural change. The traditional-sounding Camelot and Doctor Dolittle were released in the same year as Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, representing a vast gulf in taste. The artifice of musicals seemed outdated to baby boomers who grew up with the Cuban missile crisis, the Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. assassinations, race riots, and the Vietnam War.From Julie Andrews to Barbra Streisand, from Fred Astaire to Rock Hudson, Roadshow! offers a brilliant, gripping history of film musicals and their changing place in our culture.

    Her artistic curiosity blossomed early, and she and her siblings began performing their own music for anyone who would listen. Now, twelve Grammy Awards later, Ronstadt tells the story of her wide-ranging and utterly unique musical journey.Ronstadt arrived in Los Angeles just as the folk-rock movement was beginning to bloom, setting the stage for the development of country-rock. After the dissolution of her first band, the Stone Poneys, Linda went out on her own and quickly found success. As part of the coterie of like-minded artists who played at the Troubadour club in West Hollywood, she helped define the musical style that dominated American music in the 1970s. One of her early back-up bands went on to become the Eagles, and Linda would become the most successful female artist of the decade. She has sold more than 100 million records, won numerous awards, and toured all over the world. Linda has collaborated with legends such as Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Aaron Neville, J.D. Souther, Randy Newman, Neil Young, Bette Midler, and Frank Sinatra, as well as Homer Simpson and Kermit the Frog. By the time she retired in 2009, Ronstadt had spent four decades as one of the most popular singers in the world, becoming the first female artist in popular music to release four consecutive platinum albums.In Simple Dreams, Ronstadt reveals the eclectic and fascinating journey that led to her long-lasting success. And she describes it all in a voice as beautiful as the one that sang “Heart Like a Wheel”—longing, graceful, and authentic.

    Features the complete script and song lyrics, with 4-color spot illustrations throughout, an original introduction by the creators, and a foreword by Mark Harris.The Book of Mormon, which follows a pair of mismatched Mormon boys sent on a mission to a place that's about as far from Salt Lake City as you can get, features book, music, and lyrics by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone.Parker and Stone are the four-time Emmy Award–winning creators of Comedy Central's landmark animated series South Park. Tony Award–winner Lopez is co-creator of the long-running hit musical comedy Avenue Q. The Book of Mormon is choreographed by three-time Tony Award–nominee Casey Nicholaw (Monty Python's Spamalot, The Drowsy Chaperone) and is directed by Nicholaw and Parker.The book includes • an original foreword by journalist Mark Harris (author of Pictures at a Revolution) • an original introduction by the authors on the genesis of the show • a production history • the complete book and lyrics, with four-color spot illustrations throughout.