Broadway / Musical Theatre Books

Making It On Broadway.

How about-At This Theater or 100 Greatest Musicals.

Broadway: The American Musical
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Pab, you and I have said a lot of the same thing tonight.

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Well spiderdj82, you know what they say:

Great minds think alike

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Ethan Mordden (sp?) has a whole series broken down by decade that are wonderful. He just published "The Happiest Corpse I've Ever Seen" that covers the last 25 years. His 30's volume is next.
20's Make Believe
40's O What A Beautiful Mornin
50's Everything's Coming Up Roses
60's Open a new window
70's One More Kiss (this one was bit negative for my taste but still had some wonderful insights).

Ken Mandelbaum's "Not Since Carrie" is a great one, if you haven't read it.

"Making it Big" is an interesting account of the creation of the Broadway flop "Big", written by one of the producers of the show.

One of my favorites is "Broadway Babies Say Goodnight" by Mark Steyn. He's a British writer, so it's kind of London-centric, but he's got a lot of interesting things to say (and it covers the time period you're looking for).

"Sing Out, Louise" is also fun. It's individual stories from performers, writers, and directors, about specific experiences they've had working on shows. (There's a long piece about Karen Ziemba working on CRAZY FOR YOU, and a good one looking into Graciela and Stevens and Flaherty's working process for ONCE ON THIS ISLAND. There's also a great story about one of the understudies for NICK AND NORA.)

My favorite musical theatre book is "The Making of No, No, Nanette" by Don Davis. It's an incredibly bizarre story, and the book is a dishy delight. And while it's not specifically about musical theatre, Jimmy Kirkwood's book "Diary of a Mad Playwright: Or How I Went On the Road With Mary Martin and Carol Channing and Lived To Tell About It" is a scream.

Updated On: 12/30/04 at 09:33 PM

"Broadway Musicals: Show by Show" by Stanley Green

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"Not Since Carrie" is the funniest book ever written on theatre and in some ways the saddest, too. You read about these disastrous shows and think how awful it would have been to spend so much time, money and creative drive to put together a show that runs for a few days and then vanishes without a trace...

My all time favorite Theatre book has to be "The Season" by William Goldman. He tracks every show for one season on Broadway (I can't recall the year-- late 60's soemtime). It is a bit dated (the section on ticket agencies is a study in how not to run a business and thankfully they have vanished) and Goldman's chapter on "the Homosexuals" is brutally (and happily) outdated now.

Even though sometimes you are reading about practices that seem as distant as the Edwardian Era, sometimes you are struck that somethings never change. I'd recommend it highly to any scholar of theatre. It is still in print or should be in any decent library.

i'm not sure the title but i know the subtitle is:
THe Last 25 Years of Broadway. it was published THIS year too!

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Superb response! Thanks! I've ordered a few of the books mentioned here! Very excited to get them in the post now. Thanks again, gang!

Caroline: The book you're referring to is 'The Happiest Corspe I've Ever Seen: The Last 25 Years of Broadway" and I have it already but thank's for the recommendation! It's quite interesting so I recommend it as a read...

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Joekv, I think Mordden is the best musical theatre historian working today.

And for the most part, I think he's right on the money with HAPPIEST CORPSE. He spends a great deal of time defending shows that other people dismiss, and he provides persuasive arguments for all of his opinions.

I do agree that the last line of the book is bizarre and out of place, and his anger at HAIRSPRAY is odd and unexplained. But I think he is much fairer, better informed, and more intelligent than many who are writing books about the subject (especially the authors of "Ever After" and "Broadway! A Grand Tour!")