Composers, writers, directors who have written their own memoirs

I’ve recently fallen into Reading a number of books written by the creators of shows and was wondering if there were any others people would recommend:



Andrew Lloyd Webber - Unmasked

Sondhiem- the Hat Box set

Hal Prince - a sense of occasion

song of spiderman

James Lapine - Putting it together.

As long as you've read ALW's memoir, you should get ahold of Tim Rice's side of a good chunk of that story, Oh, What a Circus: The Autobiography (1944-1978).

I thought Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers was dead, too, but it was announced this week that it will be released in August! There's cover art & more info here.

I'm curious to know if the Rodgers/Guettel family did any "sanitizing" of the book after Mary's death :)

https://www.amazon.com/Shy-Alarmingly-Outspoken-Memoirs-Rodgers/dp/0374298629

Updated On: 1/21/22 at 06:44 PM

Going back several decades, legendary directors Elia Kazan ("A Life" and Josh Logan ("My Up, Down, In and Out Life" and "Movie Stars, Real People and Me" wrote revealing and informative autobiographies.

Theatrefanboy1 said: "I had been hoping there would be some news on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s follow up from Unmasked. From phantom to present day. Though I wonder if he’s working on it and planning to release later into his career to include Cinderella and other stuff"

I believe it was implied at the time, if not outright said (I hedge this only because I recall him saying something along these lines, but can't find the quote), that he wasn't doing a follow-up because the rest of the story up to the present day is kind of filled with flops and bad blood.

Charles Strouse: Put on a Happy Face

Coloured Lights: it's not written by Kander and Ebb, but written where major chunks are dialogue/interviews from them, so it is basically a memoir (if memory serves correct)

Arthur Laurents: Mainly on Directing, Original Story By, and The Rest of the Story

Meredith Willson: But He Doesn't Know the Territory, I Stood There with my Piccolo

Tommy Tune (Footsteps) and Betty Comden (Off Stage) wrote memoirs although they are primarily about their personal life, and not career.

I would love a Peter Stone bio