New book on history of musicals

I am an Ethan Mordden devotee and did indeed read ANYTHING GOES. And frankly, while I loved it and all of his new insights and anecdotes, for the first time reading Mordden, I wanted more. I felt there was more to talk about, though he did indeed talk about plenty. But it pleased this fan of his writing very much. He's the finest theater historian writing today. I'll take his uber-bitchy book on the last 25 years of Broadway Musicals (written in 2003) over every Peter Filichia book combined.

If you haven't had the pleasure of reading Mordden, pick up a copy of his books on the 50s, 60s and 70s on Broadway, and his lavishly illustrated coffee table book on Rodgers and Hammerstein for a start. When he delves into a specific topic or decade rather than broad overviews, he's really unbeatable. But he's always good, enjoyable and downright funny.

Updated On: 10/13/13 at 04:37 PM

Duplicate post.

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Updated On: 10/14/13 at 11:47 AM

JV: Mordden's previous books on the musical concentrated on smallish subjects--musicals of a particular decade, or Rodgers and Hammerstein. This time he's tackling the entire history of the musical from The Beggar's Opera and Gilbert and Sullivan through Show Boat and The Cradle Will Rock right up to Wicked and Bonnie & Clyde. That's almost three hundred years of a theatre genre to deal with, so he had to leave out or deal lightly with some of it. I was disappointed on how little there was about Dreamgirls. On the other hand, the insights are fresh, which is almost shocking when you consider how often he has written about musicals in the past. And he has started posting on his blog about shows he had to skip over in his book. There's a huge essay on Goldilocks, and I'm hoping he's going to give us more such.

Pawnee Bill, I absolutely understand that. I suppose I could have said, "300 pages wasn't enough for me!", but of course, poor Ethan probably wouldn't want to write a 900 page tome on the Musical Theater, either. I've read his blog recently, and it's most welcome and fun to read.