Download or read book Present at the Creation Leaping in the Dark and Going Against the Grain written by Stuart Ostrow and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2006 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Applause Books). "The best way I know to resuscitate the theatre is to produce dangerous new works." Stuart Ostrow. Producer Stuart Ostrow's manifesto of how intelligent life might be restored to the theatre is also a unique personal memoir of the producer-creator relationship and an evaluation of the essentials that can make a show fly, or remain earthbound. As a solo producer, Ostrow's many productions include M. Butterfly , which won the Tony Award for Best Play; Pippin ; and 1776 , which received both the New York and London Drama Critics Awards as well as the Tony Award for Best Musical. He produced the original Broadway production of the critically acclaimed La Bete , which won the Olivier Award in London for Best Comedy. Ostrow was brought in to fix the original production of Chicago , collaborated with Anthony Hopkins on a London production of M. Butterfly , that was not meant to be, and even had his own play, Stages , directed on Broadway by the avant-garde theatrical pioneer Richard Foreman. He riffs about the heroes and heels he's met along the way and that great cast includes Frank Loesser, Meredith Willson, Mel Brooks, Mike Nichols, Bob Fosse, David Geffen, Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Henry Hwang, John Kander, Fred Ebb, and many more.
Download or read book Miracle on 34th Street written by Jeffrey Paul Thompson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-08-06 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite having been made into three TV movies, a radio drama, a stage play, a Broadway musical, a feature-film remake in color, and a book adaptation, the 1947 black-and-white film of Miracle on 34th Street still remains the favorite version of this modern Christmas classic. The American public seems to echo what Macy’s stated when declining to participate in the 1994 remake: “We felt there was nothing to be improved upon.” In many ways, it is a perfect film in the sense that there really is nothing that could have been done better: the story, the casting, the acting were all spot-on. The decade from 1941–1951 saw a bumper crop of classic Christmas including Christmas in Connecticut, Holiday Inn, and It’s a Wonderful Life, but with the exception of the latter film none have had the staying power of Miracle on 34th Street. This book describes the origins of the story, the casting and production of the film, its marketing and publicity, and even how it elevated the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade from a local New York event to a national celebration. Finally, it looks at the film’s legacy, including its high ranking among best Christmas movies of all time as well as its placement as ninth overall on the American Film Institute’s list of the most inspiring films.
Download or read book The Palgrave Handbook of Musical Theatre Producers written by Laura MacDonald and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-03-25 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook is the first to provide a systematic investigation of the various roles of producers in commercial and not-for-profit musical theatre. Featuring fifty-one essays written by international specialists in the field, it offers new insights into the world of musical theatre, its creation and its promotion. Key areas of investigation include the lives and works of producers whose work is part of a US and worldwide musical theatre legacy, as well as the largely critically-neglected role of the musical theatre producer in the making, marketing, and performance of musicals. Also explored are the shifting roles of producers in musical theatre and their popular portrayals, offering a reader-friendly collection for fans, scholars, students, and practitioners of musical theatre alike.
Download or read book Big Deal written by Kevin Winkler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-08 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bob Fosse (1927-1987) is recognized as one of the most significant figures in post-World War II American musical theater. With his first Broadway musical, The Pajama Game in 1954, the "Fosse style" was already fully developed, with its trademark hunched shoulders, turned-in stance, and stuttering, staccato jazz movements. Fosse moved decisively into the role of director with Redhead in 1959 and was a key figure in the rise of the director-choreographer in the Broadway musical. He also became the only star director of musicals of his era--a group that included Jerome Robbins, Gower Champion, Michael Kidd, and Harold Prince--to equal his Broadway success in films. Following his unprecedented triple crown of show business awards in 1973 (an Oscar for Cabaret, Emmy for Liza with a Z, and Tony for Pippin), Fosse assumed complete control of virtually every element of his projects. But when at last he had achieved complete autonomy, his final efforts, the film Star 80 and the musical Big Deal, written and directed by Fosse, were rejected by audiences and critics. A fascinating look at the evolution of Fosse as choreographer and director, Big Deal: Bob Fosse and Dance in the American Musical considers Fosse's career in the context of changes in the Broadway musical theater over four decades. It traces his early dance years and the importance of mentors George Abbott and Jerome Robbins on his work. It examines how each of the important women in his adult life--all dancers--impacted his career and influenced his dance aesthetic. Finally, the book investigates how his evolution as both artist and individual mirrored the social and political climate of his era and allowed him to comfortably ride a wave of cultural changes.
Download or read book Teaching History with Musicals written by Kathryn Edney and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular media has become a common means by which students understand both the present and the past. Consequently, more teachers are using various forms of popular culture as pedagogical tools in the history classroom. With their resurgent popularity—on both the large and small screens—musicals can be used to engage students as an entertaining source of historical understanding. In order to facilitate the use of musicals as learning tools, however, teachers of history need a dependable resource. Teaching History with Musicals is a guide for teaching U.S. and world history. In addition to covering key themes and concepts, this volume provides an era-by-era overview of significant issues and related films, a tutorial in using film in historical methodology, user guides for ten key musical films, and sample exercises and assignments for direct classroom use. Covering eras from American settlement to the present, this books draws on both classic and contemporary musical motion pictures, including 1776, Pocahontas, The Jazz Singer, Cabaret, Footloose, Hairspray, and Rent. This resource enables teachers to effectively use films to examine key social and cultural issues, concepts, and influences in their historical context. Teaching History with Musicals will be an invaluable asset to any teacher of history in middle- and secondary school settings, as well as at the undergraduate level.
Download or read book Magic To Do written by Elysa Gardner and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-11-01 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Magic to Do, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of Pippin's opening, two-time Pulitzer Prize jury member Elysa Gardner turns her attention to this innovative show, the musical retelling of the story of Prince Pippin, son of Charlemagne, and his quest for an "extraordinary life." Magic to Do dives deep into the legendary clashes, backstage drama, and incredible artistic synergy that produced one of Broadway's most influential musicals, a show that paved the way for the pop-informed musicals that we know and love today. Full of big personalities, brilliant creative minds, and never-before-told stories, Magic to Do is an intimate look at a moment in history, a time and a place in which popular culture was as defined by conflict—between the young and the old, idealism and cynicism, creation and destruction—as anything else. Gardner draws out this friction through her examination of the creative struggles between Pippin's director/choreographer, the iconic Bob Fosse, for whom the show would mark a massive career resurgence, and its young composer/lyricist, Stephen Schwartz (of Wicked fame), who was making his Broadway debut. Magic to Do, named for the opening song of the musical, clearly marks the lasting cultural significance of Pippin, which derives in large part from the timelessness of the search for self, one that presents itself anew to each succeeding generation, accounting for the show's enduring popularity around the world. Infused with R&B sounds and a universal message, it is fair to say that, without Pippin, there is no Spring Awakening, Dear Evan Hansen, or even Hamilton.
Download or read book Fosse written by Sam Wasson and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2013 with total page 757 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authoritative and endlessly revealing biography of renowned dancer, choreographer, screenwriter, and director Bob Fosse, written by a bestselling pop culture historian.
Download or read book The Great Parade written by Peter Filichia and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2015-04-07 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was the Broadway season when Barbra Streisand demanded "Don't Rain on My Parade" and Carol Channing heard the waiters at the Harmonia Gardens say "Hello, Dolly!". From June 1, 1963 through the final day of May 31, 1964, theatergoers were offered 68 different productions: 24 new plays, 15 new comedies, 14 new musicals, 5 revivals of plays, 3 revues, 3 plays in Yiddish, 2 in French, 1 double-bill and even 1 puppet show. Peter Filichia's The Great Parade will look at what a Broadway season looked like a half-century ago analyzing the hits, the flops, the trends, the surprises, the disappointments, the stars and even how the assassination of JFK and the arrival of the Beatles affected Broadway. The Great Parade is a chronicle of a Broadway season unprecedented in the star power onstage: Barbara Streisand, Carol Channing, Claudette Colbert. Colleen Dewhurst, Hal Holbrook, Mary Martin, Christopher Plummer, Robert Preston, Julie Harris, Jason Robards, Jr., Carol Burnett, Tallulah Bankhead, Alec Guinness, Kirk Douglas, Albert Finney, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Richard Burton, Mary Martin, Beatrice Lillie, Hermione Gingold, Robert Redford and many more. Neil Simon and Stephen Sondheim burst on to the Broadway stage with Barefoot in the Park and Anyone Can Whistle. The '63-'64 season was one of Broadway's greatest and in The Great Parade, Peter Filichia gives us another classic.
Download or read book Falling Up written by Thomas Holliday and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-25 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Actors know about "falling up": a split-second ignition from the wings, propelling entrance as a new character, an unwilled ascent to a different mode of being, an in-body experience that overlays preparation, opportunity, choice, or chance. Falling Up, the first and only full-length Floyd study, is a metaphor for humanity’s uncanny ability to rise from seeming disaster into rebirth. Floyd’s consistent succession of soars, stumbles, slides, or wrenches sings of triumph over odds. A modern Renaissance man, Floyd is our greatest living opera composer and librettist, a trained concert pianist, a master stage director, and a teacher. In Falling Up, Holliday offers an intimate account of the life that shaped the words and music. Combining insights from hundreds of interviews with Floyd, his family, and many of the last half-century’s greatest singers, conductors, and opera administrators, Falling Up traces Floyd’s Southern roots and the struggles and sacrifices that accompanied his rise to operatic stardom. With more than forty photographs, the detailed evolution of Floyd’s fourteen operas, and in-depth analysis of his nonoperatic works, Falling Up is essential reading for opera fans and professionals alike, a book that moves, informs, and entertains.
Download or read book Performing Asian Transnationalisms written by Amanda Rogers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-09-19 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book makes a significant contribution to interdisciplinary engagements between Theatre Studies and Cultural Geography in its analysis of how theatre articulates transnational geographies of Asian culture and identity. Deploying a geographical approach to transnational culture, Rogers analyses the cross-border relationships that exist within and between Asian American, British East Asian, and South East Asian theatres, investigating the effect of transnationalism on the construction of identity, the development of creative praxis, and the reception of works in different social fields. This book therefore examines how practitioners engage with one another across borders, and details the cross-cultural performances, creative opportunities, and political alliances that result. By viewing ethnic minority theatres as part of global — rather than simply national — cultural fields, Rogers argues that transnational relationships take multiple forms and have varying impetuses that cannot always be equated to diasporic longing for a homeland or as strategically motivated for economic gain. This argument is developed through a series of chapters that examine how different transnational spatialities are produced and re-worked through the practice of theatre making, drawing upon an analysis of rehearsals, performances, festivals, and semi-structured interviews with practitioners. The book extends existing discussions of performance and globalization, particularly through its focus on the multiplicity of transnational spatiality and the networks between English-language Asian theatres. Its analysis of spatially extensive relations also contributes to an emerging body of research on creative geographies by situating theatrical praxis in relation to cross-border flows. Performing Asian Transnationalisms demonstrates how performances reflect and rework conventional transnational geographies in imaginative and innovative ways.
Download or read book The Big Parade written by Dominic McHugh and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though Meredith Willson is best remembered for The Music Man, there is a great deal more to his career as a composer and lyricist. In The Big Parade, author Dominic McHugh uses newly uncovered letters, manuscripts, and production files to reveal Willson's unusual combination of experiences in his pre-Broadway career that led him to compose The Music Man.
Download or read book Razzle Dazzle written by Michael Riedel and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A revered and provocative theater observer presents a grand history of the producers, directors, actors, and critics battling for creative and financial control of Broadway"--Front jacket flap.
Download or read book Broadway Musical MVPs 1960 2010 written by Peter Filichia and published by Applause Theatre & Cinema. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Applause Books). Every year, Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League name a Most Valuable Player an MVP. The Broadway musical community doesn't. Oh, there are the Tony Awards, the Drama Desk Awards, and the Theatre World Awards. But what if Broadway selected a MVP each season? In Broadway Musical MVPs: 1960-2010, The Most Valuable Players of the Past 50 Seasons , Peter Filichia names his choices for the MVPs of each of the past 50 Broadway seasons they might be performers, producers, directors, or choreographers. Not surprisingly, many of the featured MVPs are multitaskers, such as directors who also choreographed, or wrote the book, or even designed the costumes! Also included are awards in categories such as Comeback Player of the Year, Reliever of the Year, Rookie of the Year, and Led League in Errors. From Tammy Grimes, MVP of the 1960-61 season for The Unsinkable Molly Brown , to Joe DiPietro, MVP of the 2009-10 season for Memphis , Filichia recognizes the best and the brightest that have appeared on Broadway.
Download or read book Broadway Musicals written by Peter Filichia and published by Applause Theatre & Cinema. This book was released on 2010 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Evita opened on Broadway during the 1979-1980 season, it was (as one of its songs said) "High Flying Adored." But in the 1970-71 season, the producers of Lolita, My Love saw their show (as one of its songs said) "Going, Gone, Gone" after its torturous Philadelphia and Boston tryouts. It didn't even try to brave Broadway, although the bookwriter-lyricist of My Fair Lady had written it. It happens every season. Broadway has one, two, or a few hit musicals, but many, many more flops. Here's a look at the extreme cases from each season of the past half-century. The musicals that everyone knew would be hits - The Sound of Music, The Phantom of the Opera, The Producers - and were. The tuners that sounded terrible from the moment they were announced - Via Galactica, The Civil War, Lestat - and turned out to be even worse than anyone expected. The shows that were destined to succeed - Breakfast at Tiffany's, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Merrily We Roll Along - but didn't. The ones that didn't have a chance - Man of La Mancha, 1776, Grease - but went on to household-name status. Yes, Broadway is the oldest established permanent non-floating crap game in New York, and Peter Filichia takes a look at 100 shows that met either the most glorious or the most ignominious fates.
Download or read book Strippers Showgirls and Sharks written by Peter Filichia and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-05-28 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Strippers, Showgirls, and Sharks, popular syndicated theatre critic Peter Filichia chronicles the American musical by looking at those shows that did not win the Tony Award. Every spring the American Theatre Wing bestows its annual Tony Awards. Only those shows that have reached Broadway are nominated and while all Tonys are created equal, the universally acknowledged biggest prize is the Best Musical Tony. But did the best musical always win Best Musical? And were there other factors that kept a more deserving show from winning? Filichia answers these questions and more as he looks at all 153 previous Best Musical Nominees that didn't win. In 1959 when Ethel Merman and a variety of strippers took the stage, there was a tie between 'The Sound of Music' and 'Fiorello'. In 1971, Stephen Sondheim's 'Follies' and its ghostly showgirls lost to a 'groovy' re-tuning of 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' best forgotten. And, in 1957, 'West Side Story' was bested by the fine people of River City Iowa singing their Americana hearts out in 'The Music Man'."--Publisher description.
Download or read book The Musical written by William Everett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-06-02 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The musical, whether on stage or screen, is undoubtedly one of the most recognizable musical genres, yet one of the most perplexing. What are its defining features? How does it negotiate multiple socio-cultural-economic spaces? Is it a popular tradition? Is it a commercial enterprise? Is it a sophisticated cultural product and signifier? This research guide includes more than 1,400 annotated entries related to the genre as it appears on stage and screen. It includes reference works, monographs, articles, anthologies, and websites related to the musical. Separate sections are devoted to sub-genres (such as operetta and megamusical), non-English language musical genres in the U.S., traditions outside the U.S., individual shows, creators, performers, and performance. The second edition reflects the notable increase in musical theater scholarship since 2000. In addition to printed materials, it includes multimedia and electronic resources.
Download or read book Defying Gravity written by Carol de Giere and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-10-01 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From his writing of Godspell's score at age 23 through the making of the megahit musical Wicked and beyond, Defying Gravity: The Creative Career of Stephen Schwartz, from Godspell to Wicked takes readers into the world of the legendary Broadway and film composer-lyricist. In this authorized biography, drawing from her interviews with Schwartz and his collaborators, author Carol de Giere focuses on the behind-the-scenes stories for Schwartz's hits and disappointing flops. Readers will find colorful anecdotes and insights for his licensed musicals Children of Eden, Pippin Working, and others. Defying Gravity also includes Hollywood stories, beginning with a new foreword by composer Alan Menken. This updated and revised second edition delves into Stephen Schwartz's creative process for the new stage musicals The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Prince of Egypt, and other shows. It provides additional insights on Schwartz's early work with Leonard Bernstein and his more recent international work on Wicked. It offers additional “Creative Notes” – a popular feature of the first edition – with comments from Schwartz about overcoming creative blocks, collaboration, and the artistic life.
