| Description |
xvii, 312 pages ; 24 cm |
| Note |
Includes index. |
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"Listening to Broadway": pages 271-294. |
| Contents |
Overture -- Curtain up, light the lights : opening numbers -- The wizard and I : the "I want" song -- If I loved you : conditional love songs -- Put on your Sunday clothes : the noise -- Bushwhacking 1 : second couples -- Bushwhacking 2 : villains -- Bushwhacking 3 : the multiplot, and how it thickens -- Adelaide's lament : stars -- Tevye's dream : tent poles -- La vie bohème : curtain: act 1 -- Intermission -- Clambake : curtain up: act 2 -- Suddenly Seymour : the candy dish -- All er nothin' : beginning to pack -- The small house of Joseph Smith, the American Moses : the main event -- I thought you did it for me, momma : the next-to-last-scene -- You can't stop the beat : the end -- Curtain call : how Woodie Guthrie, of all people, changed Broadway musicals forever. |
| Summary |
In The Secret Life of the American Musical, Viertel gives musicals the Shakespeare treatment. The book draws on a range of examples--fromCarousel to Wicked, The Music Man to The Book of Mormon--and personal encounters to paint a picture of how Broadway musicals are made, taking you through all the phases of a typical musical theater story, from opening numbers to finales. It's a hilarious and compelling look at what Viertel has learned over the course of his career, full of observations about the egotists, geniuses, and workaday professionals who have sustained this unique American art form. |
| Subject |
Musicals -- United States -- History and criticism.
|
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Musicals -- Analysis, appreciation.
|
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Musicals -- Production and direction.
|
| ISBN |
9780374256920 (hardcover) |
|
0374256926 (hardcover) |
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