There are 16 of them this year, two for each of the official summer weeks. And as has become my custom, many of them are novels because I love stories set in the world of the theater. But there are some nifty memoirs and theater histories too. So I think you’ll be able to find something to scratch your theater itch while you’re sitting at the beach, kicking back in your yard, hanging out in the park, or, like me, lolling around on your terrace with a cool drink in hand—this year I’m recommending a tequila sunrise, whose mix of tequila, orange juice and grenadine actually looks like summer in a glass—and I hope that you’ll have as much fun with these summer reads as I’ve had finding them for you.
By Any Other Name: A Novel by Jodi Picoult The debate over who wrote Shakespeare’s plays fuels this story set in two time periods: the 1600s when it imagines that the real-life Emilia Lanier—who is believed to have been the first woman to publish poetry in England—was an unacknowledged ghostwriter for the Bard; and the present in which a woman playwright who has written a drama about Lanier faces contemporary misogyny.
Every Day a Little Death: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Stephen Sondheim edited by Josh Pachter Who doesn't love a good mystery? And what theater lover doesn't love Sondheim? So how smart to get writers from both worlds—including my BroadwayRadio colleague Michael Portantiere—to contribute short mysteries inspired by the composer's songs. The result: lots of playful mayhem.
Flop Musicals of the Twenty-First Century: Part I: The Creatives by Stephen Purdy Even the most diehard theater lovers get a kick out of gossipy stories about shows that failed. A Broadway insider, Purdy not only tells 13 of them, from Dance of the Vampires to King Kong, but digs deep, interviewing folks who don’t often turn up in these kinds of books—assistant choreographers, swings, wig managers—but who were there at the creation of these misfires and are happy to share what they know.
The Hypocrite: A Novel by Jo Hamya This very literary novel muses on the before and after events that occur when the playwright daughter of a world-famous novelist invites her unsuspecting dad to see a play she’s written exposing his shortcomings as a father, a husband and even as a writer.
If We Were Villains: A Novel by M.L. Rio If you’re a fan of Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History,” you’re likely to love this thriller even more because the group of precocious college students at its center are all theater kids at an elite arts school where the drama program is devoted entirely to Shakespeare and their final year is filled with poetry, rivalry, sex and a mysterious death.
Margo: The Life and Theatre of Margo Jones by Helen Sheehey Over the last year or so we’ve had a generational changing of the guard in the nonprofit theater world but this excellent biography takes us back to its roots with one of the true pioneers of the regional theater movement and an early cheerleader for such playwrights as Horton Foote, William Inge and her close friend Tennessee Williams.
The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act by Isaac Butler Almost everyone has heard of "the Method” but Butler takes a deep dive into this famous but often misunderstood acting technique, tracking its evolution from the Moscow Arts Theatre, where Konstantin Stanislavski developed it; to the Actors Studio, where actors from Marilyn Monroe to Al Pacino studied it.
Mona Acts Out: A Novel by Mischa Berlinski The title character is a self-centered pain in the ass but the novel itself is a fun look at the downtown theater world, a smart tutorial on some of Shakespeare’s major female characters and a meditation on what to do with someone whose great talent has made good art but whose bad behavior has justifiably gotten him canceled.
Our Evenings: A Novel by Alan Hollinghurst One of Britain’s most acclaimed novelists charts the five-decades-long relationship between a mixed-raced actor and a Boris Johnson-like conservative who first meet in one of the country’s elite private schools and how their interactions over the years reflect the changes in that country’s political, social and theatrical life.
Playworld: A Novel by Adam Ross Drawing on its author’s experiences growing up in the ‘80s as a child actor in a family on the fringes of show business (mom teaches ballet, dad does vocal coaching) and as the prey of lecherous adults, this wonderful coming-of-age tale deals with sex, money, ambition and finding one’s place in the world.
Putting the Rabbit in the Hat by Brian Cox He’s now probably best known as the patriarch of the family on HBO’s “Succession” but the Olivier Award-winning Cox got his start on the stage and he ruminates openly about his ambivalence toward working in the theater and his not always generous feelings about his many illustrious co-stars from Laurence Olivier to Ian McKellen.
Stages: A Theater Memoir by Albert Poland His fascination with show business began when Poland started the official fan club for Judy Garland while he was still in high school and it blossomed into a five decade career as a major player in the early days of the off-Broadway theater world, working behind-the-scenes on such shows as The Fantasticks and Little Shop of Horrors.
Station Eleven: A Novel by Emily St. John Mandel It begins with an actor dropping dead onstage, an early victim of a pandemic that will wipe out most of the earth’s population. But among the survivors in this award-winning novel (and later acclaimed HBO series) are a troupe of actors and musicians who travel the countryside offering hope that art can save civilization.
Theater Kid: A Broadway Memoir by Jeffrey Seller Readers may be discouraged when they discover that the first third of this memoir by the guy who produced Rent, Avenue Q and Hamilton is devoted to his hardscrabble childhood and college years but they should stick with it cause they’ll be delighted once Seller moves into the development of Rent and what it takes to make it in the business end of show business.
To Repair the World: Zelda Fichandler and the Transformation of American Theater by Mary B. Robinson This loving but warts-and-all oral history pays long overdue tribute to the woman who created Washington's Arena Stage, midwifed the regional theater movement and nurtured generations of up-and-coming theater makers at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf by Isa Arsén Two very attractive actors enter into an unconventional marriage, get caught up with a pill-pushing Dr. Feelgood-style shrink and become entangled with the mob as it moves its illicit businesses west in this 1950s-era melodrama that is just begging to be a streaming series.
Finally, as always, if you’re looking for even more to read, here are the links to my suggestions from previous years:
