Theater Books for Summer Reading 2012

Despite what the calendar says, the beginning of summer is a personal choice. Traditionalists probably opted for June 20th, the summer solstice and the longest day of the year. But some folks no doubt jumpstarted things with Memorial Day. Others will pledge their allegiance to the long 4th of July weekend, although that’s more difficult to do this year since the holiday falls right smack in the middle of next week.

But for me, the summer begins on the first sustained sequence of days on which I can sit out on our terrace with a good drink in one hand and a good book (or one loaded on my iPad) in the other. Nine times out of ten, that book will be about theater. And I suspect that kind of reading is a summer ritual for many of you too. So, herewith my annual list of books (novels, bios, memoirs and histories) for theater lovers to enjoy over the next couple of months. As always, happy reading and happy summer:

Dropped Names by Frank Langella.  I can’t think of a better summer—or any time—read than this dazzlingly good memoir in which the great actor Frank Langella looks back at his life in short chapters devoted to his encounters with acquaintances, friends and lovers who include Stella Adler, Anne Bancroft, Noel Coward, Colleen Dewhurst, Raul Julia, Arthur Miller, Laurence Olivier, and Elizabeth Taylor, just to name a few. Langella is as elegant a writer as he is an actor.  He is also brutally honest about the failings and shortcomings of his subjects and himself.  If you've only time for one summer read, make it this one.

 

Lucky Break by Esther Freud.  Good contemporary novels about actors are hard to come by.  So it’s great to have this collection of interlocking stories that follow a group of British actors from their first day in drama school into the mid-career choices of their 30s. The author, who is the daughter of the painter Lucien Freud and the great granddaughter of Sigmund, eschews the psychological explorations that are her patrimony, but having been an actress, and now married to one, she still knows how to plumb the theater world and the result is  a fun beach read.

Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein by Julie Salamon.  Wasserstein, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Heidi Chronicles, was not only the leading female playwright of her generation, but the BFF of practically everyone in the theater community, including, for starters, her Yale School of Drama classmate Christopher Durang and the former Times theater critic Frank Rich.  But despite her popularity and her success, Wasserstein, who died from complications associated with lymphoma in 2006  at just 55,  was a conflicted person and Salamon is great at tracking the ups and downs of her life. Plus, the book offers an intimate look at the off-Broadway theater world when it was just coming into its own in the ‘70s.

 

Finishing the Hat by Stephen Sondheim.  This first volume of Sondheim’s collected lyrics is filled with details on how the master put together songs for such classic shows as West Side Story, Gypsy, Company, Follies and Sweeney Todd. It’s fascinating to learn about his fondness for writing choral numbers, the private jokes he tucks into his lyrics and why he chooses some rhymes over others. Also included are a few anecdotes about his collaborators and comments on some of the songwriters who came before him; those stories and insights are so terrific that I wish there had been even more of this semi-gossipy stuff.

 

Tempest-Tost by Robertson Davies.  The acclaimed Canadian writer's first novel, written back in 1951, is the droll tale of an amateur theater group’s production of The Tempest.  It’s filled with familiar types from the bossy ex-actress who leads the group to the Walter Mittyish accountant who dreams of a starring role to the dotty old makeup woman who can no longer see. People who love “Slings and Arrows,” the terrific Canadian TV show about a theater festival, should really get a kick out of this book.

 

Great Producers: Visionaries of the American Theater by Iris Dorbian.  Truth be told, this isn’t a truly great read (it’s riddled with typos and grammatical faux pas too) but it is a good introduction to some of the major Broadway showmakers of the last 100 years.  And it’s filled with chatty anecdotes about a dozen or so top producers from David Belasco, the most powerful man on Broadway at the turn of the 20th century, straight through to Barry and Fran Weissler, who’ve not only managed to keep the current revival of Chicago going for 16 years but used some of the profits to finance boundary-busting shows like Enron and The Scottsboro Boys.  It's an easy way to brush up on your theater history.

David Merrick: The Abominable Showman by Howard Kissel.  Probably the last Broadway impresario to be a household name across the country, Merrick also had a reputation among Broadway insiders for being something up a prick.  And, as the subtitle suggests, that’s the part that theater writer Howard Kissel emphasizes in his look at Merrick’s remarkable career, in which he sometimes opened up to nine shows a year, including the original Broadway productions of Look Back in Anger, Gypsy, and Hello Dolly. Kissel, who died earlier this year, packed this bio with Merrick’s feuds, publicity coups (most famously running an ad with raves from regular people who had the same names as New York's top theater critics) and other shenanigans. It’s catnip for theater lovers.

The Season by William Goldman.  As regular B&Me readers know, Goldman’s behind-the-scenes account of the 1967-68 Broadway season has appeared on this list each time I've done it. And I have to confess that I considered leaving if off this year but then I just couldn't make myself do it.  After all, if you haven’t read it, you should.

And for those wanting still more, here are the links to my previous summer reading suggestions:
2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

Theater Books for Summer Reading 2010

The hot weather came early this year so I’ve been lolling out on the terrace for weeks now, with a book (well, increasingly a Kindle) in one hand and something cold and pink-colored (I’ve been bouncing back and forth between tangy cosmos and dry rosés) in the other.  But the summer solstice arrived last week and Independence Day is this coming weekend, which means the kick-back-and-relax season is officially here.  And so, below is my fourth annual list of theater-related books to keep you company on your lazy summer days and nights. This year, the list includes four novels and four memoirs:

THE NOVELS:
Night at the Vulcan: by Ngaio Marsh.  Who doesn’t love a good-old fashioned British murder mystery?  This one is set in a London theater run by an Olivier-like actor-manager right after WWII.  Shortly after a mysterious ingénue joins the company, an unpopular actor is killed in his dressing room during a performance.  Only someone in the company could have done it and just about everyone had motive to do it.  Marsh’s Inspector Roderick Alleyn arrives to sort it all out.  But there is plenty of romance, rivalry and other backstage shenanigans to keep you riveted before he reveals the culprit.  

Morality Play by Barry Unsworth. Short-listed for Britain’s prestigious Man Booker Prize, this Medieval mystery centers around a monk who joins a band of traveling players in 14th century England.  It’s a terrific re-creation of the theater world at the time when some daring actors were beginning to move away from performing Church-sanctioned Bible stories in favor of plays that dealt with more secular concerns.  A film version starring Paul Bettany and Willem Dafoe, and blandly renamed “The Reckoning,” came out in 2003 and is available on DVD.  But the book is far better, especially at conveying the almost religious calling that so many actors feel about their craft.

The Confessions of Edward Day by Valerie Martin.  Novels about the theater tend to divide into two camps:  backstage mysteries or comic romps, the latter often centered around a gay protagonist. This one is something different. It’s a lovely literary novel about a promising young actor trying to break into the New York theater scene in the mid-‘70s when groups like Manhattan Theatre Club and the Roundabout Theatre were just starting up. The plot centers around a romantic triangle but the true love affair here is with the theater itself.

Next Season by Michael Blakemore.  Theater lovers already know that he's a terrific director and now it turns out that Blakemore, whose stage credits range from City of Angels to the recent revival of Blithe Spirit, is also a wonderful novelist. His story of a moderately talented actor who gets a job in a summer-stock type repertory company focuses not on the above-the-marquee names but on the journeymen who play the character roles and bit parts not for money or glamour but for love of the craft.  It’s one of the best theater novels I’ve ever read.

THE MEMOIRS:
Supporting Player: My Life Upon the Wicked Stage by Richard Seff. Over his 60 years in the business, Seff has been an actor, an agent, a playwright, host of a radio show about the theater and a philanthropist (he funds a lifetime achievement award for character actors).  He tells stories about it all from his discovery of the young Chita Rivera to his writing the book for the cult musical Shine.  Reading this delightful memoir is like having a long gossipy lunch with a friend who knows everybody’s business and just how much of it to tell.

The Gentleman Press Agent: Fifty Years in the Theatrical Trenches with Merle Debuskey by Robert Simonson.   PR guys are usually behind-the-scenes players but Simonson, the former editor of Playbill.com, puts the spotlight on one of the major publicists of Broadway’s Golden Age.  He has interviewed dozens of people who knew and worked with Debuskey, like the actress Ruby Dee and the producer Bernard Gersten, but he tells the story primarily from Debuskey’s perspective and often in his words. Simonson may be a bit too besotted with his subject but that doesn't overshadow the glimpses he offers into the even more dazzling heyday of New York theater.

A Year with The Producers: One Actor's Exhausting (But Worth It) Journey from Cats to Mel Brooks' Mega-Hit by Jeffry Denman.  Whenever I’ve seen him on stage, Denman, a veteran song-and-dance man who also choreographed the recent off-Broadway production of Yank!, radiates so much joy in what he's doing that I thought his book would be just as much fun.  And it almost is. As the subtitle makes clear, this is an account of the year that Denman spent being cast for, rehearsing and appearing in the ensemble of The Producers. It’s kind of a Rosencrantz-and-Guildenstern-Are-Dead view of the show, whose star Nathan Lane only makes cameo appearances. No dirty linen is aired.  Denman thinks everyone—writer Mel Brooks, director Susan Stroman, the stage doorman—is great.  But that’s due less to sycophancy than to his—and his book's—innate buoyancy.

Diary of a Mad Playwright: Perilous Adventures on the Road with Mary Martin & Carol Channing by James Kirkwood. The play Legends is legendary for its many-rumored backstage battles and for having toured around the country with two of Broadway's biggest-ever stars but never making it to the Great White Way. In this take-no-prisoners account of how it all happened (really, Kirkwood names names and tells stories about famous people that made me gasp out loud) the show’s playwright, who also wrote the book for A Chorus Line, gives his side of the saga.  If you can find a more naked account of what goes into making a show, email me immediately.

PLUS:
The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway by William Goldman. Yep.  It’s back again. I’ve said it in the past and I know I’ll be saying it in the future, I simply cannot imagine a theater reading list without Goldman’s classic account of the 1967-68 Broadway season.

Now, My husband K and I are going away for the weekend so there’ll be no Saturday post but I’ll be back next Wednesday.  In the meantime, Happy 4th of July and, of course, happy reading.