2024 the best broadway shows in nyc review

Price: $34.95
(as of Nov 22, 2024 16:10:16 UTC - Details)

Finally, a book as glorious as its subject: this lush showcase for everyone who loves musicals covers the 101 most influential, popular, and enduring Broadway shows--all of which have toured the country and been performed in theatres large and small everywhere. Each listing includes expert commentary that sets the play in historical and cultural context, plus features on the creators and performers, plot synopses, cast and song lists, production details, backstage anecdotes, and more. Four or five beautifully reproduced photographs from each show--the majority never before published--accompany the text and make the shows leap off the page. Appendices and special features include cast albums, poster artists, revivals, guilty pleasures, Off-Broadway musicals, notable flops, and much more.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Black Dog & Leventhal; First Edition (October 1, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1579123902
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1579123901
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.5 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 10.81 x 1.28 x 12.81 inches
Reviewer: Priam Farll
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The BROADWAY MUSICALS Book of the Year
Review: "Broadway Musicals: The 101 Greatest Musicals of All Time" is a theatrical banquet, a party at Mame's Beekman Place apartment, an airbourne ride after Peter Pan sprinkles fairy dust, a red staircase entrance into Harmonia Gardens. It's WHY we love the musical theatre. I hardly agree with all of the authors' choices, but that's the fun of the book. Easily four dozen photos (mostly in color and magnificently reproduced) made me delirious: Angela Lansbury blowing her bugle in "Mame," Beatrice Lillie and Tammy Grimes in "High Spirits," Carol Channing's "Hello, Dolly!" second act entrance, 21-year-old and still-spontaneous Barbra Streisand in never-before-published photos from "Funny Girl," an entrancing "Carnival!" picture, Dolores Gray and her look-alike mother, Susan Johnson's two motorcycle photos, a candid shot of Ethel Merman having a shoe removed by her dresser. The list goes on and on. Two major books about Broadway musicals have reecently been published. "Broadway: The American Musical" (a tie-with the the PBS three-part series) is extremely interesting, superbly researched and scholarly. "Broadway Musicals: The 101 Greatest Musicals of All Time," reviewed here, is more enjoyable because it captures the flavor, thrill, excitement, glamour, star-power, magic and zest of seeing the best of Broadway's musical theatre. If you have to choose one, get this one. Better still, get both.

Reviewer: Kathleen S. Horrigan
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great Reference and Amazing Pictures
Review: I am a high school theatre teacher. I was looking for a textbook for my musical theatre class when I came across this wonderful reference book. While it doesn't have all of the shows I need, it is a wonderful way to look at some of the most popular musicals in a condensed version with beautiful pictures and interesting trivia. My students love the book so much, they do not want to return it to the school at the end of the semester. They keep it and pay the fee for a missing book. It is reasonably priced for a coffee table book.

Reviewer: Linda Ragan
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Beautiful Book!
Review: Beautiful book! Anyone who loves musicals or theater history will love this book of facts, gossip and great (sometimes surprising) photos.Great fun to pore over and full of information - not sure when I'll have seen it all.It's Large - and heavy, too.Absolutely loved it and gave another one as a gift.

Reviewer: Roseann, Dix Hills, NY
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Very entertaining!
Review: Though the book that was delivered has a scratched up and used looking cover, the book itself is fantastic. I wanted to give the book as a gift, but cannot do so due to the condition of the cover. Lots of great details and behind the scenes information. Very entertaining!

Reviewer: Ryan James Miller
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: So much knowledge
Review: If you are a musical fan, this is the book for you!I was happy to leaf through this amazing book with some of the best color photos I've ever seen in such an archival volume on nearly every page. It will consume quite a bit of your time because this book is so big, and by the time you make it through the catalogue, you will have hummed at least a hundred tunes and been reminded of what a dazzling achievement this theatrical form has been.

Reviewer: Geppetto
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Perfect Coffee Table Book
Review: If you like musical theater as do I, you will love to thumb through this fine book. I am an "old guy" and this book brings back so many memories but it still offers coverage of recent productions by Andrew Lloyd Webber for example. It is a heavy book with excellent printing and paper quality. It highlights the key cast members and the most memorable music from the productions.

Reviewer: T. Sherman
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great looking book, terrible writing
Review: I am astonished at the almost unanimous praise this book has received -- no ratings under 3 stars!!! The book looks good -- glossy colour pics, lists of songs and production info, gossipy sidebars on personalities. But has anyone actual READ the book?? Utterly devoid of insight, lacking in any style, full of banal observations and empty adjectives (everything is "remarkable", "impressive" and so on, but what do those words actually mean?) and cheesy, gushing statements of empty-headed fandom.Bloom writes like a teenager keeping a diary:The movie of "Finian's Rainbow": "In the manner of many film musicals that were lambasted upon their first release, it isn't bad in retrospect -- well, not SO bad." That's it -- end of discussion or analysis of the film. (The "upon" in this sentence gives away Bloom's tin ear for writing. It is pretentious, trying to sound more formal and elegant than merely saying "on".)On "Little Me" and comedy in musicals: "It's not easy to write a truly funny musical, for the libretto is by necessity an outline linking the songs together, leaving little room for funny business.... Lyrics, too, are extremely difficult to make funny -- especially SMART and funny." None of this means anything. And why is the libretto "by necessity" merely an outline? Of course the libretto strings the songs together, but why is it necessarily merely an outline??? The use of "for" in "for the libretto" is another example of Bloom's faux elegant style. And Bloom doesn't go on to actually analyze any further why comedy is hard to write -- or why it is harder to write in a musical, or a song, than in straight drama. Is it really harder to write in musicals and songs? Or is it just difficult to write comedy? Again, his writing is just an empty statement, blandly expressed, that goes nowhere.On Oklahoma!: "... it told the story of honest, three-dimensional characters who had dreams as well as disappointments. The Rodgers and Hammerstein formula worked then and it works today, because, while time and circumstances change, basic human values and dreams are eternal." Ugh!!! Everything about this sentence is ugly and banal.On Cabaret: "Take the dark, ominous world of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, mix it lightly with the sequined, showbiz celebratory world of John Kander of Fred Ebb, and add a soupcon of Christopher Isherwood's dispassionate reportage. Bake well and serve to enthusiastic audiences around the world."Addendum to this recipe: If you add lots of cheese to the writing, you have baked a terrible book about Broadway.Bloom's book is full of this tacky kind of non-writing, utterly lacking in original insight or analysis, full of cliches in its writing and observations, rife with empty enthusiasm and fake elegance. If this appeals to you, by all means buy the book.I enjoy all the colour photos in the book, but for content, it gets one star.

Reviewer: elliott l sirkin
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Gorgeous
Review: Gorgeous--a brilliant theater critic for the New York Review of Books once remarked to me that musicals are such a visual experience it should be very difficult to write their history. She was right--this book is full of gorgeous color layouts of previously unpublished pictures from great Broadway shows since the 1940s, and it is a million times better than the nonsense churned out by Ethan Mordden, Martin Gottfried, et al> makes a super gift for any Broadway fan. --Elliott Sirkin

Reviewer: Gin
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Quick delivery, the item was great and sincerely much better than I thought.Arrived right on time and well packed.

Reviewer: jack kopstein
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This book takes a special place in my BROADWAY Collection . I give it five stars because it represents a period in America when there was wonderful music real , highly stylized choreography and a well written .This was a time when music had substance, where the lyrics actually made sense, where instrumental parts were arranged for trained musicians. The photographs capture the spirit of BROADWAY in every conceivable way, the story lines as real as the side-cars are magnificent. I have no other adverbs remain for this book except that it is a" book of miracles ON BROADWAY"!!

Reviewer: M. D. A. Duncan
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Happy customer!

Reviewer: tuppence
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I bought this book as a present for my brother who loves film musicals. I looked through it before giving it to him and I wouldn't have minded keeping it. A great book for musical film buffs. Just enough information on each film with lots of photographs and details of cast members and also a little gossip. A great find.