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The secret life of the American musical : how Broadway shows are built

Summary: "Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical? In [this book], Jack Viertel takes them apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, marvels at their unflagging inventiveness, and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he invites us to fall in love all over again by showing us how musicals happen, what makes them work, how they captivate audiences, and how one landmark show leads to the next"--

Record details

ISBN: 0374256926
ISBN: 9780374256920
Physical Description: xvii, 312 pages ; 24 cm
print
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: New York : Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.
Copyright: ©2016

Content descriptions

General Note:

Includes index.

Formatted Contents Note:

1 Overture 3 -- 2 Curtain Up, Light the Lights: Opening Numbers 18 -- 3 Wizard and I: The "I Want" Song 52 -- 4 If I Loved You: Conditional Love Songs 73 -- 5 Put On Your Sunday Clothes: The Noise 101 -- 6 Bushwhacking 1: Second Couples 109 -- 7 Bushwhacking 2: Villains 121 -- 8 Bushwhacking 3: The Multiplot, and How It Thickens 128 -- 9 Adelaide's Lament: Stars 133 -- 10 Tevye's Dream: Tent Poles 142 -- 11 La Vie Bohème: Certain: Act 1 152 -- 12 Intermission 172 -- 13 Clambake: Curtain Up: Act 2 179 -- 14 Suddenly Seymour: The Candy Dish 187 -- 15 All er Nothin': Beginning to Pack 197 -- 16 Small House of Joseph Smith, the American Moses: The Main Event 205 -- 17 I Thought You Did It for Me, Momma: The Next-to-Last Scene 217 -- 18 You Can't Stop the Beat: The End 239 -- 19 Curtain Call: How Woody Guthrie-of All People-Changed Broadway Musicals Forever 259.