A Taste Of Broadway

Beyond being just fuel for the body, food carries symbolic importance used to define individuals, situations, and places, making it an ideal communication tool. In musical theater, food can be used as a shortcut to tell the audience more about a setting, character, or situation. Because everyone relates to eating, food can also be used to evoke empathy, amusement, or shock from the audience. In some cases, food is central to show’s plot. This book looks at popular musical theater shows to examine which foods are used, how they are used, why they are important, and how the food or usage relates to the broader world. Included are recipes for many of the foods that are significant in the shows discussed.

Smack-dab in the middle of America in Winnetka, Illinois, four women enter a Betty Crocker cooking contest in hopes of changing their lives. What they get is much more than they bargained for. Little did they know that it would take a zoologist from Indiana University, Alfred C. Kinsey, to really get them “cooking”! In an age when people believed the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, the four women discover that the way to a woman’s heart is through her best friends.

The classic play about the complex, conflict ridden relationship between a teenage girl and her mother - Includes notes and assignments suggestions.

From Sardi’s to the Russian Tea Room, Broadway’s most iconic restaurants take center stage in this collection of classic recipes. Since before Sinatra found his favorite table at Patsy’s, New York City’s Theater District has overflowed with the glamour of Broadway stars and the famous restaurants that cater to their appetites. For many audience members, the pre- or post-show meal is the most memorable part of a night out on The Great White Way. Taste of Broadway collects recipes from some of the most famous restaurants in the district, including the Algonquin, the Russian Tea Room, Sardi’s, the “21” Club and many more. Full of photographs, quotes from bartenders and regulars, as well as Broadway restaurant history and lore, this book offers plenty of local color to savor.

Not Since Carrie is Ken Mandelbaum's brilliant survey of Broadway's biggest flops. This highly readable and entertaining book highlights almost 200 musicals created between 1950 and 1990, framed around the notorious musical adaptation of Carrie, and examines the reasons for their failure. "Essential and hilarious," raves The New Yorker, and The New York Times calls the book "A must-read."

Taste of Broadway is a collection of recipes from popular restaurants in New York City's Theater District. It includes endorsements on local flavor from various theater critics, actors, dancers, and restaurant personnel. The restaurants in this book were selected for their popularity among theater patrons, and because they cater to the theater crowd. Some are longstanding and some are new.

A New York Times Bestseller For almost a century, Americans have been losing their hearts and losing their minds in an insatiable love affair with the American musical. It often begins in childhood in a darkened theater, grows into something more serious for high school actors, and reaches its passionate zenith when it comes time for love, marriage, and children, who will start the cycle all over again. Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical? In The Secret Life of the American Musical, 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—by design or by accident, by emulation or by rebellion—from Oklahoma! to Hamilton and onward. Structured like a musical, The Secret Life of the American Musical begins with an overture and concludes with a curtain call, with stops in between for “I Want” songs, “conditional” love songs, production numbers, star turns, and finales. The ultimate insider, Viertel has spent three decades on Broadway, working on dozens of shows old and new as a conceiver, producer, dramaturg, and general creative force; he has his own unique way of looking at the process and at the people who collaborate to make musicals a reality. He shows us patterns in the architecture of classic shows and charts the inevitable evolution that has taken place in musical theater as America itself has evolved socially and politically. The Secret Life of the American Musical makes you feel as though you’ve been there in the rehearsal room, in the front row of the theater, and in the working offices of theater owners and producers as they pursue their own love affair with that rare and elusive beast—the Broadway hit.

This Critical Companion to the American Stage Musical provides the perfect introductory text for students of theatre, music and cultural studies. It traces the history and development of the industry and art form in America with a particular focus on its artistic and commercial development in New York City from the early 20th century to the present. Emphasis is placed on commercial, artistic and cultural events that influenced the Broadway musical for an ever-renewing, increasingly broad and diverse audience: the Gilded Age, the Great Depression, the World War II era, the British invasion in the 1980s and the media age at the turn of the twenty-first century. Supplementary essays by leading scholars provide detailed focus on the American musical's production and preservation, as well as its influence on daily life on the local, national, and international levels. For students, these essays provide models of varying approaches and interpretation, equipping them with the skills and understanding to develop their own analysis of key productions.