Kritzerland

Ten-year-old Benjamin Kritzer is back. Having survived his Martian parents (thus far), having survived a broken heart (when the nine-year-old love of his life, Susan Pomeroy, moved to Canada), and having survived the Bad Men, Benjamin has a whole new slew of adventures to deal with in Kritzerland. They include the horrifying prospect of going to junior high school (and the more-horrifying prospect of having to wear a jockstrap in Gym class), visiting the new amusement park, Pacific Ocean Park, where he finally gets to visit his parents' home planet on the Flight to Mars ride, meeting The Three Stooges, visiting a movie set at Paramount Studios, going to St. Louis, dealing with his psychotic brother and "What is it, fish?" grandfather, and, most importantly, meeting his first real friend, Paul Daley. The story of that close and endearing friendship is hilarious and touching, and the portrait of growing up in the magical city that was Los Angeles in the late 1950s is vivid and razor-sharp, and will make you feel like you've taken a time machine back to another wonderful, more innocent era.

This book considers the greatest film scores produced over a span of more than 80 years. Each entry includes background information about the film, biographical information about the composer, a concise analysis of the score, and a summary of the score’s impact both within the film it accompanies, but also on cinematic history.

Just as Frank Sinatra had an additional and invaluable career as the great preservationist and evangelist of the American popular song (with particular focus on the Lost and Found), so author-actor-singer-director Bruce Kimmel has additionally served the cause of Broadway and Hollywood beyond measure, producing some of the most memorable vocalists of our time in recordings that give new life to music that might otherwise be forgotten, while renewing and revitalizing the theatrical canon with his impeccable taste and unerring musicality. In his usual engaging and endearing style, he at last gives us a first-hand view of his process. For this terrific chronicle, and for his immeasurable contribution to musical theatre, we can only give our most inadequate thanks. -Rupert Holmes, Tony and Edgar award-winning playwright and novelist Bruce Kimmel's rollicking memoir, There's Mel, There's Woody, and There's You, left his fans begging for more. Thankfully, the theatre gods are kind and answered our prayers. Actor, director, composer, playwright, novelist, film-maker...and good at all of them, Kimmel has reinvented himself more times than Madonna and had more lives than a cat. In Album Produced by..., he now shape-shifts into what may be his greatest theatrical incarnation-as the foremost album producer of theatre music in the last twenty-five years. Through time and labels, his amazing career fluctuates with more highs and lows than the sliding dials on a soundboard and is sweetened with the usual Kimmel witlaced raconteurism.Whether working with the greats (Carol Channing, Lauren Bacall, Dorothy Louden, Ann-Margret, to name a few) or promoting and often discovering the next big musical stars of Broadway, our intrepid hero battles lessthan- visionary bosses, broken promises, harried orchestrators, enraged engineers, the occasional disgruntled diva, and the mysterious crooner, Guy Haines. But he manages to defeat all obstacles and egos in his way, emerging triumphant to dance in divine syncopation with the glorious music he creates. To know the stories behind all those wonderful albums is to listen to them with fresh ears and a new appreciation of the talent, tears, and genius that went into them. -Charles Edward Pogue, screenwriter of Dragonheart, DOA, & The Fly

This volume contains detailed information about every musical that opened on Broadway from 2010 through the end of 2019. This book discusses the decade’s major successes, notorious failures, and musicals that closed during their pre-Broadway tryouts. In addition to including every hit and flop that debuted during the decade, this book highlights revivals and personal-appearance revues.

Benjamin Kritzer is thirteen and ready to take on the world. But is the world ready for Benjamin Kritzer? In Benjamin Kritzer and Kritzerland, Benjamin has gone from adolescence to young adulthood, managing to survive his Martian family, Bad Men, a broken heart, a broken friendship and a multitude of adventures and cliffhangers in the unending serial known as his life. Now, in Kritzer Time, Benjamin must navigate the treacherous terrain of his teenage years, in a world that’s changing as fast as he is. But it’s when Benjamin meets Samantha Gilman, a girl as unique and special as he is, a girl who becomes part of his world, and a girl who will impact his life in ways that he can’t possibly imagine, that Kritzer Time reveals its true heart and soul. Kritzer Time is a time machine back to the wonderful world of Los Angeles in the early 1960s, and a heartfelt, warm, hilarious and touching story of a young boy becoming a young man.

Once the creator and star of Yiddish musical films in Poland between the wars, Raisel is now a grandmother (Bubbie) in ’70s New York. Bubbie longs to tell the stories of her acting troupe’s successes and heroism to her granddaughter Jenny. Sadly, her TV-comedy-writer daughter, Red, insists on leaving the past behind, unless Bubbie will talk about the events that have plagued them both since Red’s childhood.

"This is a rollicking version of the Boucicault classic about an evil banker and a pure and deprived heroine embellished with exciting musical accents. To cover his embezzlements the banker steals the ship captain's fortune, leaving the captain's widow and daughter to brave the cruel world as best they can. The equally destitute hero is forced to become engaged to the banker's villainous daughter. Then comes the foreclosure by the heartless banker; the splendidly nostalgic Christmas scene where the poor huddle in the snow, and the heroine laments the loss of her job; and finally the big fire, the reversal of fortunes, and the triumph of virtue. A deliciously idealized era, with excellent lyrics and musical originality."--Publisher.

The book examines in specific detail every Broadway musical which opened during the seminal decade of the 1960s, a decade which encompassed traditional musicals (such as Hello, Dolly!) as well as iconoclastic ones (Hair). Besides technical information, the book includes extensive commentary for all 268 musicals which opened during the decade. It includes all New York City Center and Music Theatre of Lincoln Center revivals; New York City Opera revivals of Broadway musicals; productions of all pre-Broadway closings (musicals which closed either during New York previews or during pre-Broadway tryouts); all eight musicals which were produced at the 1964 New York World’s Fair; concert productions (usually of one-man or one-woman shows); and all imports which opened during the decade. The technical information includes details regarding cast and credits, plot, critical reviews, London productions, recordings, published scripts, and film versions.