The World of Musical Comedy

Acclaimed through three editions for its uniquely informative and entertaining style, this fourth edition of Stanley Greens World of Musical Comedy updates and enlarges the theatrical scope to include such recent shows as A Chorus Line, Barnum, Theyre Playing Our Song, and Annie. In a format that provides biographies of all the leading figures in the musicals development, Stanley Green manages to convey the spirit of the Broadway stage, its musical make-believe, and yet remain objective about the creative swings in its history and the careers of its individual creators. Everyone is here: Victor Herbert, Sigmund Romberg, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Frank Loesser, Lerner and Loewe, Stephen Sondheim, Cy Coleman, Marvin Hamlisch, and many othersnot in a quick run-through but in vivid detail accompanied by pertinent interviews and photographs. This latest edition contains an expanded appendix that lists the casts, credits, songs, and recordings of every Broadway musical written by these illustrious and industrious composers and librettists. As always in a Stanley Green book, the research is exhaustive and impeccable, the presentation enjoyable, the judgments fair. From Americas foremost theater historian, here is another edition of a classic theater chronicle.