SHELF LIFE: Show Tunes, Elaine Paige, American Plays and More

By Judy Samelson
16 Jan 2010

SHELF LIFE: Show Tunes, Elaine Paige, American Plays and More


This month's book selection features Elaine Paige in her own words, a celebration of the show tune, a study of the business of producing plays and the annual edition of Theatre World.

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Show Tunes: The Songs, Shows, and Careers of Broadway's Major Composers
By Steven Suskin
Published by: Oxford University Press
Publication Date: February 2010
List price: $60 hardcover; 624 pages

Steven Suskin's "Show Tunes" is an exhaustive chronicle of the shows, songs and careers of every major composer of the American musical theatre. This latest Fourth Edition includes updated information through May 2009 and, according to publisher notes, "features the entire theatrical output of 40 of Broadway's leading composers, in addition to a wide selection of work by other songwriters." They are all here, from the legendary likes of Kern, Gershwin, Rodgers, Porter, Berlin, Bernstein and Sondheim to relatively more recent composers like Stephen Schwartz, Stephen Flaherty, Michael John LaChiusa and Adam Guettel. The artists' work is examined from the standpoint of their innovations, successes — and failures. Almost 1,000 shows and 9,000 show tunes are discussed, and each listing includes production data and statistics, extensive information on published and recorded songs, and commentary on the shows and songs, plus inside backstage information and a comprehensive song index. And it's not just the enduring classics that get Suskin's attention. He also includes shows that closed out of town or were never headed for Broadway and catalogs previously unknown songs that were either cut from shows, or forgotten. Suskin is known to Playbill.com readers for his On the Record and DVD Shelf columns.

Outrageous Fortune: The Life and Times of the New American Play
By Todd London with Ben Pesner and Zannie Giraud Voss
Published by: Theatre Development Fund
Publication Date: December 22, 2009
List price: $14.95 soft cover; 296 pages

How do plays get written and produced in America? This seemingly simple question was the impetus behind this new study published by Theatre Development Fund, the not-for-profit performing arts service organization. The book examines the realities of producing new plays from the perspective of American playwrights and not-for-profit theatres, and it turns out that the process is exceedingly complex, revealing, notes the publisher, "a 'collaboration in crisis' between the people who write plays and those who produce them." Author Todd London describes the contradictions and conflicts this way: "On one hand, we have a playwriting profession that is larger, better trained, and more vital than at any time in our history. We also have a profusion of highly professional theatres with a deep commitment to new work. On the other hand, we have a profound rift between our most accomplished playwrights and the theatres who would produce them, an increasingly corporate theatre culture, dire economics for not-for-profits, dwindling audiences for non-musical work, and, perhaps most troubling of all, a system of compensation that makes it nearly impossible for playwrights to earn anything resembling a living." The goal of this study, which draws on six years of statistical and anecdotal research, is to stimulate open discussion between all parties and to ultimately find ways, notes London, "to build on the existing energy in the field and to help open up more opportunities for playwrights and more channels for fine plays to reach the stage." For more information, go to Outrageous Fortune.

Elaine Paige: Memories
By Elaine Paige
Published by: Oberon Books
Publication Date: June 1, 2009
List price: $41.95 Hardcover; 144 pages, illustrated

Elaine Paige's autobiography, with a Foreword written by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose shows offered Paige some of her most outstanding roles, is filled with revealing and humorous memories of 40 years in the theatre. Paige begins with her earliest stage appearances in Joan Littlewood's company in London's East End and takes fans on her journey to stardom in such shows as the original London productions of Cats and Evita, where she originated the roles of Grizabella and Eva Peron, respectively; Sunset Boulevard, where she replaced Betty Buckley's Norma Desmond to great acclaim both in London and in her Broadway debut in 1996; and in the London production Piaf, where she essayed the life of The Little Sparrow with heartbreaking emotion. The many color and black and white images throughout the book have been drawn from Paige's personal archives as well as photos commissioned exclusively for the publication. Her story, which as her official web site notes, shares "moments of joy and regret," also focuses on her life away from the stage with tales of her early childhood, her family and her travels, offering a uniquely personal view of one of the most gifted performers to ever grace a musical stage. Continued...