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The Gentleman Press Agent: Fifty Years in the Theatrical Trenches with Merle Debuskey
By Robert Simonson
Published by: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books
Publication Date: May 2010
List price: $29.99 hardcover; 292 pages, illustrated

In the Introduction to his new book about Merle Debuskey, author Simonson writes, "he had an acute case of integrity wholly at odds with his occupation." Before Debuskey branded it with his unique set of qualities, the profession of theatre publicist belonged to men (and it was almost entirely devoid of female participants) whose street-smart stock-in-trade was the backroom deal or the P.T. Barnum-like publicity scheme. Debuskey was of a different stripe. For starters, straight out of a stint in the armed forces, where he saw action in the Pacific during WWII, Debuskey went to graduate school on the GI Bill, earning a master's degree in public relations from the New School. He was different in manner, too. Tall, handsome and athletic (he was an All-American lacrosse player in his high school days), the Jewish, Baltimore-bred Debuskey avoided the normal flack vices of drink and gambling and the standard operating procedure of drumming up publicity for their clients by feeding half-truths (read: gossip) to newspaper columnists. Instead he spent his free time playing tennis and building a reputation as a man of candor, puffing on his trademark pipe and knocking out press releases on his manual typewriter that were legendary in their length, originality and use of language. In a business where being a "yes man," was the norm, Debuskey posted a sign in his office that read, "No is also an answer." Instead of creating enemies, his moral code appealed to some of the most prolific and successful producers working in the theatre during his time. From the 1940s through the mid-1990s, Debuskey handled more Broadway shows than any press agent in history, collaborating with the likes of Joseph Papp, for whom he orchestrated—behind the scenes—Papp's ultimately victorious battle against Robert Moses to keep Shakespeare in the Park free; Mike Todd, the flamboyant showman; Alexander Cohen, who, among other credits, produced the Tony Awards for 20 years; and Philip Rose, who produced Lorraine Hansberry's groundbreaking A Raisin in the Sun, the first Broadway play by an African American woman. The Debuskey story includes his strong opposition to Joseph McCarthy and his professional and personal friendships with several of the victims of the blacklist, including Jack Gilford, Zero Mostel, Sam Wanamaker and John Henry Faulk; his romance with actress Kim Stanley; and his handling of a difficult Mort Saul, who verbally abused him during rehearsals for Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window and whom Debuskey promptly lifted up by his signature sweater and dared him to keep talking; or the brilliant George C. Scott, whom Debuskey recalls dragging from the theatrical hangout Patsy's to the Billy Rose Theatre where Scott could not go on that night in The Wall due to his inebriated state. To tell this colorful tale, author Simonson not only had access to Debuskey's voluminous files of correspondences, documents, photographs and press clippings but also to the man himself, interviewing him a number of times across a period of two-and-a-half years. Among the other cast members in Debuskey's life interviewed by Simonson are theatre vets Emanuel Azenberg, Bernard Gersten, Shirley Herz, Philip Rose, Marilyn Stasio, Ruby Dee, Clive Barnes and Jeffrey Horowitz (founder and artistic director of Theatre for a New Audience and author of the book's Foreword). Though Debuskey was immersed in the theatre for most of his adult life, in his post-retirement years, when asked to comment on his proudest moment, the "gentleman press agent" speaks not of his 50 years in the theatre, but of his tour aboard a WWII Navy ship. And, curiously, the throughline to his life in the theatre is echoed in his words. "We had been part of an effort we deemed noble—strangers working together in a common cause for the common good," he tells Simonson. "I came away with the belief that with purpose, sacrifice, [and] willingness to work diligently, respecting the efforts and choices of others, almost anything was within one's grasp."

Theater Geek: The Real Life Drama of a Summer at Stagedoor Manor, the Famous Performing Arts Camp
By Mickey Rapkin
Published by: Free Press
Publication Date: June 1, 2010
List price: $25 hardcover; 224 pages, illustrated

In the summer of 2009, Mickey Rapkin took a break from his day job as a senior editor at "GQ" and trekked up to the Catskills to attend a three-week session at Stagedoor Manor, the renowned summer theatre camp in upstate New York that has been offering kids from ages 10 to 18 an intensive introduction to professional theatre since it was founded in 1975 by Carl and Elsie Samuelson. Rapkin's empathy for the subject stems from his own background as a self-proclaimed "theatre geek" who remembers crying at the overture to Les Misérables when he was 16 or rushing into the NYC on the train to catch one of the final performances of Stephen Sondheim's Passion or fantasizing about becoming a Broadway theatre usher. "I worshipped the people who could do professionally what I could only attempt in my earnest high school productions on suburban Long Island," he writes in the Prologue of his warm and entertaining new book. "In those years, I never felt alive anywhere except in those cramped, worn-in Broadway seats." Rapkin's journalistic goal was to immerse himself in the ambience of the storied Stagedoor Manor where the pejorative term "geek" has been turned on its ear for decades, reinvented to embrace the positive and ambitious vibe of theatre-loving kids who come to act, sing, dance, paint scenery, and—every three weeks—produce 13 full-scale productions guided by theatre professionals. He lived with the kids, ate with them, went to rehearsals, and in particular, tracked a trio of talented and determined young actors—high school seniors Rachel Singer, Brian Muller and Harry Katzman—through their final session at the camp. Rapkin chronicles the hard work, heartbreak and joy of these young people as they performed in their final amateur shows and looked ahead beyond the sheltered environment of Stagedoor Manor toward the real world of industry competition and rejection. The camp, Rapkin reports, is regularly visited by talent and casting agents, scouting for fresh prospects, and the dream of every kid there is to be "carded," the term Katzman used when an interested agent passed along a business card after one of his performances. Many names have emerged from summertime at Stagedoor, among them Lea Michelle (Spring Awakening, "Glee"), Robert Downey, Jr. ("Less Than Zero," "Chaplin," "Iron Man"), Natalie Portman (Oscar nominee for "Closer"), Zach Braff ("Scrubs") and Jon Cryer (Brighton Beach Memoirs, "Two and a Half Men"). And many people in all phases of the industry have supported the camp, including performers as disparate as actress Glenn Close, director Ron Howard and rockers Steven Tyler and Courtney Love, who all sent their daughters there. Most of the kids, Rapkin points out, do not become the next great star. For them, though, there remains the experience afforded by three weeks in the summer, living and playing among peers whose boundless passion for theatre matches their own. "That suggests there's something else going on here," Rapkin says in the publisher notes. "Which is the heart of this story, really. These kids come to Stagedoor because they're looking for a second home. Or rather, a better home. A place where they can be themselves, no questions asked."

Albee in Performance
By Rakesh H. Solomon with a Foreword by Edward Albee
Published by: Indiana University Press
Publication Date: July 1, 2010
List price: $24.95 paperback ($65 cloth); 320 pages; 22 b&w illustrations

It must be extremely gratifying for a writer when his subject—particularly one as exacting as Edward Albee—thinks highly enough of his effort to praise it. Such is the case with Rakesh H. Solomon, whose examination of Albee's directorial vision for his own plays received enthusiastic approval from the playwright under the microscope. As Albee writes in the Foreword to Solomon's study, "The fact that the subject is me and the environment is my work as a director could pose problems if my delight at the book's clarity and ultimate objectivity were not doubled by Mr. Solomon's understanding of theatrical process and practical result." According to publisher notes, Solomon, who teaches in the Department of Theatre and Drama at Indiana University Bloomington, was given rare access to Albee the director, enabling him to reveal how the playwright "has shaped his plays in performance, the attention he pays to each aspect of theatre and how his conception of the key plays he has directed has evolved over a five-decade career." The author interviewed Albee numerous times over the years, attended many rehearsals of his plays, and observed and recorded every aspect of his directorial work, with special attention paid to the major works, from The American Dream and Zoo Story to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, as well as later plays such as Marriage Play and Three Tall Women. In addition Solomon perused drafts of Albee's plays, unpublished scripts and other restricted material and through the years was permitted unconstrained access to many of his actors, designers, stage managers, producers and directors—among them, actors Irene Worth, Frances Conroy, Tony Musante, Shirley Knight and Marian Seldes; and directors David Esbjornson, Lawrence Sacharow and Alan Schneider—interviewing them about all aspects of staging, from rehearsal to actual performance.

Theatre
By David Mamet
Published by: Faber & Faber
Publication Date: April 15, 2010
List price: $22 hardcover; 144 pages

In a recent broadcast of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," the host razzed his guest, playwright-director David Mamet, for employing what he termed the highfalutin spelling of the title of his book, instead of—according to Stephen Colbert (whose very funny tongue seems to be perpetually lodged in his cheek)—spelling it the way we Americans and God intended: Theater with an "er." Of course, the very suggestion that Mamet was going soft—uttered even in jest—could not be further from the truth, as "Theatre" is yet another iconoclastic work from the man who gave us such plays as American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed the Plow and the current Broadway drama Race (Ethel Barrymore Theatre). In "Theatre," the writer's critical scalpel is poised at everything from issue plays to political correctness to method actors to Stanislavski (whom he described to Colbert as a "Commie"). In Mamet's theatre, there is no place for acting theory and directors. Actors are good by definition, and if they are not good, then they are not actors. If they are good, he contends, they work better without the interference of directors, whom he believes would be much better off acting as traffic cops—telling actors where to stand and how to move—than as interpreters of plays. In his maturity, Mamet rejects the books about theory he devoured as a young man, when he first came under the theatre's spell, in favor of a more pragmatic way to present theatre, where the main goal should be to entertain, where rehearsals are there for actors to understand the words and not their feelings, and where the playwright's main goal is to create surprise. Mamet, of course, is keenly aware of the reaction his theories could evoke. As he writes in his opening chapter, if theatre were a religion, "many of the observations and suggestions in this book might be heretical." That's probably an understatement.

Stella is A Star!
By Bernadette Peters; Illustrated by Liz Murphy
Published by: Blue Apple Books
Publication Date: April 7, 2010
List price: $17 hardcover with CD; 40 pages

There once was a dog—a little pit bull pup—that no one cared for, who thought she would be much better liked if she were more pleasing and graceful, like a ballerina. But not just any old ballerina: No, she must become a pig ballerina. So she masquerades as one and calls herself Princess Pig. Along her adventure, Stella learns not only about the joy in following her heart's desire but also that it's really okay to be who she is. This delightful tale, geared for children ages 4 and up, sprung from the imagination of the equally delightful Bernadette Peters, two-time Tony Award winner for Best Actress in a Musical—for Song & Dance and Annie Get Your Gun—and star of such other Broadway musicals as Mack and Mabel, Sunday in the Park With George, The Goodbye Girl and Gypsy (all of which garnered Tony nominations for the actress). It's a story, Peters recently told Playbill.com, "about not judging people from the outside, and not being afraid to accept and love yourself for who you are." The book, which is whimsically illustrated by Liz Murphy and also includes a CD with an original song written and performed by Peters, is Peters' second step into the world of children's books. Her first book was titled "Broadway Barks." Published in 2008, it also featured illustrations by Murphy as well as an accompanying CD and told the story of a little dog named Kramer who is all alone and must fend for himself, which he does ably once he finds a lady in the park and decides to follow her. Peters' love of animals was the inspiration behind both books and both feature title characters named after her own dogs, Kramer and Stella, whom the actress adopted from shelters. When not onstage Peters, who it was recently announced will star with Elaine Stritch in the current Broadway production of A Little Night Music (replacing Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury, respectively), is most devoted to Broadway Barks, the organization she co-founded in 1998 with her animal lover pal Mary Tyler Moore to promote the adoption of shelter animals, to network the many shelters and rescue groups throughout New York City and to educate in the areas of responsible pet ownership, the importance of proper pet identification, etc. On July 10, pet lovers will gather in Shubert Alley for the organization's annual dog and cat adopt-a-thon, after which Peters will be signing copies of "Stella is a Star!" in the lobby of the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Click Broadway Barks 12 for Playbill.com's report on the upcoming festivities or go to www.broadwaybarks.com.