So, You're the New Musical Director! is aimed at the person who has music training but little or no experience with musical theatre, the high school choral director with a degree in music education, or the actor participating in community theatre productions. It details the duties involved in directing a broadway musical, including overseeing singer and orchestra rehearsals and conducting the musical itself. The chapters follow the actual progression of a musical from a discussion of the production team's responsibilities to the final bow. Filled with photos, illustrations, and examples, So, You're the New Musical Director! is a comprehensive guide that no one involved in musical theatre should be without.
So, You're the New Musical Director! is aimed at the person who has music training but little or no experience with musical theatre, the high school choral director with a degree in music education, or the actor participating in community theatre productions. It details the duties involved in directing a Broadway musical, including overseeing singer and orchestra rehearsals and conducting the musical itself. The chapters follow the actual progression of a musical from a discussion of the production team's responsibilities to the final bow. Filled with photos, illustrations, and examples, So, You're the New Musical Director! is a comprehensive guide that no one involved in musical theatre should be without.
Theater music directors must draw on a remarkably broad range of musical skills. Not only do they conduct during rehearsals and performances, but they must also be adept arrangers, choral directors, vocal coaches, and accompanists. Like a record producer, the successful music director must have the flexibility to adjust as needed to a multifaceted job description, one which changes with each production and often with each performer. In Music Direction for the Stage, veteran music director and instructor Joseph Church demystifies the job in a book that offers aspiring and practicing music directors the practical tips and instruction they need in order to mount a successful musical production. Church, one of Broadway's foremost music directors, emerges from the orchestra pit to tell how the music is put into a musical show. He gives particular attention to the music itself, explaining how a music director can best plan the task of learning, analyzing, and teaching each new piece. Based on his years of professional experience, he offers a practical discussion of a music director's methods of analyzing, learning, and practicing a score, thoroughly illustrated by examples from the repertoire. The book also describes how a music director can effectively approach dramatic and choreographic rehearsals, including key tips on cueing music to dialogue and staging, determining incidental music and underscoring, making musical adjustments and revisions in rehearsal, and adjusting style and tempo to performers' needs. A key theme of the book is effective collaboration with other professionals, from the production team to the creative team to the performers themselves, all grounded in Church's real-world experience with professional, amateur, and even student performances. He concludes with a look at music direction as a career, offering invaluable advice on how the enterprising music director can find work and gain standing in the field.
From his early work as lyricist for West Side Story to acclaimed creations such as A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George, and Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim is widely regarded as the most important figure in musical theater since the second half of the 20th century. Who better to discuss this prolific artist’s work than the master himself? Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions is a collection of interviews conducted by Mark Eden Horowitz, senior music specialist in the music division of the Library of Congress. In these guided conversations, Sondheim expounds in great depth and detail on his craft. As a natural teacher, thoughtful and opinionated, Sondheim discusses the art of musical composition, lyric writing, the collaborative process of musical theater, and how he thinks about his own work. The entire scope of Sondheim’s career is covered here, in which Sondheim’s greatest works are discussed—from Passion, Assassins, Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd, and Pacific Overtures to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Merrily We Roll Along, Company, Follies, Anyone Can Whistle, and A Little Night Music. Sondheim even provides thoughts about the film adaptations of his works, such as Sweeney Todd. The book also features an entire chapter on Bounce, the previous incarnation of his latest musical, Road Show. Preserving the essential elements of the previous volumes, this edition includes all of the interviews—verbatim—and features a revised introduction and a postlude with an additional conversation. Finally in paperback, Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions, The Less Is More Edition is a must-have for fans of these creative genius.
New York Times Bestseller: “Both revelatory and entertaining . . . Along the way, Viertel provides some fascinating Broadway history.” —The New York Times Book Review Americans invented musicals—and have a longstanding love affair with them. But what, exactly, is a musical? In this book, longtime theatrical producer and writer Jack Viertel takes them apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he shows 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. Beginning with an overture and concluding with a curtain call, with stops in between for “I Want” songs, “conditional” love songs, production numbers, star turns, and finales, Viertel 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 like you’re there in the rehearsal room, the front row, and the offices of theater owners and producers as they pursue their own love affair with that rare and elusive beast—the Broadway hit. “A valuable addition to the theater lover’s bookshelf. . . . fans will appreciate the dips into memoir and Viertel’s takes on original cast albums.” —Publishers Weekly “Even seasoned hands will come away with a clearer understanding of why some shows work while others flop.” —Commentary “A showstopper . . . infectiously entertaining.” —John Lahr, author of Notes on a Cowardly Lion “Thoroughly interesting.” —The A.V. Club “The best general-audience analysis of musical theater I have read in many years.” —The Charlotte Observer “Delightful . . . a little bit history, a little bit memoir, a little bit criticism and, for any theater fan, a whole lot of fun.” —The Dallas Morning News
Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year Time magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007 Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007 A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007 In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.
Paul Shaffer—born and bred music junkie and longtime leader of David Letterman’s Late Show band—opens up in this candid, endearing, hilarious, and star-studded memoir. From playing seedy strip joints in Toronto, to being the first musical director of Saturday Night Live and helping to form the Blues Brothers, to being onstage every night with David Letterman and playing with the greatest musicians of our time, Shaffer has lived the ultimate showbiz life. Now—dishing on everyone from John Belushi and Jerry Lewis to Mel Gibson and Britney Spears—Paul gives us the full behind-the-scenes story of his life, from banging out pop tunes on the piano at the age of twelve to leading the band every night at the Sullivan Theater.
A lively and lyrical picture book jaunt from actor and author John Lithgow! Oh, children! Remember! Whatever you may do, Never play music right next to the zoo. They’ll burst from their cages, each beast and each bird, Desperate to play all the music they’ve heard. A concert gets out of hand when the animals at the neighboring zoo storm the stage and play the instruments themselves in this hilarious picture book based on one of John Lithgow’s best-loved tunes.
Learn musical improv from Laura Hall of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" Are you a musician who performs with an improv comedy group? If so, this book is for you! You'll also greatly benefit if you are a music director, improv team leader, improv teacher or coach, improv actor or singer, or just a hardcore Whose Line fan. From the Foreword by Colin Mochrie: "On Whose Line, Laura supplies note-perfect music styles for Wayne Brady, Brad Sherwood, Chip Esten, Jeff Davis, et al, to shine on. But Laura's true genius is that she can make caterwaulers like me sound good and, more important, makes caterwaulers like me feel safe enough to try. "Laura Hall is a damn fine musician, period. There is no musical style she isn't well versed in. With Laura you get experience, knowledge, and a teacher you can trust. What more could you ask for? So get reading, start playing, and have more fun than you're ready for." "I'm a Laura Hall-ic!" -Chip Esten, Nashville, Whose Line Is It Anyway? "I know and highly respect both Laura and Bob. I can't think of a better pair to teach you the fundamentals of musical improv." -Bill Chott, actor and founder of the Improv Trick Laura Hall is an accomplished musician best known as the pianist on Whose Line Is It Anyway? She also stays busy recording film scores, writing musicals, leading improv workshops with her husband Rick, and performing with her Americana music trio, The Sweet Potatoes. Bob Baker is a prolific author, musician, artist and actor, as well as an improv teacher and performer. Through his books and workshops Bob teaches creative people of all kinds how to get exposure, connect with fans, and increase their incomes.
