Overview

Despite the stock market crash of October 1929, thousands of theatregoers still flocked to the Great White Way throughout the country’s darkest years. In keeping with the Depression and the events leading up to World War II, 1930s Broadway was distinguished by numerous political revues and musicals, including three by George Gershwin (Strike Up the Band, Of Thee I Sing, and Let ’Em Eat Cake). The decade also saw the last musicals by Gershwin, Jerome Kern, and Vincent Youmans; found Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in full flower; and introduced both Kurt Weill and Harold Arlen’s music to Broadway. In The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals, Dan Dietz examines in detail every musical that opened on Broadway from 1930 through 1939. This book discusses the era’s major successes, notorious failures, and musicals that closed during their pre-Broadway tryouts. It includes such shows as Anything Goes, As Thousands Cheer, Babes in Arms, The Boys from Syracuse, The Cradle Will Rock, The Green Pastures, Hellzapoppin, Hot Mikado, Porgy and Bess, Roberta, and various editions of Ziegfeld Follies. Each entry contains the following information: Plot summaryCast membersNames of all important personnel, including writers, composers, directors, choreographers, producers, and musical directorsOpening and closing datesNumber of performancesCritical commentaryMusical numbers and the performers who introduced the songsProduction data, including information about tryoutsSource materialDetails about London and other foreign productionsBesides separate entries for each production, the book offers numerous appendixes, including a discography, filmography, and list of published scripts, as well as lists of black-themed and Jewish-themed productions. This comprehensive book contains a wealth of information and provides a comprehensive view of each show. The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals will be of use to scholars, historians, and casual fans of one of the greatest decades in musical theatre history.

Full Product Details

9781538102763

Table of Contents

Reviews

All musical theater collections and Broadway fans must add this new edition to their collections, along with the previous volumes in the series. * CHOICE *

All musical theater collections and Broadway fans must add this new edition to their collections, along with the previous volumes in the series. * Choice Reviews * The book contains 314 entries profiling musicals, revues, operas, ballets and dances, and other types of productions, staged during Broadway theater seasons 1930-1939. Entries vary in length and scope, and contain information ranging from the standard (e.g., production title, cast, and director) to the contingent (e.g., sketches, musical numbers, and number of performances). . . . The book is well-researched, to the extent that its coverage and extent of supportive details likely is unrivaled within similar books on this topic; the book’s breadth and depth is particularly notable given that Broadway theater in the 1930s lost massive numbers of audiences and performance venues. On that note, perhaps most striking are the descriptive narratives included in many of the entries. The details within the narratives are painstaking and include historical backgrounds and first-person quotations from the performances’ original critics and reviewers. . . . the book is entirely comprehensive, and anyone with even a modicum of interest on the topic should find the book both interesting and useful.—Sheri Edwards * American Reference Books Annual *

Author Information

Dan Dietz taught composition, world literature, and modern drama at Western Carolina University. He is the author of The Complete Book of 1940s Broadway Musicals (2015), The Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals (2014), The Complete Book of 1960s Broadway Musicals (2014), The Complete Book of 1970s Broadway Musicals (2015), The Complete Book of 1980s Broadway Musicals (2016), The Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals (2016), and The Complete Book of 2000s Broadway Musicals (2017), all published by Rowman & Littlefield.

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