Sense of Occasion, Harold Prince
Sense of Occasion, Harold Prince
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Sense of Occasion

Author: Harold Prince

Narrator: Michael Butler Murray

Unabridged: 10 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 01/05/2021


Synopsis

In this fast-moving, candid, conversational, and entertaining memoir, Harold Prince, the most honored director/producer in the history of the American theater looks back over his seventy-year career.

In 1974, Prince released his first book, Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-Six Years in the Theatre. Although Contradictions has since attained cult status among producers, directors, and actors alike, Prince, in hindsight, believes he wasn't ready to publish such a tome at that point in his career. Although he doesn't regret that effort, he is at last prepared to conclude it. In Sense of Occasion, Prince returns to this seminal text, invigorating it with fresh insights cultivated through four decades of additional practice.

As well as detailing his titanic successes that changed the form and content of the American musical theater, Prince evenhandedly reflects on the shows that didn't work, most memorably and painfully Merrily We Roll Along. Throughout, he offers insights into the way business is conducted on Broadway, drawing sharp contrasts between past and present. This thoughtful, complete account of one of the most legendary and long-lived careers in theater history, written by the man who lived it, is an essential work of personal and professional recollection.

About Harold Prince

Harold Prince (1928-2019) directed the original productions of She Loves Me, It's a Bird . . . It's a Plane . . . It's Superman, Cabaret, Zorba, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, On the Twentieth Century, Sweeney Todd, Evita, Merrily We Roll Along, The Phantom of the Opera, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Parade, and LoveMusik. He also directed acclaimed revivals of Candide and Show Boat.

Before becoming a director, Mr. Prince produced the original productions of The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, New Girl in Town, West Side Story, Fiorello!, Tenderloin, Flora the Red Menace, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Fiddler on the Roof. The plays he directed include Hollywood Arms, The Visit, The Great God Brown, End of the World, Play Memory, and his own play, Grandchild of Kings. Most recently, Prince of Broadway, a musical compendium of Mr. Prince's entire career, opened on Broadway in August of 2017.

His opera productions have been seen at Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, and the Theater Colon in Buenos Aires. His most recent version of Candide was seen at New York City Opera in January of 2017.

Mr. Prince received twenty-one Tony Awards, a Kennedy Center Honor, and the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center's Monte Cristo Award. He was inducted into the Lincoln Center Hall of Fame as a part of their inaugural class and received a National Medal of the Arts from President Clinton for a career in which "he changed the nature of the American musical."


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jonathan on October 15, 2018

A conversational chronicle and candid analysis of his many hits, seminal musicals and occasional flops in Harold Prince's 70-year career in the theater. The first two-thirds of “Sense of Occasion” – 200 of its 300 pages – is a reprint of his 1974 memoir, “Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-Six Years in......more

Goodreads review by Kara on August 18, 2019

Revelatory.......more

Goodreads review by Beth on May 29, 2019

The Prince of Broadway indeed. If you are devoted to "modern" theater, especially musical theater, you know Hal Prince. Now read what he has to say...his life, his experience and great insight.......more

Goodreads review by Danny on April 03, 2020

What a frustrating and pointless book. Hal Prince was a creative force behind some of the most important and influential musicals of the second half of the twentieth century--and he sure wants you to know it! When he isn't taking sole credit for a show's success, he's placing the blame for a show's......more

Goodreads review by David on March 29, 2020

Prince doesn’t offer much introspection, and not even all that much recollection in this survey of his career. He displays either an inability or a disinterest in understanding the perspectives of anyone else he encountered, which has the effect of making him often seem bitter and whiny rather than......more