The Secret Life of the American Music..., Jack Viertel
The Secret Life of the American Music..., Jack Viertel
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The Secret Life of the American Musical
How Broadway Shows Are Built

Author: Jack Viertel

Narrator: David Pittu

Unabridged: 11 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/01/2016

Synopsis

For almost a century, Americans have been losing their hearts and losing their minds in an insatiable love affair with the American musical. It often begins in actors, and reaches its passionate zenith when it comes time for love, marriage, and children, who will start the cycle all over again. Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical?

In The Secret Life of the American Musical, Jack Viertel takes them apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, marvels at their unflagging inventiveness, and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he invites us to fall in love all over again by showing 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.

About Jack Viertel

Jack Viertel is the senior vice president of Jujamcyn Theaters, which owns and operates five Broadway theaters. He has been involved in dozens of productions presented by Jujamcyn since 1987, including multiple Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winners, from City of Angels to Angels in America. He has also helped shepherd six of August Wilson's plays to Broadway. He is the artistic director of New York City Center's acclaimed Encores! series, which presents three musical productions every season. In that capacity he has overseen fifty shows, for some of which he adapted the scripts. He conceived the long-running Smokey Joe's Cafe and the critically acclaimed After Midnight and has been a creative consultant on many shows, including Hairspray, A Christmas Story, and Dear Evan Hansen. He was the Mark Taper Forum's dramaturg and the drama critic and arts editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, and he has spent a decade teaching musical theater at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Michael on March 11, 2016

Despite the use of the word "built" in the title, this book has nothing to do (unfortunately) with the staging, casting, performing, choreography, or physical production of musicals, but only with how they are constructed as a work. The author has an interesting template--big opening number, star tu......more

Goodreads review by David on February 28, 2021

This book is a description of musical theater productions in America. The most famous and successful shows are described and analyzed in some detail. The analysis extends to the "rules" of musical theater. These rules are not engraved in stone, but are the characteristics that most successful shows......more

Goodreads review by Ayelet on July 14, 2020

I wasn't going to review this but so many things started bubbling up and eventually becoming gigantic gaps in Viertel's analysis, that I felt like I had to acknowledge it. I absolutely love musical theatre and I love exploring the tropes that are most often present within the canon. I also feel like......more

Goodreads review by hillary on July 15, 2017

A really good and interesting book, just what I was looking for. Two of the chapters are almost completely off-topic but the rest is a gem. I had no previous musical theatre education but while reading this book I had no problems at all. It also was very entertaining and the writing style suited me......more

Goodreads review by andrea on April 17, 2022

This book describes different elements of the theatrical process and how they all come together to create a money-making show. As a musical theatre major, I am someone who enjoys the topics and information discussed in this book, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't enjoy musicals. A de......more

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