Vividly recreating the unique pleasure of experiencing a song-and-dance show, Broadway Babies spotlights the men and women who made a difference in the development of American musical comedy. Mordden's account features such show people as Florenz Ziegfeld, Harold Prince, Bert Lahr, Gwen Verdon, Angela Lansbury, Victor Herbert, Liza Minnelli, and Stephen Sondheim, and such musicals as Sally, Oh Kay!, Anything Goes, Show Boat, Oklahoma!, Follies, Chicago, and countless others. While theatrical historians traditionally have emphasized the role of the authors of musicals, Mordden also examines the personal styles of the directors, choreographers, and producers, in order to demonstrate not only what the musical became but what it was. The volume includes an extensive discography--the first of its kind--which offers a virtually self-contained history of recorded show music.
Author(s): Ethan Mordden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 1988
Language: English
Pages: 256
Contents......Page 10
Introduction: Broadway, 1900......Page 14
1. The Score......Page 18
2. The Urban Ethnic Emergence......Page 33
3. The Great Glorifier......Page 45
4. The Heroine......Page 60
5. The Top Banana......Page 69
6. The Book......Page 83
7. The New Style of Score......Page 92
8. The New Style of Heroine......Page 119
9. The Jazzmen......Page 132
10. The Choreographers......Page 141
11. The Musical Play......Page 149
12. A Newer Style of Heroine......Page 164
13. The Superdirectors......Page 176
14. The State of the Art......Page 193
A Selective Discography......Page 208
B......Page 250
F......Page 251
J......Page 252
M......Page 253
S......Page 254
Z......Page 255
