Gerald Bordman – författare

This three-volume work will accomplish for the American non-musical theatre what Bordman's American Musical Theatre did for our song-and-dance entertainments: it chronicles, in order by opening, every Broadway comedy and drama, show by show, season by season, offering a plot synopsis, principal players, and important statistics. Scenery and costumes are described where they might be of interest, and comments of the plays' contemporary critics are quoted. In many instances, extended excerpts from the play are included to give the reader a fuller understanding of its nuances and its period dialogue. Also included, and worked chronologically into the text, are details about cheap-priced, cliff-hanging melodramas, such as Bertha, the Sewing Machine Girl and His Sister's Shame, which were among America's most popular diversions in theatres catering to blue-collar playgoers until silent films drew away their audiences. Examples of shows produced and designed for other than New York are included. This volume deals with the great expansion of American theatre after the Civil War, the careers of such prominent actors and actresses as Edwin Booth, Mrs. Fiske, the Drew and Barrymore families, the first important American playwrights like Clyde Fitch, producers like David Belasco, and the influence of foreign plays and players. This stage history, besides giving a sense of each production, touches on the literary worth of the plays, provides brief biographies of major figures, and sets all of this against the economic and social backgrounds of the time. Readers will close the book feeling they, like their parents and grandparents, have sat through performances of these shows of another era.

This is the second volume in Bordman's monumental history of the non-musical American theatre. It analyses each Broadway show chronologically from 1914 to 1930 - the period when American drama was most prolific and productive.

This book concludes Gerald Bordman's survey of American non-musical theatre. It deals with the years 1930 to 1970, a period when the production of new plays was declining, but, at the same time, a period when American drama fully entered the world stage and became a dominant presence. Despite the looming presence of the film industry, this period was a golden age rich in plays, playwrights, and performers. From Eugene O'Neill's A Long Day's Journey into Night and Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire to Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, American theatre finally reached adulthood both dramatically and psychologically. In addition, many brilliant acting careers were launched or climaxed on the American stage, including Henry Fonda and Jessica Tandy, and foreign stars, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. Bordman's study covers every Broadway production, and, increasingly in the 1950s and 1960s, every major off-Broadway show. His discussion moves season by season and show by show in chronological order; he offers plot synopses and details the physical production, directors, players, theaters, and newspaper reviews. Bordman stops at 1970, because, in his view, the decline in quantity and quality had reached an all time low, with British playwrights providing the only memorable dramas on the English-speaking stage. This book and the preceding volumes of The American Theatre stands as the standard history of American drama in all its aspects.

The new edition of the leading survey of the American musical has been expanded and updated to cover the 1999-2000 season. Covering more than 250 years o musical theater history, the new edition of the book Newsweek called "the best reference of its kind" is an ummatched blend of narrative history, expert critical judgement, and detailed, show-by-show, season-by-season decscription.

First published in 1984, Gerald Bordman's Oxford Companion to American Theatre is the standard one-volume source on our national theatre. Critics have hailed its "wealth of authoritative information" (Back Stage), its "fascinating picture of the volatile American stage" (The Guardian), and its "well-chosen, illuminating facts" (Newsday).Now thoroughly revised, this distinguished volume once again provides an up-to-date guide to the American stage from its beginnings to the present. Completely updated by theater professor Thomas Hischak, the volume includes playwrights, plays, actors, directors, producers, songwriters, famous playhouses, dramatic movements, and much more. The book covers not only classic works (such as Death of a Salesman) but also many commercially successful plays (such as Getting Gertie's Garter), plus entries on foreign figures that have influenced our dramatic development (from Shakespeare to Beckett and Pinter). New entries include recent plays such as Angels in America and Six Degrees of Separation, performers such as Eric Bogosian and Bill Irwin, playwrights like David Henry Hwang and Wendy Wasserstein, and relevant developments and issues including AIDS in American theatre, theatrical producing by Disney, and the rise in solo performance.Accessible and authoritative, this valuable A-Z reference is ideal not only for students and scholars of theater, but everyone with a passion for the stage.

Hailed as "absolutely the best reference book on its subject" by Newsweek, American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle covers more than 250 years of musical theatre in the United States, from a 1735 South Carolina production of Flora, or Hob in the Well to The Addams Family in 2010. Authors Gerald Bordman and Richard Norton write an engaging narrative blending history, critical analysis, and lively description to illustrate the transformation of American musical theatre through such incarnations as the ballad opera, revue, Golden Age musical, rock musical, Disney musical, and, with 2010's American Idiot, even the punk musical. The Chronicle is arranged chronologically and is fully indexed according to names of shows, songs, and people involved, for easy searching and browsing. Chapters range from the "Prologue", which traces the origins of American musical theater to 1866, through several "intermissions" (for instance, "Broadway's Response to the Swing Era, 1937-1942") and up to "Act Seven", the theatre of the twenty-first century. This last chapter covers the dramatic changes in musical theatre since the last edition published-whereas Fosse, a choreography-heavy revue, won the 1999 Tony for Best Musical, the 2008 award went to In the Heights, which combines hip-hop, rap, meringue and salsa unlike any musical before it. Other groundbreaking and/or box-office-breaking shows covered for the first time include Avenue Q, The Producers, Billy Elliot, Jersey Boys, Monty Python's Spamalot, Wicked, Hairspray, Urinetown the Musical, and Spring Awakening.Discussion of these shows incorporates plot synopses, names of principal players, descriptions of scenery and costumes, and critical reactions. In addition, short biographies interspersed throughout the text colorfully depict the creative minds that shaped the most influential musicals. Collectively, these elements create the most comprehensive, authoritative history of musical theatre in this country and make this an essential resource for students, scholars, performers, dramaturges, and musical enthusiasts.