The Secret Life of the American Musical

How Broadway Shows Are Built

Jack Viertel

• Publisher: Sarah Crichton Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780374256920
• eBook ISBN: 9780374711252
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

New York Times Bestseller: "Both revelatory and entertaining... Along the way, Viertel provides some fascinating Broadway history." — The New York Times Book Review Americans invented musicals—and have a longstanding love affair with them. But what, exactly, is a musical? In this book, longtime theatrical producer and writer Jack Viertel takes them apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he shows 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. Beginning with an overture and concluding with a curtain call, with stops in between for "I Want" songs, "conditional" love songs, production numbers, star turns, and finales, Viertel shows us patterns in the architecture of classic shows and charts the inevitable evolution that has taken place in musical theater as America itself has evolved socially and politically. The Secret Life of the American Musical makes you feel like you're there in the rehearsal room, the front row, and the offices of theater owners and producers as they pursue their own love affair with that rare and elusive beast—the Broadway hit. "A valuable addition to the theater lover's bookshelf.... fans will appreciate the dips into memoir and Viertel's takes on original cast albums." — Publishers Weekly "Even seasoned hands will come away with a clearer understanding of why some shows work while others flop." — Commentary "A showstopper... infectiously entertaining." —John Lahr, author of Notes on a Cowardly Lion "Thoroughly interesting." — The A.V. Club "The best general-audience analysis of musical theater I have read in many years." — The Charlotte Observer "Delightful... a little bit history, a little bit memoir, a little bit criticism and, for any theater fan, a whole lot of fun." — The Dallas Morning News

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Notice
• Dedication
• Tuning Up: or, How I Came to Write This Book
• A Note About the Shows Discussed—and a Few Other Matters
• 1. Overture
• 2. Curtain Up, Light the Lights: Opening Numbers
• 3. The Wizard and I: The “I Want” Song
• 4. If I Loved You: Conditional Love Songs
• 5. Put On Your Sunday Clothes: The Noise
• 6. Bushwhacking 1: Second Couples
• 7. Bushwhacking 2: Villains
• 8. Bushwhacking 3: The Multiplot, and How It Thickens
• 9. Adelaide’s Lament: Stars
• 10. Tevye’s Dream: Tent Poles
• 11. La Vie Bohème: Curtain: Act 1
• 12. Intermission
• 13. Clambake: Curtain Up: Act 2
• 14. Suddenly Seymour: The Candy Dish
• 15. All er Nothin’: Beginning to Pack
• 16. The Small House of Joseph Smith, the American Moses: The Main Event
• 17. I Thought You Did It for Me, Momma: The Next-to-Last Scene
• 18. You Can’t Stop the Beat: The End
• 19. Curtain Call: How Woody Guthrie—of All People—Changed Broadway Musicals Forever
• Notes
• Listening to Broadway
• Index
• Acknowledgments
• A Note About the Author
• Newsletter Sign-up
• Contents
• Copyright