Razzle Dazzle

The Battle for Broadway

Michael Riedel

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781451672183
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: North American History

“A vivid page-turner” (NPR) detailing the rise, fall, and redemption of Broadway—its stars, its biggest shows, its producers, and all the drama, intrigue, and power plays that happened behind the scenes.

“A rich, lovely, debut history of New York theater in the 1970s and eighties” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Razzle Dazzle is a narrative account of the people and the money and the power that turned New York’s gritty back alleys and sex-shops into the glitzy, dazzling Great White Way.

In the mid-1970s Times Square was the seedy symbol of New York’s economic decline. Its once shining star, the renowned Shubert Organization, was losing theaters to make way for parking lots and losing money. Bernard Jacobs and Jerry Schoenfeld, two ambitious board members, saw the crumbling company was ripe for takeover and staged a coup and staved off corporate intrigue, personal betrayals and criminal investigations. Once Jacobs and Schoenfeld solidified their power, they turned a collapsed theater-owning holding company into one of the most successful entertainment empires in the world, spearheading the revitalization of Broadway and the renewal of Times Square.

“For those interested in the business behind the greasepaint, at a riveting time in Broadway’s and New York’s history, this is the ticket” (USA TODAY). Michael Riedel tells the stories of the Shubert Organization and the shows that re-built a city in grand style—including Cats, A Chorus Line, and Mamma Mia!—revealing the backstage drama that often rivaled what transpired onstage, exposing bitter rivalries, unlikely alliances, and inside gossip. “The trouble with Razzle Dazzle is…you can’t put the damn thing down” (Huffington Post).

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Author’s Note
• One: The Ice Age
• Two: The Phantom
• Three: Mr. Lee and Mr. J. J.
• Four: While There Is Death There Is Hope
• Five: Bastards, Criminals, and Drunks
• Six: Changing of the Guard
• Seven: New York, New York, a Helluva Mess
• Eight: The Coup
• Nine: Rotten to the Core
• Ten: Horsing Around
• Eleven: The Paintman Cometh
• Twelve: The Jockey
• Thirteen: The One
• Fourteen: The Interloper
• Fifteen: I Love New York, Especially in the Evening
• Sixteen: The Coiled Cobra
• Seventeen: The Bernie and Jerry Show
• Eighteen: The Jockey and the Godfather
• Nineteen: Civil War
• Twenty: And the Winner Is . . .
• Twenty-One: CAT$
• Twenty-Two: Mesmerizing Temptation
• Twenty-Three: End of the Line
• Twenty-Four: The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming!
• Twenty-Five: Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little
• Twenty-Six: Nothing Matters
• Epilogue: Exit Music
• Photographs
• Acknowledgments
• About Michael Riedel
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright