New Broadways: Theatre Across America: Approaching a New Millennium - Hardcover

Berkowitz, Gerald M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1557832579 ISBN 13: 9781557832573

Publisher: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2000

Synopsis

(Applause Books). In 1950, the terms "American theatre" and "Broadway" were virtually synonymous. As the new century begins, Broadway is only a small part of a vital, creative, and varied national theatrical scene. This lively and authoritative book combines a history of the many changes the spread of regional and non-profit theatres, the rise of Off-Broadway and other alternatives, the decline of Broadway with an analysis of their implications and the problems they have brought, a look at new audiences, the causes of failure, and the unexpected complications of success. Hardcover.

About this title

Review:

Once upon a time in American theater, there was Broadway and there was the road. New shows might try out for Broadway on the road--theaters in cities such as New Haven, Atlantic City, Philadelphia, and Chicago, and Broadway hits might tour on the road for years. But until the 1960s, Broadway was more or less the center of the theatrical universe. As this new book chronicles, however, things have changed. Broadway's output--particularly of non-musical dramas and comedies--has decreased, but the appetite for them has increased, leading to the mass decentralization of American theater in less than 35 years. New Broadways chronicles this trend shaped by regional theaters like the Alley Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Long Wharf Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, and others, and shows how new, regional playwriting voices are being cultivated.

From Library Journal:

In revising and updating his first edition (LJ 8/82), Berkowitz has made even better the best survey of American professional theater since 1950. After an admirably concise chapter on the theater and drama of the first half of the century, he describes the changes within the Off-Broadway, Off-Off, regional, and other alternative movements and finally Broadway itself, from 1950 through early 1997. Discussions of individual companies and their founders, major dramatists, acting styles, the rise and fall in foundation and government support, the shift of the commercial (Broadway) theater's role from exporter to importer of plays and musicals, changes in production, and the increasingly blurred distinctions between commercial and nonprofit theater are skillfully interwoven within an essentially but not oppressively chronological scheme. Best of all, the author does not view nonprofit and commercial theater simplistically as good guys vs. bad guys. This is an excellent introduction for general readers, and experts will find provocative many of Berkowitz's opinions and the quotations from his recent interviews with dozens of theater professionals. Strongly recommended for all public and academic libraries. (Illustrations and index not seen.)?Robert W. Melton, Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1557832579
• ISBN 13: 9781557832573
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 280