Off-Broadway Musicals since 1919: From Greenwich Village Follies to The Toxic Avenger
In this needed complement to Larry Stempel's recentShowtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theatre, Hischak (theater, SUNY at Cortland;Theatre as Human Action: An Introduction to Theatre Arts) surveys nearly 400 musicals, providing opening dates, authors, composers, and cast members. The synopses are concise and informative and, occasionally and enjoyably, snarky (do not invite him to your theater's production ofNunsenseor any of its sequels). For the musical-obsessed and the libraries that love them, an appendix listing recordings (LP, CD, and DVD) is provided, together with a brief bibliography. Hischak explains that off-Broadway musicals offer "a more direct kind of music, dance, and comedy" than Broadway shows and often display a more direct connection to the times through music in a more intimate forum. Verdict: Your catalogers may be tempted to place this book in the reference section, but it needs to circulate because patrons will want to take it home to make lists of shows to discover, from Alfred Brooks and Ira J. Bilowit's 1958Of Mice and MentoMenopause: The Musical. An essential purchase. (Library Journal, Starred Review)The text opens with an alphabetic list of Off-Broadway musicals starting withA . . . My Name is Aliceand ending withZombies from Beyond. There follows a chronological year-by-year listing of Off-Broadway musicals. This is followed by an opening general historical essay and is in turn followed by a chronological decade-by-decade list of the Off-Broadway. This volume concludes with an alphabetic guide to recordings of the musicals, a bibliography, and a name and production index. These are preceded by a postscript in which the author bemoans the future of Off-Broadway theater because its very success is destroying it through roadway transfers as well as actors being recruited by cinema and television as a consequence of their off-Broadway recognition. . . . With excellent writing making it difficult to put downOff-Broadway Musicalsis a fun read for both scholars and fans.(American Reference Books Annual)