The 100 Most Important People in Musical Theatre

Andy Propst

From Show Boat and Oklahoma! to Wicked and Hamilton, the musical is constantly evolving thanks to the contributions of some of theatre’s most prominent figures.

Never have musicals been more popular than they are today. With live television broadcasts of shows like Rent and Hairspray and films like Mean Girls and Shrek being adapted to the stage, musicals—as well as the creators and artists who bring them to life—are at the forefront of popular culture.

In 100 Most Important People in Musical Theatre, Andy Propst profiles the individuals who have helped shape this beloved art form. Songwriting greats such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Stephen Sondheim, and Andrew Lloyd Webber are some of the familiar names in the book. So, too, are performers such as Nathan Lane, Ethel Merman, Audra McDonald, and Patti LuPone, and directors and choreographers such as Bob Fosse, Harold Prince, Jerome Robbins, and Tommy Tune. Readers learn not only about these men and women’s exceptional lives and achievements, but can peek backstage at such groundbreaking shows as Show Boat, Oklahoma!, West Side Story, Company, and A Chorus Line, among others. Period reviews and interviews highlight both the shows and the people who contributed to them.

The profiles in 100 Most Important People in Musical Theater provide a terrific history of musical theater, guiding readers from the era of operetta and the ascendancy of the book musical to the emergence of the concept musical and contemporary productions—from The Mikado and The Phantom of the Opera to Fun Home and Hamilton. This book is an invaluable addition to any musical theatre fan’s library, and will also appeal to researchers and scholars.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 288 • Trim: 7½ x 10¼

978-1-5381-1618-0 • Hardback • September 2019 • $62.00 • (£48.00)

978-1-5381-1619-7 • eBook • September 2019 • $58.50 • (£45.00)

Subjects: Performing Arts / Theater / Broadway & Musical Revue, Performing Arts / Theater / General, Performing Arts / Theater / History & Criticism, Performing Arts / Theater/ Biography

The 100 Most Important People in Musical Theatre

Hardback

eBook

Summary

From Show Boat and Oklahoma! to Wicked and Hamilton, the musical is constantly evolving thanks to the contributions of some of theatre’s most prominent figures.

Never have musicals been more popular than they are today. With live television broadcasts of shows like Rent and Hairspray and films like Mean Girls and Shrek being adapted to the stage, musicals—as well as the creators and artists who bring them to life—are at the forefront of popular culture.

In 100 Most Important People in Musical Theatre, Andy Propst profiles the individuals who have helped shape this beloved art form. Songwriting greats such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Stephen Sondheim, and Andrew Lloyd Webber are some of the familiar names in the book. So, too, are performers such as Nathan Lane, Ethel Merman, Audra McDonald, and Patti LuPone, and directors and choreographers such as Bob Fosse, Harold Prince, Jerome Robbins, and Tommy Tune. Readers learn not only about these men and women’s exceptional lives and achievements, but can peek backstage at such groundbreaking shows as Show Boat, Oklahoma!, West Side Story, Company, and A Chorus Line, among others. Period reviews and interviews highlight both the shows and the people who contributed to them.

The profiles in 100 Most Important People in Musical Theater provide a terrific history of musical theater, guiding readers from the era of operetta and the ascendancy of the book musical to the emergence of the concept musical and contemporary productions—from The Mikado and The Phantom of the Opera to Fun Home and Hamilton. This book is an invaluable addition to any musical theatre fan’s library, and will also appeal to researchers and scholars.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 288 • Trim: 7½ x 10¼

978-1-5381-1618-0 • Hardback • September 2019 • $62.00 • (£48.00)

978-1-5381-1619-7 • eBook • September 2019 • $58.50 • (£45.00)

Subjects: Performing Arts / Theater / Broadway & Musical Revue, Performing Arts / Theater / General, Performing Arts / Theater / History & Criticism, Performing Arts / Theater/ Biography

Author

Andy Propst is an arts journalist and author. His career has encompassed work with New York Shakespeare Festival founder Joseph Papp and Tony Award–winning director George C. Wolfe, as well as five years on-air at XM Satellite Radio’s XM 28 On Broadway channel. His writing has appeared in The Village Voice, Time Out/NY, Backstage, and The Sondheim Review and online at the site he founded, AmericanTheaterWeb.com, as well as TheaterMania.com and BroadwayDirect.com. He served as a judge for the Obie Awards (three years) and as a member of the nominating committee for the Drama Desk Awards (four years). In addition, he has served as a mentor for both the National Critics Institute and the National Music Theater Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. He also teaches criticism for the Institute for Theatre Journalism and Advocacy portion of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.

Table of Contents

Contents

Preface

George Abbott

John Murray Anderson

Boris Aronson

George Balanchine

Michael Bennett

Robert Russell Bennett

Irving Berlin

Leonard Bernstein

Marc Blitzstein

Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick

Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse

Gower Champion

Carol Channing

George M. Cohan

Cy Coleman

Betty Comden and Adolph Green

Agnes de Mille

Alfred Drake

William and Jean Eckart

Lehman Engel

Dorothy Fields

Harvey Fierstein

William Finn

Jules Fisher

Bob Fosse

George Gershwin

Ira Gershwin

W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan

Oscar Hammerstein II

E. Y. “Yip” Harburg

Edward “Ned” Harrigan and David Braham

Lorenz Hart

Moss Hart

Victor Herbert

Jerry Herman

Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt

John Kander and Fred Ebb

George S. Kaufman

Jerome Kern

Michael Kidd

Michael John LaChiusa

Nathan Lane

Jonathan Larson

Arthur Laurents

Gertrude Lawrence

Carolyn Leigh

Alan Jay Lerner

Goddard Lieberson

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Frank Loesser

Patti LuPone

Galt MacDermot

Cameron Mackintosh

Hugh Martin

Mary Martin

Audra McDonald

Alan Menken

Ethel Merman

David Merrick

Jo Mielziner

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Zero Mostel

Trevor Nunn

Joseph Papp

Cole Porter

Harold Prince

Tim Rice

Chita Rivera

Jerome Robbins

Richard Rodgers

Sigmund Romberg

Stephen Schwartz

Irene Sharaff

Hassard Short

Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake

Oliver Smith

Stephen Sondheim

Michael Stewart

Charles Strouse

Jule Styne

Ed Sullivan

Jeanine Tesori

Tommy Tune

Jonathan Tunick

Joseph Urban

Gwen Verdon

Robin Wagner

Ethel Waters

Kurt Weill

Bert Williams

Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Reviews

A respected member of the theater community, a former Obie Awards judge, and the author of They Made Us Happy: Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s Musicals (CH, Nov'19, 57-0916), Propst has the credentials to compile this unique resource. By important,he means US and British individuals who “had a significant impact on the form because of their innovations or the perceptions they helped to create about what musicals are" (p. xi). Unavoidably, the choices are subjective, but Propst's choices uniformly reflect the person’s importance to the form. Propst selected people from most facets of musical theater (1870–present)—performers, composers, lyricists, book writers, impresarios, directors, designers, producers, and more (e.g., Columbia Records executive Goddard Lieberson is included). Influential, powerful critics are not included. Each two-page entry covers the individual’s career without going into complete detail, although major contributions are cited. Black-and-white photos and a bibliography of secondary resources add to the volume's value. Though resources such as Ken Bloom’s Broadway: Its History, People, and Places: An Encyclopedia and Mark Robinson’s The World of Musicals: An Encyclopedia of Stage, Screen, and Song provide biographical information, no other up-to-date work narrows the collection to a relatively small but vital group.

Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.
— Choice Reviews

In this delightful compendium, Propst pays tribute to one hundred individuals on and off the stage whose contributions have made (and are still making) musical theatre one of the most popular forms of the performing arts, if not the most popular. . . . The individuals selected “have had a significant impact on the form because of their innovations or the perceptions they helped to create about what musicals are.” These are the folks who were “in the room where it happens,” from from George Abbott, Irving Berlin, and George M. Cohan to Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hal Prince, Stephen Sondheim, and more. . . . A perfect production for all formal and informal students and fans of musical theater.
— Booklist

. . . a compendium of American musical theater history, offering a between-the-lines glimpse into the behind-the-scenes story — or, at least, the perception of that story from an informed theater journalist.
— New York Theater