Author: Ray Klausen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781792374517
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description

Author: Brent Phillips
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813147220
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 524

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Book Description
A “lively biography” of the director who choreographed Fred Astaire, Debbie Reynolds and more: “a real backstager” on the making of Hollywood musicals (Wall Street Journal). From the trolley scene in Meet Me in St. Louis to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers's last dance on the silver screen to Judy Garland's tuxedo-clad performance of "Get Happy", Charles Walters staged the iconic musical sequences of Hollywood's golden age. The Academy Award-nominated director and choreographer showcased the talents of stars such as Gene Kelly, Doris Day, and Frank Sinatra—yet Walters's name often goes unrecognized today. In the first full-length biography of Walters, Brent Phillips chronicles the artist's career from his days as a Broadway performer to his successes at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Phillips takes readers behind the scenes of beloved musicals including Easter Parade, Lili, and High Society. He also examines the director's uncredited work on films like Gigi, and discusses his contributions to musical theater and American popular culture. This revealing book also considers Walters's personal life and explores how he navigated the industry as an openly gay man. Drawing on unpublished oral histories, correspondence, and new interviews, this biography offers an entertaining and important new look at an exciting era in Hollywood history.

Author: Steven Suskin
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9781557836311
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
"These cautionary tales are provocative, highly instructive, occasionally brutal, and, from a safe distance, downright hilarious, making Second Act Trouble the perfect Broadway bedtime reader - unless you are prone to nightmares."--BOOK JACKET.

Author: Martin Shingler
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137406585
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This book offers a different take on the early history of Warner Bros., the studio renowned for introducing talking pictures and developing the gangster film and backstage musical comedy. The focus here is on the studio’s sustained commitment to produce films based on stage plays. This led to the creation of a stock company of talented actors, to the introduction of sound cinema, to the recruitment of leading Broadway stars such as John Barrymore and George Arliss and to films as diverse as The Gold Diggers (1923), The Marriage Circle (1924), Beau Brummel (1924), Disraeli (1929), Lilly Turner (1933), The Petrified Forest (1936) and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). Even the most crippling effects of the Depression in 1933 did not prevent Warners’ production of films based on stage plays, many being transformed into star vehicles for the likes of Ruth Chatterton, Leslie Howard and Bette Davis.

Author: Caseen Gaines
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1492688827
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
The triumphant story of how an all-Black Broadway cast and crew changed musical theatre—and the world—forever. "This musical introduced Black excellence to the Great White Way. Broadway was forever changed and we, who stand on the shoulders of our brilliant ancestors, are charged with the very often elusive task of carrying that torch into our present."—Billy Porter, Tony, Grammy, and Emmy Award-winning actor If Hamilton, Rent, or West Side Story captured your heart, you'll love this in-depth look into the rise of the 1921 Broadway hit, Shuffle Along, the first all-Black musical to succeed on Broadway. No one was sure if America was ready for a show featuring nuanced, thoughtful portrayals of Black characters—and the potential fallout was terrifying. But from the first jazzy, syncopated beats of composers Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, New York audiences fell head over heels. Footnotes is the story of how Sissle and Blake, along with comedians Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, overcame poverty, racism, and violence to harness the energy of the Harlem Renaissance and produce a runaway Broadway hit that launched the careers of many of the twentieth century's most beloved Black performers. Born in the shadow of slavery and establishing their careers at a time of increasing demands for racial justice and representation for people of color, they broke down innumerable barriers between Black and white communities at a crucial point in our history. Author and pop culture expert Caseen Gaines leads readers through the glitz and glamour of New York City during the Roaring Twenties to reveal the revolutionary impact one show had on generations of Americans, and how its legacy continues to resonate today. Praise for Footnotes: "A major contribution to culture."—Brian Jay Jones, New York Times bestselling author of Jim Henson: The Biography "With meticulous research and smooth storytelling, Caseen Gaines significantly deepens our understanding of one of the key cultural events that launched the Harlem Renaissance."—A Lelia Bundles, New York Times bestselling author of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker "Absorbing..."—The Wall Street Journal

Author: Devoney Looser
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421422832
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
An engaging account of how Jane Austen became a household name. Just how did Jane Austen become the celebrity author and the inspiration for generations of loyal fans she is today? Devoney Looser's The Making of Jane Austen turns to the people, performances, activism, and images that fostered Austen's early fame, laying the groundwork for the beloved author we think we know. Here are the Austen influencers, including her first English illustrator, the eccentric Ferdinand Pickering, whose sensational gothic images may be better understood through his brushes with bullying, bigamy, and an attempted matricide. The daring director-actress Rosina Filippi shaped Austen's reputation with her pioneering dramatizations, leading thousands of young women to ventriloquize Elizabeth Bennet's audacious lines before drawing room audiences. Even the supposedly staid history of Austen scholarship has its bizarre stories. The author of the first Jane Austen dissertation, student George Pellew, tragically died young, but he was believed by many, including his professor-mentor, to have come back from the dead. Looser shows how these figures and their Austen-inspired work transformed Austen's reputation, just as she profoundly shaped theirs. Through them, Looser describes the factors and influences that radically altered Austen's evolving image. Drawing from unexplored material, Looser examines how echoes of that work reverberate in our explanations of Austen's literary and cultural power. Whether you're a devoted Janeite or simply Jane-curious, The Making of Jane Austen will have you thinking about how a literary icon is made, transformed, and handed down from generation to generation.

Author: Laurel van der Linde
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1582704511
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
From ballet and contemporary to hip-hop and even Broadway, this book reveals what it really takes to build a career in dance today.

Author: Geoffrey M. Horn
Publisher: Gareth Stevens Publishing LLLP
ISBN: 0836868390
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
Describes how sound is used in movies to set moods and reflect reality, and how this has been developed and refined over the years.

Author: Lynn Nottage
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
ISBN: 1559364424
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 105

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Book Description
A new comedy by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ruined.

Author: Andy Propst
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190630949
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Betty Comden and Adolph Green were the writers behind such classic stage musicals as On the Town, Wonderful Town, and Bells Are Ringing, and they provided lyrics for such standards as "New York, New York," "Just in Time," "The Party's Over," and "Make Someone Happy," to name just a few. This remarkable duo, the longest-running partnership in theatrical history, also penned the screenplays for such cinematic gems as Singin' in the Rain and The Band Wagon. In the process they worked with such artists as Leonard Bernstein, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Judy Holliday, and Jule Styne. They Made Us Happy is the first book to tell the full story of their careers, lives, and work, starting with their acclaimed appearances as part of the sketch troupe the Revuers and moving through their bi-coastal lives as a pair of Broadway's top writers and two of Hollywood's most valued scribes. The book takes readers on a trip through almost the entirety of the twentieth century, and along the way there are appearances by the likes of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Greta Garbo, and Charlie Chaplin. Author Andy Propst brings both their produced work to life as well as many of the projects that that never made it to the stage or the screen, including an aborted musical version of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, a bio-pic about director-choreographer Busby Berkeley, and their version of the book for Cole Porter's musical Out of This World. Comden and Green's wit and deft satire inspired laughs during their lives, and their musicals and movies have endured, amusing generation after generation. It's work that will always be making audiences happy.