Acclaimed through three editions for its uniquely informative and
entertaining style, this fourth edition of Stanley Green's World of
Musical Comedy updates and enlarges the theatrical scope to include
such recent shows as A Chorus Line, Barnum, They're Playing Our Song,
and Annie. In a format that provides biographies of all the leading
figures in the musical's development, Stanley Green manages to convey
the spirit of the Broadway stage, its musical make-believe, and yet
remain objective about the creative swings in its history and the
careers of its individual creators. Everyone is here: Victor Herbert,
Sigmund Romberg, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, the
Gershwins, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Frank Loesser, Lerner and Loewe,
Stephen Sondheim, Cy Coleman, Marvin Hamlisch, and many others--not in a
quick run-through but in vivid detail accompanied by pertinent
interviews and photographs.This latest edition contains an expanded
appendix that lists the casts, credits, songs, and recordings of every
Broadway musical written by these illustrious and industrious composers
and librettists. As always in a Stanley Green book, the research is
exhaustive and impeccable, the presentation enjoyable, the judgments
fair. From America's foremost theater historian, here is another edition
of a classic theater chronicle.