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Broadway Babies Say Goodnight: Musicals Then and Now 1st Edition
Purchase options and add-ons
- ISBN-109780415922869
- ISBN-13978-0415922869
- Edition1st
- PublisherRoutledge
- Publication dateApril 14, 1999
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions6.25 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
- Print length352 pages
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Review
"A columnist and critic offers an irreverent history of the Broadway musical, a diverse and lively art form that, judging from the flood of revivals these days, may be in its death throes. Broadway Babies is an eccentric, funny, shrewd and somewhat dismaying book." -- St. Paul PioneerPress
"Wise but wicked in his analysis...Steyn leaves no turn unstoned...At last, a book of theater criticism with real teeth; it may rankle, but it never bores." -- Out Magazine
"[B]rilliantly opinionated British critic [Mark Steyn] knows the history of Broadway (and West End) musicals, and he makes us care that the current crop lacks conviction and craft. He excoriates meretricious gimmicks and he makes us yearn for shows that are authentic and believable because they are rooted in the human experience." -- Wall Street Journal
"Broadway Babies offers an unapologetically anecdotal and extremely personal account of musical theatre from TheBlack Crook (1866) to Rent (1996). With an emphasis on the last seventy years, Steyn charts the musical's highs, lows, and the banalities in-between, and he raises provocative questions about the future of the form. His discussion is peppered with observations from individuals associated with the most sublime - as well as the most ridiculous - shows ever produced, and he fearlessly takes on some of the sacred deities of the musical theatre. For even the most casual musical devotee, Broadway Babies will surely provoke, frustrate, and occasionally entertain." -- Broadside
"Steyn on Broadway is a very compelling autopsy report." -- Booklist 4/99
"...this delighful, irreverent romp through seven decades of American musical theater...a spontaneous mix of vibrating history, juicy gossip, plot and song analysis and pungent criticm..." -- Publishers Weekly
"Steyn is, alongside John Lahr of The New Yorker, the best working critic of my lifetime...This is the funniest, most vital, admirable, irritating, true and false account of the musical theatre ever published." -- Sheridan Morley, London Sunday Times
"Totally different and engrossing, this study is an important addition to the literature." -- Choice
"The critic Mark Steyn probably knows as much about musical theatre as anyone who has ever worked in that maddening field. In fact, I suspect he knows more... This is as unblinkered a history of musicals as has ever been written." -- Tim Rice, The Daily Telegraph
About the Author
Mark Steyn is a columnist for Britain's Daily Telegraph and Canada's National Post. He is theatre critic of TheNew Criterion, North American correspondent of TheSpectator, and also contributes to The Wall StreetJournal and The American Spectator. A Canadian citizen, he lives in New Hampshire and Québec.
Product details
- ASIN : 0415922860
- Publisher : Routledge; 1st edition (April 14, 1999)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 352 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780415922869
- ISBN-13 : 978-0415922869
- Item Weight : 1.4 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,519,315 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,039 in Musicals (Books)
- #4,135 in LGBTQ+ Demographic Studies
- #11,159 in Literary Criticism & Theory
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Introducing him at the United States Senate in 2015, Ted Cruz called Mark Steyn "an international bestselling author, a Top Five jazz recording artist, and a leading Canadian human rights activist".
All of which happens to be true.
Mark Steyn is the author of After America, which was a Top Five bestseller in the United States and a Number One bestseller in Canada; America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It, a New York Times bestseller in the United States and a Number One bestseller in Canada; and his most recent bestseller, The [Un]documented Mark Steyn. His new book, The Prisoner of Windsor, is set to release in April 2023.
His most recent CD is his cat album, dedicated to his own beloved cat Marvin: Feline Groovy: Songs for Swingin' Cats was a Number One jazz bestseller, a Top Twenty album on the Billboard chart, and a Top Thirty album on Amazon's pop chart. "A Marshmallow World", his Christmas single with Jessica Martin, reached Number Seven on Amazon's easy listening bestsellers, and Number 41 on their main pop chart. Their subsequent full-length Christmas album, Making Spirits Bright, reached Number Four on the jazz chart. "Nine Lives", the song he co-wrote with Kevin Amos, was a Top Thirty smash on the Moldovan Hit Parade.
Steyn's human rights campaign to restore free speech to Canada led to the repeal by Parliament of the notorious "Section 13" hate-speech law, a battle he recounts in his book Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech And The Twilight Of The West.
Steyn hosts The Mark Steyn Show, which airs every evening Monday to Thursday. He also presents Steyn's Song of the Week every Sunday afternoon on Serenade Radio. In New York he can be heard with his longtime EIB comrade, Bo Snerdley, every Tuesday on 77 WABC.
For a decade and a half until Rush's death, Mark Steyn was a hugely popular guest-host of America's Number One radio show The Rush Limbaugh Program (EIB). He was also a favorite guest-host of America's Number One cable show Tucker Carlson Tonight, and hosted its lead-in-show Fox News Primetime. He regularly drew some of the highest ratings in all US television as a host for Tucker and other top shows.
With fans around the world, Steyn has appeared on stages across the planet from Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. His 2016 nationwide tour of Australia was sold out coast to coast. He has spoken in the Canadian Parliament, the Ontario Parliament, the Danish Parliament, and the Australian Parliament, where he was introduced by the then Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop.
Over the years, Mark Steyn's writing on politics, arts and culture has been published in almost every major newspaper around the English-speaking world, including Britain's Daily Telegraph, Canada's National Post, The Australian, The Irish Times, The Jerusalem Post, The Wall Street Journal, and many more.
Steyn's other books include A Song For The Season, Mark Steyn's Passing Parade, Mark Steyn From Head To Toe and The Face Of The Tiger. His personal view of musical theatre, Broadway Babies Say Goodnight, is an acknowledged classic published to critical acclaim in London, and to somewhat sniffier notices in New York.
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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This is an author who loves his subject. His first hand interviews with some of the great luminaries of the Broadway theater like Jules Styne, George Abbott, and Cy Coleman bring the backstage evolution of the musical to life. His marvelous command of the English language make the subject matter even more interesting.
The other reviewers who suggest "homophobia" on Steyn's part are way off base. It is his forthright acknowledgement of gay accomplishment in the theater along with the terrible scourge of AIDS that has had a significant impact on the musical because its greatest modern practitioners are dying off without passing on their wisdom. Of what relevance is the fact that Steyn is a political conservative or a sometime writer for the Wall Street Journal have anything to do with the subject of Broadway musicals?
Enjoy this book for what it is; a glorious paean to a great art form.
Irritating, because it's riddled with factual inaccuracies, even on simple matters. "Dancing in the Dark" is in a major, not minor, key. "One for the Gipper" is not from "a biopic of the baseball player George Gipp", it's from a biopic of the football coach Knute Rockne. These are not isolated instances, and cause one to distrust the accuracy of facts less easily verified.
Further irritating, because it aims at musical pretension with lots of technical terms (including the British use of words like "crotchet" and "quaver"), but quotes melodies not by printing the music, but by representations like "Da-da-dee-dum". The author knows far less about music than he wants the uninitiated reader to think.
In short, this is a fun book to read, but prepare to be cross with the author at frequent intervals.
A truly remarkable accounting of so many songs and stories. A truly wonderful and lovely writer, writing about what he loves best.
Seriously, ANYTHING that you can/will read by Mark Steyn will embellish your Life.
Top reviews from other countries
Mark Steyn has an easy style, humorous and informative without being formal. He's a music theatre journalist so his chapters read more like articles and you don't get those long, rambling bits that academics can be so fond of.
He writes chapters about what he sees as the important bits: The Show, The Music, The Lyrics as well as the more peripheral, but no less important elements: The Brits, The Fags, The Jokes.
He has a wealth of knowledge about Musical Theatre from minstrel shows and Vaudeville to MegaMusicals. He doesn't force his knowledge on you and often historical references are served up with a witty sideline. Actually, Mark Steyn is a very witty man, something else which helps this book. How often can you read an "academic" book and have a good giggle as you go along?
Though he worked for The Daily Telegraph and The Independent, he doesn't have much to say about British Musical Theatre pre-Lloyd-Webber/Mackintosh, which is a shame. One book that is missing off the shelves is a detailed account of the development of music theatre in this country (Well, more than one would be nice).
I recommend this book to anyone who likes the hip hooray and ballyhoo, and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.