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The Art of the American Musical: Conversations with the Creators | 
| Creators: Jackson R. Bryer, Richard Allan Davison
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $15.36
You Save: $9.59 (38%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 325638
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 308
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0813536138
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.14092273
EAN: 9780813536132
ASIN: 0813536138
Publication Date: September 25, 2005
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Shipping: International shipping available
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| Customer Reviews:
Delights and Duds May 14, 2006
7 out of 12 found this review helpful
I've resd lots of Conversations books over the years. Usually the interviewers uncover some sharp talkers as well as some duds. Here the unpleasant event is Jason Robert Brown, who seems like an egomaniacal nitwit with nothing good to say about anybody, who blames the failure of PARADE on the stupidity of American theater audiences, yet allows that there's no reason really for anyone to have a good time while seeing it.
Tommy Tune wins the Congeniality Award for admitting that the later Antonio Banderas revival of NINE was at least as good as the production he had pioneered himself way back when. That took a lot of balls I think, for anyone else might have merely sniffed and indicated otherwise. Some of the participants have been around in musical theater for only five minutes and yet they are the ones who yammer on and on just as fully as if their careers had lasted back into the 1920s. Speaking of lengthy careers, Burton Lane is very mysterious about his problems with Alan Jay Lerner in ON A CLEAR DAY, and the focus is on his Broadway work which precludes him from talking much about his wonderful work with the Freed Unit.
Arthur Laurents seems more balanced here than he did in his memoir, while I felt sad for Betty Comden and Adolph Green who it seems never got over the failure of their DOLLS LIFE musical. They seem stuck on it, like the lion with the thorn in his paw he just can't seem to get out.
The interviewers seem sharp and pretty well prepared. In a couple of cases I felt they had been warned not to discuss certain sensitive issues with their subjects, for there are some gaping holes in the narratives of, say, Sheldon Harnick and Tommy Tune. The biggest laugh? Charles Strouse's insistence that ANNIE WARBUCKS is as great a musical treat as ANNIE. He just doesn't leave it alone. It's his King Charles' head as Dickens used to say.
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