Feeling a bit adrift now that the Tony Awards are over? Take heart: New shows have already opened on Broadway! And Broadway shows are always touring around the world, and local and student theater are happening everywhere. Awards season may be over, but theater season never ends.
Of course, you can’t always be attending a Broadway show or touring production or local shows bringing theater to life. For example, you have to eat. You also have to travel to the theatre, sometimes stand in line for tickets, you also have to work (unfortunately, unless you work in the theater, in which case, huzzah!), and so on. So when you’re not at a Broadway show, here are some of the best theater books of the season to keep you entertained.
Theater Kid
By Jeffrey Seller
$29.99, Simon & Schuster
We can’t all be onstage. (I mean, sure, we know we’d kill doing “Rose’s Turn,” but there are only so many productions of Gypsy in the world.) For theater kids like Jeffrey Seller, wanting to be a part of it all was not an option — it was a requirement. In his case, that meant a rough childhood followed by a desire to do anything and everything to be a part of the magic he saw onstage. And that led to a career as a producer, where Seller worked on a remarkable string of shows, including Rent, Avenue Q, In the Heights, Hamilton, and the recent top-notch revival of Sweeney Todd, to name a few. That list got your attention, didn’t it? And Seller has stories to tell. Sweet stories. Innovative stories (like the pioneering introduction of low-priced rush and lottery tickets). But above all, theater stories.
Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Brokenhearted
By Ben Okri
$24.99, Other Press
Audition
By Katie Kitamura
$28, Riverhead Books
Remember This
By Anthony Giardina
$29, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Three new works of fiction inspired by or set in the world of theater. Booker Prize winner Ben Okri’s latest is a spin on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with upper-class Brits wandering a French forest while awaiting the psychic medium Madame Sosostris. Charming, but piercing. Acclaimed author Katie Kitamura dishes up a novel sure to be snatched up by Nicole Kidman or someone looking for a great role. It’s the story of an acclaimed actress having lunch with a handsome young man who could be her son. But who can tell, since we’re all auditioning for a role every minute of our lives? A twisty, heady mind-bender of a story. And in Remember This, success proves troublesome for both a father and a daughter. The daughter is making major headway (finally!) in her biography of an important woman artist. But her playwright father keeps intruding. His problem? Not a successful play, but unfortunately a tossed-off self-help book that’s proving embarrassingly popular.
If the Song Doesn’t Work, Change the Dress
By Patricia Zipprodt With Arnold Wengrow
$35, Methuen Drama
In Gad We Trust
By Josh Gad
$28.99, Gallery Books
Self-Sabotage
By Jeffrey Self
$28, HarperOne
Three memoirs worth diving into
The unique book If the Song Doesn’t Work, Change the Dress celebrates the career of the legendary Tony winning costume designer Patricia Zipprodt. Zipprodt offered up a memoir before her death in 1999, but it’s now been enhanced by Arnold Wengrow, who uses her letters, interviews and other ephemera to paint an even brighter picture of this artist, her life, and her career. The book also includes illustrations and the like from her work, which includes everything from the original productions of Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, and Sunday in the Park With George to an Alice in Wonderland, for which she lovingly brought to life the images of the book’s original illustrator, John Tenniel.
Actor Josh Gad keeps conquering new worlds. He’s been a reporter for The Daily Show, a celebrated voice actor (Frozen, anybody?), a live-action movie star (Beauty and the Beast), a lead in one of the biggest Broadway hits of all time (The Book of Mormon), cowriter of a comic book, spokesperson for mental health, and supporter of various charities, among other successes. So, naturally, he’s written a memoir so he can continue conquering publishing. Gad opens up about dealing with his parents’ divorce, self-image over his weight, how Jake Gyllenhaal heard songs from the project that became The Book of Mormon and told him he really, really should not do it, and other funny stories from a career that continues to go in unexpected directions.
Jeffrey Self is a theater kid, just like Jeffrey Seller. But just try to keep Self out of the spotlight. He’s done it all, from tossing back drinks with Broadway legends to being booed off the stage on a gay cruise. Self is friends and a collaborator with Cole Escola, acted on TV and film and on “dates” when working as an “escort,” and much, much more — all of it funny and revealing.
Boy
By Nicole Galland
$30, William Morrow
The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter
By Grace Tiffany
$30, Harper
Two works of historical fiction mine the world of Shakespeare with daring imagination.
In Boy, our hero is Alexander Cooke, the best “boy player” in the Chamberlain’s Men, Will Shakespeare’s theatrical company. Cooke is beautiful and wows London with his portrayals of women. The problem? He’s swiftly approaching puberty. Cooke’s best friend is the intelligent Joan Buckler, who yearns for the education denied her because she is a girl. Their problem? Cooke wants to be more than just friends and they fall in with Francis Bacon, who soon embroils the two in political intrigue. Gadzooks!
In The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter, author Grace Tiffany delivers a sequel to her popular and acclaimed novel My Father Had a Daughter. Both focus on Judith Shakespeare, the twin of the long-dead Hamnet. Judith is merciless with her wit (as ever), but that can’t protect her when her skills at apothecary and midwifery have her branded a witch. Judith leaves her floundering marriage and Stratford far behind as she looks to forge a new life, an almost impossible task for a woman some 400 years ago.
Shakespeare’s Greatest Love
By David Medina
$14.99, Disruption Books
We really, really need to invent a time machine just so folks can determine once and for all certain facts about William Shakespeare. Did he write his plays and sonnets and other poems? All of them? Some of them? None of them? Was he a front? Was bequeathing his “second-best bed” to wife Anne Hathaway a romantic gesture or a snub? Oh, and who was his greatest love? I’d guess the English language. But of course we’re really wondering who his greatest romantic love would be. Sometimes the truth is hiding in plain sight. A big chunk of Shakespeare’s sonnets are about a man, so, um, you know, that seems telling. Bisexual? Gay? Buttering up a patron? Where scholars fear to tread, amateur historians will venture. Hence, career politico David Medina takes up the cause. Since Shakespeare certainly seems a little queer (as we’d term it today), Medina goes out on a limb and suggests the androgynous/effeminate/adored by women and men figure of Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton, was Shakespeare’s greatest love. It’s a fact their lives were intertwined for decades, Shakespeare dedicated two epic poems to Southampton and many think the earl to be the Fair Youth who is the subject of 126 (!) sonnets. Medina builds his circumstantial case mainly on the work itself, and it’s certainly more entertaining than Jodi Picoult’s novel By Any Other Name. That enjoyable bestseller spoils the fun by calling Shakespeare a hack and a front for numerous writers — including a woman — taking the gay out of Will S. entirely. Medina’s work is a fine addition to the vast library of books by Shakespearean amateurs challenging the lazy assumptions of scholars.
Mona Acts Out
By Mischa Berlinski
$27.99, Liveright
She’s a Lamb!
By Meredith Hambrock
$19.95, ECW Press
A new book by National Book Award nominee Mischa Berlinski is an event, if only because Berlinski writes slowly. His new novel, Mona Acts Out, is set in Manhattan during Thanksgiving. Actress Mona Zahid feels overwhelmed by her houseguests, the bother of the holiday, and her looming appointment with the role of Cleopatra, one of the most challenging (and least rewarding?) women in Shakespeare’s canon. So she grabs her dog to go for a walk. “I need parsley!” she says, making her escape. Mona soon stumbles into her old mentor, the director she left behind and whose career has since stumbled amid claims of sexual misconduct. A day (and night) of adventure and silliness and sober self-examination gives Mona a chance to act out and maybe replenish her creative wellspring yet again.
You know how it seems like everyone else taking part in your local community theater is absolutely bonkers? In She’s a Lamb!, the funny and then darkly funny new novel by Meredith Lambrock, it’s true. Literally. At least it’s true for Jessamyn St. Germain, a struggling actor reduced to corralling the kiddies in a Vancouver production of The Sound of Music. Which is crazy, because Jessamyn is clearly fated to play the role of Maria Von Trapp. The eye-catching cover art gets across the humor you’ll find here. But this isn’t a satire so much as a deep dive into the self-deluding then delusional world of a lonely soul whose salvation and damnation can both be found in the same place: on stage.
Werewolf Hamlet
By Kerry Madden-Lunsford
$18.99, Charlesbridge Moves
The Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King
By Harry Trevaldwyn
$24, Wednesday Books
Michael Morpurgo’s Tales From Shakespeare
By Michael Morpurgo
$26.99, HarperCollins Children’s Books
Three books offer theater-related joy for kids at every age.
Werewolf Hamlet is a middle-grade hoot about a theater-obsessed kid named Angus who wants to stage his play, Werewolf Hamlet, for his fifth grade class (now that’s one school play I’d love to attend). Meanwhile, his older brother is getting weird and maybe drinking too much, and his family is facing some serious financial struggles.
The Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King is by rising English actor Harry Trevaldwyn, who has numerous UK TV credits to his name, not to mention his role playing a Jedi on the Star Wars TV series The Acolyte, and a part in the live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon. Here, Trevaldwyn tells the story of Patch, a theater-obsessed high schooler who is determined to start dating his first boyfriend. As soon as he finds one. But, hey, two boys new to his school joined the drama club, and sure, they may or may not be gay and they may or may not like him or they may or may not even really know he exists, but they like theater, so that’s a start, right? A silly rom-com treat.
Michael Morpurgo is a beloved author of kids’ books in the UK. And of course he’s known the world over for his novel War Horse, which became a groundbreaking piece of theater. Now Morpurgo follows in the wake of writers Charles Lamb, Leon Garfield, and others by retelling Shakespeare’s stories for young people. Here you’ll find 10 tales of Shakespeare, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo & Juliet, Henry V, and The Winter’s Tale. The twist? Each one is illustrated by a different artist with a particular connection to Morpurgo, who has penned more than 60 books throughout his career. An ideal introduction for kids you’re taking to a live performance, or just as tales to enjoy.