Writers are writing and plans are being made for upcoming performances, and we are all looking forward to theatre slowly coming back to life all over the world. But wherever you are in the world and whenever theater bounces back for you, books about theater are available right here, right now, to feed your hunger. Enjoy!
Performance artist and boundary-pushing magician Derek DelGaudio conquers another world. He was an artist-in-residence for Walt Disney Imagineering. His acclaimed Off-Broadway show, In & Of Itself, was produced by actor and magic fan Neil Patrick Harris and ran until DelGaudio decided to stop. Frank Oz (of Muppets fame) directed the film version, which you can stream on Hulu. And now he’s taken that performance magic (or magical performance), crossed it with a memoir by an unreliable narrator, and dubbed the result Amoralman: A True Story and Other Lies. One of a kind.
Three new novels steeped in theater. Tony and Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke delivers what may be his most popular novel yet with A Bright Ray of Darkness, about an actor who plays Hotspur in a major production of Henry IV opposite a grandiose train-wreck of a costar playing Falstaff. Come for the titillation — Hawke starred as Hotspur opposite Kevin Kline’s Falstaff at Lincoln Center — and stay for the involving story and Hawke’s intense insight into life on the stage. Queer feminist playwright Jen Silverman’s debut novel, We Play Ourselves, is about a queer feminist playwright (and poetess) who flees public embarrassment and seeks refuge … in Hollywood? Hilarity and more art gleefully mirroring life ensue. And in the fantasy novel The Memory Theater, best friends Dora and Thistle are trapped in the realm of The Gardens, where the party never ends but they are the waitstaff. They boldly venture between worlds and seek out a traveling theater troupe, which can unfold the fabric of reality and perhaps save them all.
Three of the best biographies of the year just happen to focus on three major artists who have done some of their best work in the theater: playwright Tom Stoppard, director Mike Nichols, and actor Gabriel Byrne. Stoppard encouraged biographer Hermione Lee to tackle his life and she does just that, from his rambling, fortuitous childhood to his flood of masterpieces and the late-in-life revelation of his Jewish roots. Author Mark Harris (Tony Kushner’s husband) already enjoyed acclaim for his books about Hollywood; now Harris tackles the charmed and charming life of one of our best directors. Nichols revolutionized improv sketch comedy with Elaine May, made Neil Simon a commercial juggernaut, and came zinging out of the gate in Hollywood with three great films: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (a definitive take on one of our greatest plays), the era-defining comedy The Graduate, and Carnal Knowledge. (We’ll ignore the disaster Catch-22.) That run lasted from 1958 to 1971, and if Nichols never did anything as important again, the misfires and bland commercial hits are just as interesting to learn about as the successes. Finally, actor Gabriel Byrne proves a formidable writer in Walking With Ghosts. He’s on fire detailing a childhood of religious fervor and then excoriating the priest who molested him. Byrne fled the seminary and found refuge in theater, of course. He jumps back and forth from memories of his youth and hardscrabble early days to triumphs in film and onstage with Eugene O’Neill, whenever the drink allows him space to remember. Can every great Irish actor also spin a yarn so easily when putting pen to paper, or does it just seem that way?
Upstaged
By Diana Harmon Asher
$17.99, Amulet Books
For the family that loves theater. For the parent — or any romance lover — Much Ado About You follows a Chicago woman who takes a dirt-cheap vacation to an adorable English village, staying just above a bookstore. The only catch? She must work part-time in said bookstore, which is just fine by this Shakespeare fan. Now if only she could ignore the charms of a local farmer, who is some devilish combination of Mr. Darcy and Heathcliff but without the standoffish nature. After all, vacation romances never end well, do they? Do they? For the theater-obsessed kid, Upstaged is a sweet middle-grade novel about seventh-grader Shira, who comes out of her shell when her best friend pushes her to audition for The Music Man…and she gets the part! She may be playing a member of a male barbershop quartet, but still! It’s fun, and Shira may have just found a home.
The latest in Jennifer Ashley Tepper’s grab bag of Broadway tales features interviews with numerous theater stars in front of and behind the scenes who share their passions. In The Untold Stories of Broadway, Volume 4, they dish on the way shows such as Hair and Fiddler on the Roof fought for social justice, the forgotten stars who should be remembered, after-hour anecdotes from Studio 54, and many more titillating topics. Author Michael Blanding delivered a New York Times bestseller with the true-crime catnip The Map Thief. Now he’s on to another crime: the real mystery of who wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Blanding profiles Dennis McCarthy, a self-taught scholar convinced Shakespeare wrote his own plays…but lifted details wholesale from the plays and life of Sir Thomas North, whose work appeared decades earlier. Blanding captures McCarthy’s quirky passion and the extremely cutthroat blood sport of Shakespearean scholarship. Finally, Kliph Nesteroff captures the untold story of Native Americans and the vast impact they’ve had on theater — and comedy in particular — in We Had a Little Real Estate Problem. He tells it all, from the Indigenous Americans forced to choose between prison or appearing in Wild West shows to groundbreakers like Will Rogers. Rogers was a Cherokee citizen who became America’s most popular comedian, a big draw for the Ziegfeld Follies, the highest paid movie star, and ultimately the subject of a smash Broadway musical. The story continues today with standup comics who follow in Rogers’s footsteps via their own winning comedy and equally pointed political commentary.
Ultimately, nothing satisfies like seeing a play. But whether you’ve seen one or hope to do so someday, it’s a special satisfaction to read a play and bring it to life in your mind. A new translation of Goethe’s Faust is always cause for celebration. Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning A Strange Loop is a mind-bending work nicely encapsulated by its surreal cover image. And Heather Raffo’s Iraq Plays is a deeply challenging and rewarding collection.
Thornton Wilder’s classic play Our Town is so familiar — and so often performed in a sanitized, sentimental style in high schools around the country — that it’s easy to forget how bold this work originally proved. Author Howard Sherman tells the tale anew with Another Day’s Begun: He brings the story up to date with examinations of the many bold and exciting productions that have appeared in the past 20 years. In Funny Thing About Minnesota…, Patrick Strait offers up a labor of love for Minneapolis–St. Paul. It was the birthplace of some great standups and a comedy-club scene that flourished, failed, and rose again, phoenix-like. From the “original five” comics, including Louie Anderson, who made their bones as standups and then opened clubs and drew the country’s best to the Twin Cities, on to its collapse and 1990s rebirth, Strait covers it all. Even less known to Westerners is the arts scene of Cairo. Apparently, the 1920s weren’t roaring just in New York City: In Egypt’s capital city, women ruled the roost as talented stars of movie, cabaret, and theater, and they were showbiz impresarios. From vaudeville acts to stage legends and nightclub singers, women were the pulse of Cairo until modernism passed them by and religious mores won out over secular dreams of equality. Author Raphael Cormack captures this tumultuous, promising, but doomed era with Midnight in Cairo. It would make a great musical!
Michael Giltz is the co-host of the weekly entertainment podcast Showbiz Sandbox. He has covered all areas of entertainment as a journalist, critic, feature writer, and analyst, contributing to numerous outlets including the New York Daily News, the Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Entertainment Weekly, and The Advocate. When Michael’s not attending the theater, he’s reading about it.
Privacy Policy
Last updated and effective as of January 14, 2019
Introduction and Your Acceptance of These Terms
Broadway Direct ("Us", "We", "Our") knows that your personal information is very important to you, and We respect your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how your personal information is collected, used, and protected and the choices available to you with respect to Our handling of your data. This Policy applies to all visitors to Broadway Direct.com, Our mobile services, services available via telephone, and those transactions that take place in person, by postal or electronic mail. (Collectively, the "Site"), including ticket sales, comments on articles, and any information provided to Us.. By visiting this website, you consent and agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy and to the collection, use and storage of your information by Us. From time to time, We may change this Privacy Policy. When We do, the “Last Updated” line above will be revised. You are responsible for regularly reviewing this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this Site following the posting of a changed Privacy Policy indicates your acceptance of the changes. Unless We provide you with specific notice, no changes to Our Privacy Policy will apply retroactively. Please also refer to our Terms of Use and Lottery Terms & Conditions. If you require any more information or have any questions about Our privacy policy, please feel free to contact Us by email at [email protected].
Information We Collect
Information we collect directly from you: Your provision of your personal information to Us is completely voluntary; it is not a statutory or contractual requirement. Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”) is information that is uniquely identifiable to you, such as your name, address, email address, phone number, credit card number and other personal information that is not otherwise publicly available. Certain features of Our website may require that you provide Us with your personal information, including:
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To use these features, We may require you to provide your email address, mobile number, name and/or address and certain demographic information. When you give Us PII to use the features above, you expressly consent to Our collection, storage, use and disclosure of this information as described in this Privacy Policy. We may use your personal information to communicate with you about:
Your use of any of the features above;
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We may use your demographic information for in house statistics, advertising and marketing target information. Our processing of your personal information is necessary for the performance and fulfillment of the contract between us and to provide you with Our services. We will also process, transfer, disclose and preserve personal information when We have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary, to resolve disputes, enforce our agreements and otherwise required by law. You can always opt-out of receiving future promotional communications from Us; see the Choice/Opt-out section below.Information We Collect Automatically: Even if you don’t use any of the features above, when you visit Our website, We may collect certain information about you.
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We comply with the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising set forth by the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA). You can opt-out of targeted advertising from certain providers at www.aboutads.info/consumers.
How We Use Your Personal Information
The personal information We collect allows Us to keep you posted on updates to Broadway Direct. It also helps Us to improve Our services, content, and advertising. If you don’t want to be on Our email list, you can opt out anytime by clicking the “unsubscribe” button or sending an unsubscribe email to [email protected]. From time to time, We may use your personal information to send transactional emails, such as communications about purchases and changes to Our terms, conditions, and policies. Because this information is important to your interaction with Broadway Direct, you may not opt out of receiving these communications. We may also use personal information for internal purposes such as auditing, data analysis, and research to improve Broadway Direct’s services, and customer communications. If you enter into a sweepstakes, contest, or similar promotion We may use the information you provide to administer those programs.
Information Collected By/Shared With Third Parties
Other than as provided in this Privacy Policy, we do not share your personal information with third parties.
Advertising. We partner with advertising companies who may use information from cookies and the tracking tags they place on our website to provide you with targeted advertisements about goods and services that may be of interest to you based on your use of our website and to track the effectiveness of ads served to you. These advertising company partners may anonymously track your Internet usage across other websites in their networks beyond our website. Any information that these advertising companies collect via cookies and tracking tags is generally not personally identifiable (unless, for example, you provide personal information to them through an ad or email message). You are welcome to browse the site in private/incognito mode, which means cookies will not be activated and previous cookies will not be tracked. If you need help with this, contact us at [email protected]. If you would like more information about the use of cookies and tracking tags and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, see the Network Advertising Initiatives consumer Web site at http://www.networkadvertising.org/consumer/.
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Third Parties Doing Work for Us. Third parties have no rights to use any data We have collected on your behalf. However, We may employ other companies or individuals to perform functions on Our behalf, such as sending postal mail, email, and text messages, conducting sweepstakes/contests, prize fulfillment and promotional activities, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, processing credit card payments and providing customer service. These outside suppliers, agents and vendors have access to your personal information only as needed to perform their functions.
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When necessary. We may also release personal information when we believe, in good faith, that such release is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of Ourselves, Our clients, Our users, or others. We may disclose personal information about you to law enforcement, other government officials, or other third parties, as We, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate, in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, or other activity that is illegal or may expose Us to legal liability.
Public Forums
Please be aware that when you disclose PII through the comment feature or message board on the Site, the information may become public and accessible to all or a part of the Site community, so it is important for you to exercise discretion and appropriate caution when deciding to reveal PII in these areas. In addition, when you choose to make a posting, certain PII may be available for other users to view. We urge you to exercise discretion and caution when deciding to disclose your PII, or any other information, on the Site. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE USE OF ANY PII YOU VOLUNTARILY DISCLOSE THROUGH THE SITE VIA THESE FORUMS AND OTHER INTERACTIVE FEATURES. Please note that We reserve the right, but have no obligation, to republish content posted (including any PII contained therein) as further set forth in Our Terms of Use.
Co-Branded Pages
We may enter into relationships with “powered by” partners, business partners, sponsors, and co-branded sites (referred to here as “co-branded pages”). These might include, for example, pages that share our name and that of another entity. There may be a specific privacy policy on any such co-branded page. Any personal information that you provide when signing up at any co-branded page may be collected by, or shared with, our third party partner. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, our third party partners’ use of your personal information. If you want to learn more about other entities’ privacy practices, please review the websites of those third parties.
Transactions With Third Party E-commerce Partners, Vendors and Advertisers
When you provide personal information to one of Our Site’s third party e-commerce partners, vendors or advertisers (i.e. Ticketmaster.com, Telecharge.com), this transaction will occur in connection with the site of the e-commerce partner, vendor or advertiser, not on the Site, and, as such, the personal information you provide is collected pursuant to and controlled by the privacy policy of such e-commerce partner, vendor or advertiser. Broadway Direct is not responsible for such parties’ privacy policies and We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the applicable privacy policy of the e-commerce site with which you transact business or to contact the operator of such site for more information.
Delivery of Advertising and Other Content
In addition to ads and content that We may serve you directly, We use third-party advertising companies and marketing services companies to serve ads and other content when you visit Broadway Direct and elsewhere on the internet and in other media. Both We and these companies may use information about your visits to Broadway Direct and elsewhere to serve ads and other content to you. In the course of doing so, a unique third-party cookie may be placed or recognized on your browser by such companies. In addition, We and these companies may use Web beacons to help manage Our online advertising and content. These Web beacons enable Us and the third-party companies to recognize a browser’s cookie when a browser visits this Site and to learn which banner ads bring users to our website and to serve you ads that you may find of interest elsewhere on the internet and in other media. Both Broadway Direct and these companies may use information obtained from your visits to Broadway Direct or other websites, and information received from you offline in order to provide advertisements about goods and services and other content of interest to you across the internet and in other media. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used in this manner by Our third party advertising companies, please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/optout_nonppii.asp and/or www.aboutads.info/choices. European users may opt out of receiving targeted advertising by visiting http://www.youronlinechoices.eu/. In addition, we may provide PII and Anonymous Information to marketing services companies. This may include information we received from you offline or online. These companies may combine information we provide (including PII and Anonymous Information) with personal and anonymous information they may have about you, using cookies they place or that We place on their behalf, as described in the section regarding “Cookies and Tracking Tags”. We require these companies to delete the PII we provide them. These companies may use the resulting non-personal information and such cookies for their own marketing purposes, and they may provide the same to their customers for their customer’s marketing purposes. Some of Our emails may contain tags that allow Us and Our advertisers and other partners to determine the types of content that may be of interest to you. Those tags may contain PII and may be shared with others to the same extent indicated in the section regarding “Cookies and Tracking Tags”. Those tags may not be deleted but you can opt out of receiving the emails.
Use of This Site by Children
The Site is not directed to individuals under the age of thirteen (13), and We request that such individuals do not provide personal information through the Site. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has provided Us with PII without the parent or guardian’s consent by, for example, misrepresenting his or her age, that parent or guardian should contact us at [email protected]. If Broadway Direct determines that it has collected personal information of children under the age of 13, Broadway Direct will immediately delete such information and any accounts believed to be held by children under 13. In addition, we may not collect or process information from a citizen of an EU member state under the age of sixteen (16) without such person’s parental consent. If you are a citizen of an EU member state under the age of 16, please tell your parents that you are using the Site and have your parents email Us at [email protected] so that We may delete any information We may have collected about you.
California Visitors
California Civil Code § 1798.83 permits California residents to request information about whether we have disclosed personal information to any third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes. California residents have the right to request in writing: (a) a list of the categories of Personal Information, such as name, email address and mailing address and the type of services provided to the customer that a business has disclosed to third parties (including affiliates that are separate legal entities) during the immediately preceding calendar year for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes and (b) the names and addresses of all such third parties. To make a request, please contact Us at the following email address: [email protected].
EU Visitors
If you are located within the European Union, you should be aware that your personal information will be transferred to the United States, the laws of which may be deemed by the European Union to have inadequate data protection. If you are located in a country outside the United States and voluntarily submit personal information to Us, you thereby consent to the general use of such information as provided in this privacy policy and to the transfer of that information to, and/or storage of that information in, the United States. We transfer Personal Information from the European Economic Area and Switzerland to the USA and other countries, some of which have not been determined by the European Commission to have an adequate level of data protection. Personal Information of EU residents will be transferred in compliance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).
Rights of EU Data Subjects
If you are a resident of the European Union, under the GDPR, European Union residents, as data subjects, have the following rights:
Right to access – This right allows individuals to obtain confirmation as to whether or not personal information concerning him or her is being processed and provide access to such personal information. It also allows individuals to request details of the processing of his or her personal information, including, without limitation, categories of recipients to whom the personal information have been or will be disclosed and purposes of processing.
Right to rectify – This right allows individuals to rectify any inaccurate personal information about him or her.
Right to restrict processing – This right allows individuals to block or suppress processing of personal data under certain circumstances.
Right to be forgotten – This right is also known as the “right to erasure”. It is an individual’s right to have personal data erased or to prevent processing in specific circumstances.
Right of data portability – This right allows individuals to move, copy or transfer personal data from one place to another in a secure manner without interrupting the integrity and usability of the information.
Right to object to processing – This right allows individuals to object to certain types of processing, including direct marketing, profiling and providing for purposes of scientific or historical research and statistics.
An EU resident has the right to access his or her personal data that We hold and to ask that their personal data be corrected or erased and to port their data. An EU resident may also have the right to object to, or request that We restrict certain processing or to withdraw consent previously provided. If you would like to exercise your rights under the GDPR, please contact us at [email protected]. If you are an EU resident and have a concern about our processing of your personal data that we are not able to resolve, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Authority where you reside. For contact details of your relevant local Data Protection Authority, please see http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/article29/item-detail.cfm?item_id=612080
Security of Your Personal Information
Broadway Direct employs reasonable security measures consistent with standard industry practice, for personal information collected through this Site, including physical, electronic and operational measures to maintain security and prevent unauthorized access. While Broadway Direct takes all appropriate steps to safeguard personal information under Our control, unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or method of storing data can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As such, We cannot guarantee that personal information supplied by users will not be accessed on Our servers, or intercepted while being transmitted to Us over the Internet. We assume no liability for any damages you may suffer as a result of interception, alteration or misuse of information during such transfers.
Retention
We will retain your information for as long as your account or inquiry is active and for a reasonable time thereafter in accordance with Our standard procedures or as necessary to comply with Our legal obligations, to resolve disputes, and to enforce Our agreements. Even if We delete some or all of your Personal Information, We may continue to retain and use aggregate or anonymous data previously collected and/or anonymize or aggregate your Personal Information. Please note that We will not be liable for disclosures of your data due to errors or unauthorized acts of third parties.
Choice/Opt Out
This Site provides users the opportunity to opt-out of receiving communications from Us, at any time, by email at [email protected], or by clicking the unsubscribe link in any email communication. The Site gives users the following options for removing their information from our database, to not receive future communications or to no longer receive our service, at any time.
Users can send mail to the following postal address: Broadway Direct 1501 Broadway 14th floor New York, NY 10036
Users can call the following telephone number: (800) 223-6715.
Users can opt-out of receiving future newsletter emails from Us by selecting the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our email. However, We are not responsible for removing your information from the lists of any third party who has previously been provided with your information or is collecting your information through their cookies. You have the right to withdraw your consent for Our processing for your personal information by contacting us at [email protected].
Correct/Update
This website gives users the following options for changing and modifying information previously provided, at any time.
Users can send mail to the following postal address: Broadway Direct 1501 Broadway 14th floor New York, NY 10036
Users can call the following telephone number: (800) 223-6715
Successors
In the event that We are, or any component of our operations is, merged with, or is acquired by, another entity, then any such successor or acquiring entity may become the successor to Our obligations with respect to the personal information that you have provided to Us, which would be necessary for the entity to effectively continue our business. By using this website, you consent to any transfer and use of such personal information by an entity assuming control of Our operations as a result of a merger, purchase of assets, or liquidation in bankruptcy or insolvency.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of this website, or your dealings with this website, you can send an email to [email protected]. Our data protection officer can also be contacted at [email protected].
