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Musical Theatre: A History |
Author: John Kenrick
Published: 2008-04-15 |
List price: $39.95
Our price: $26.37
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As of: December 01st, 2008 01:03:46 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 An Indispensible Resource - and a Great Read!
I couldn't agree more with K Carlson - this book is a great read. At any age.
I know lots of students - including students of the theatre - and they've shown me that JA Kawasky's declaration of the death of reading is premature. While Kenrick's book does not boast a CD, it combines scholarship with great readability, and is great fun, besides. (Compare R Knapp's two books, The American Musical Theatre and the Performance of Personal Identity; ... and the Formation of National Identity - which DO have CDs, but are pedantic and unreadable).
Highly recommended.
An Indispensable Guide For Those Who Love Musicals!
I've been hooked on musicals since I saw my first one on Broadway back in the 1960's. It's obvious that John Kenrick is even more so. His knowledge and expertise on this art form clearly comes through in his conversational writing style. The who, when, where, what, why and how of the various musicals through the ages are truly informational gems. This is a great book that allows the reader to peek behind the curtain while studying musical theatre's evolution. It is a great source book for those of us who aren't in musical theatre and wish to test our knowledge of what we have seen or know; as well as to track down totally unfamiliar musicals and discover what's been missed. I always thought of the musical as having come into existence in the last 100 or so years. Boy was I wrong! "Musical Theatre-A History" is an excellent read and reference!
 A Little Too Overblown
Okay so there's a thousand books on the history of musicals out there and this is basically the same thing you'll learn there except it takes you back to anicent Greek theater. Most of the later part of the book is taken off the author's website and the biblography is a little too much.
I think he is a little hard on recent musicals but I am glad that he loathed Ben Brantley's horrible NY Times article proclaiming the "death"
of musicals.
 Good for the teacher/prof.
The author was unpleased with my initial review so I removed it. However, I do hope this book finds its way on to all teachers/professors desks who teach the history of the American Musical. The book however is probably unusable for today's college students as it is almost all ink...(and sadly, most students can't read...). There are few pictures, due to budget, publisher and time constraints, so I was told, and there is not a DVD or CD which probably would have made this cost prohibitive. The website of Mr. Kenrick's, [...], remains marvelous and user friendly for the computer generation of students.
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