John Kander

“Grammy Award–winning producer Shepard throws open the door to the recording booth in his exuberant and fine-grained debut memoir.... Broadway aficionados will find plenty to enjoy.” - Publishers WeeklyRECORDING BROADWAY: A LIFE IN CAST ALBUMS of the making of fifty-plus years’ worth of show albums, featuring up-close-and-personal stories of his work with pretty much everyone who was anyone on Broadway, including Julie Andrews, Leonard Bernstein (“truly awesome but very complicated”), Sheldon Harnick (“as warm and decent as he was talented”), Barbara Cook (“one of my favorites”), Placido Domingo, Gregory Hines, John Kander, Fred Ebb, Danny Kaye, Angela Lansbury (“so gifted and so easy to be with and to work with”), Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Chita Rivera, Stephen Sondheim (“a genius, and very easily bruised”), Barbra Streisand (“as professional at 24 as any veteran I’ve ever worked with”), Andrew Lloyd Webber, and many more. Alongside this unforgettable saga is the tale of Shepard’s childhood as a small-in-stature piano prodigy from East Orange, New Jersey, and his emergence into the world as a recording producer of, first, classical music and then Broadway cast recordings. Told with verve in Shepard’s inimitable voice— a striking combination of Broadway glitz and classical-music elegance—his journey makes for a uniquely compelling story, whether or not you’re among the millions of musical lovers around the world for whom his recordings are a vital link to Broadway at its best.

Lauren Bacall made a triumphant return to Broadway in this Tony(R) Award-winning musical adaptation of the famous Tracy/Hepburn film. Tess Harding is a high-powered anchorwoman of a network TV morning news show. She makes some derogatory remarks about comic strips on the air and comes head-to-head with Sam Craig, a famous cartoonist who introduces a lampoon of Tess into his comic strip. The feud turns to romance and marriage but not to harmony in this delightful battle of the sexes between two outsized egos.

Premiering in 1975 and the hit of the 1997 Broadway season in a production that originated at City Center's Encore! series Chicago won six Tony Awards including Best Revival and later the Academy Award as Best Picture of the Year. In roaring twenties Chicago chorine Roxie Hart murders a faithless lover and convinces her hapless husband Amos to take the rap...until he finds out he's been duped and turns on Roxie. Convicted and sent to death row Roxie and another "Merry Murderess" Velma

Genre: Musical Characters: 7 males, 8 females, and chorus of 8 males and 5 females In the honky tonk world of marathon dancing in Atlantic City in 1933, a captivating assortment of depression era souls eager to dance their way into fame and prizes gather on the Steel Pier. The spectacle is presided over by an oily tongued emcee who is secretly married to Rita Racine, the champion dancer. Her usual partner doesn't show up, so she is paired with a handsome pilot on leave. As the hours of dancing whirl on, Rita becomes increasingly disillusioned with her sleazy, conniving husband and more and more infatuated with the handsome young aviator and a vision of life in a peaceful cottage. Songs by the creators of Chicago, Cabaret and other Broadway classics perfectly capture the rhythms of the 1930's dance era. "Beautiful songs skillfully interwoven with the plot."- New York Daily News "Spectacular."- New York Post "Steeped in wistfulness."- New York Times

Composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb are the longest-running song-writing partnership in Broadway history, having first joined forces in 1962. The creators of such groundbreaking musicals as "Chicago," "Cabaret," and" Kiss of the Spider Woman," Kander and Ebb have helped to push American musical theater in a more daring direction, both musically and dramatically. Their impact on individual performers has been great as well, starting with the handpicked star of their first musical: an untested nineteen-year-old named Liza Minnelli (who writes of this experience in her introduction)." Colored Lights" covers the major shows of Kander and Ebb's partnership, from "Flora, the Red Menace" (starring a then-unknown Liza) to "The Visit," their newest show, which is set to star another Kander and Ebb favorite, Chita Rivera. The pages and musicals in between reveal what has made theirs such an important and long-lived musical partnership--and one so valued by the artists they have worked with. In recounting the genesis and controversies of "Cabaret," reflecting on the superstar mentality of such artists as Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand, and recalling their work with Bob Fosse on "Chicago" (as well as their thoughts on the Oscar-winning film version), John Kander and Fred Ebb provide a history not only of their own lives but also of the American musical theater of the late twentieth century.