This handbook is the first to provide a systematic investigation of the various roles of producers in commercial and not-for-profit musical theatre.. Key areas of investigation include the lives and works of producers whose work is part of a US and worldwide musical theatre legacy, as well as the largely critically-neglected role of the musical theatre producer in the making, marketing, and performance of musicals. Also explored are the shifting roles of producers in musical theatre and their popular portrayals, offering a reader-friendly collection for fans, scholars, students, and practitioners of musical theatre alike.

Table of Contents

• Overture
• 1 A Ballyhoo for Producers - Laura MacDonald and William A. Everett
• 2 Actors Act. Directors Direct. Producers … Produce? Mel Brooks'sThe Producers and the Creation of an Archetype - Kathryn Edney
• Act 1. To the 1940s
• 3 Tony Pastor: The Father of Vaudeville - Gillian M. Rodger
• 4 Adolf Philipp and the German American Musical Comedy - John Koegel
• 5 George Edwardes: The Guv'nor of Late Victorian Musical Theatre - William A. Everett
• 6 Charles Frohman: King of the Star-Makers - Brian D. Valencia
• 7 Aggressive, Beleaguered, Commercial, Defiant: Marc Klaw and Abraham Erlanger - Marlis Schweitzer
• 8 Did the Shuberts Save Broadway? The Corporate Producers - Anthony Vickery
• 9 Sam Harris: A Producing Patron of Innovation - Alisa Roost
• 10 Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.'s ‘Simple Idea’: Girls and Music in Tastefully Extravagant Settings - Todd Decker
• 11 Feather-Footed Impresario: TheScandals of George White - Maya Cantu
• 12 Alexander A. Aarons and Vinton Freedley: The Smart Sophisticates - Jennifer Ashley Tepper and William A. Everett
• 13 Coherency: Lew Fields, the Performer-Producer and Experimenter in Integration - Dominic Symonds
• 14 Firm Foundations: James Cassius Williamson and ‘The Firm’ - Frank Van Straten
• 15 Japanese Women's Popular Musicals: The Takarazuka Revue - Nobuko Anan
• Act 2. From the 1940s through the 1970s
• 16 Refining the Tastes of Broadway Audiences: The Theatre Guild and American Musical Theatre - Claudia Wilsch Case
• 17 More than a Producer: ‘George Abbott Presents’ - Paul R. Laird
• 18 Rodgers and Hammerstein: The Sound of Money - Valerie M. Joyce
• 19 The Nice One: The Productions of Robert Griffith - Michael Schwartz
• 20 The Sparkplug and the Engineer: Balancing Art and Business in the Collaboration of Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin - Dominic McHugh
• 21 Roger L. Stevens: The Great Facilitator - Karen Patricia Heath
• 22 ‘He Could Get It for You Wholesale’: The Producing Genius of David Merrick - Ryan McKinney
• 23 Stuart Ostrow: Experiments in Independence - Elissa Harbert
• 24 Hal Prince: Artistry in Producing - Paul R. Laird
• 25 Korean Musical Theatre's Past: Yegrin and the Politics of 1960s Musical Theatre - Ji Hyon (Kayla) Yuh
• 26 Joseph Papp and the Public Theater - Elizabeth L. Wollman
• 27 Giora Godik: The ‘Showporter’ Turned Artistic Producer - Shiraz Biggie
• 28 The West End (and Broadway) Head East: Tōhō International and Gekidan Shiki - Kevin J. Wetmore Jr.
• Act 3. Since the 1970s
• 29 The Shubert Organization: One Singular Sensation, Now and Forever - Mark E. Swartz
• 30 Emanuel Azenberg's Life in Theatre: ‘Happiness Is Equilibrium. Shift Your Weight’ - Sarah Taylor Ellis
• 31 Cameron Mackintosh: Modern Global Impresario - Jessica Sternfeld
• 32 Laying Down the RUG: Andrew Lloyd Webber, the Really Useful Group, and Musical Theatre in a Global Economy - Kyle A. Thomas
• 33 ‘My American Dream’: Dreaming of Broadway and the West End in the Philippines - Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco
• 34 Trading Globally in Austrian History: Vereinigte Bühnen Wien - Laura MacDonald
• 35 From Amsterdam With Love: Stage Entertainment's Global Success - Sanne Thierens
• 36 West Side Story: The Journey to Lincoln Center Theater - Doug Reside
• 37 Making Musicals that Matter: George C. Wolfe and Oskar Eustis at the Public Theater - Donatella Galella
• 38 Broadway-Bound: La Jolla Playhouse as a Laboratory for New American Musical Theatre - Claudia Wilsch Case
• 39 Our Brand Is Revival: The Roundabout Theatre Company - Bryan M. Vandevender
• 40 Reclaiming, Restoring, and Reviving the American Musical: City CenterEncores! - Bryan M. Vandevender
• 41 Garth Drabinsky's ‘Grand Moves’: Artistic Ambition and Commercial Illusions in the 1990s - Todd Decker
• 42 Disney Theatrical Productions: Anything Can Happen If You Let It - Amy S. Osatinski
• 43 Against All Odds: Kevin McCollum, Creating Communities Through Theatre - Chris McCoy
• 44 ‘I Am Them’: Tyler Perry's Black Musical Theatre for the Masses - Rashida Z. Shaw
• 45 Between Broadway and the Local: Arts Communication International (ACOM), Seol & Company, and the South Korean Musical Industry - Hyunjung Lee
• 46 Performing Like a Concert King or a Queen: Producing Original Filipino Musicals - Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco
• 47 Producing Musicals in Russia at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century: Navigating Across Socialism, Capitalism, Occidentalism, and Nostalgia - Art Babayants
• 48 David Stone: Defying the Gravity of Expectations - David Carlyon
• 49 ART for ART's Sake: The American Repertory Theatre - Stuart J. Hecht
• 50 Roth and Son: Daryl Roth and Jordan Roth on Broadway - Laura MacDonald
• Curtain Call
• 51 New Paradigms for Broadway Producers in Popular Culture and Beyond:Smash and the Rise of the Passion Project - Mary Jo Lodge
• Selected Bibliography