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Sense of occasion / Harold Prince.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Lanham, Maryland : Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, [2017]Copyright date: ©2017Description: xiii, 343 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (black and white, and colour) ; 23 cmContent type:
  • text
  • still image
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781540046888 (paperback)
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Summary: "In this fast-moving, candid, conversational, and entertaining memoir, Harold Prince, the most honored director in the history of the American theater (22 Tony Awards and counting), looks back over his 70-year (and counting!) career. Featuring original material from Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-Six Years in the Theatre, Prince provides a fresh, new perspective on his writing from the vantage point of today. Sense of Occasion gives an insider's recollection of the making of such landmark musicals as West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, Evita, and Phantom of the Opera, with Prince's perceptive comments about his mentor George Abbott and his many celebrated collaborators, including Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Stephen Sondheim, John Kander, Boris Aronson, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Angela Lansbury, Elizabeth Taylor, Zero Mostel, Carol Burnett, and Joel Grey. As well as detailing his titanic successes that changed the form and content of the American musical theater, Prince even-handedly reflects on the shows that didn't work, most memorably and painfully Merrily We Roll Along . Throughout, he offers insights into the way business is conducted on Broadway, drawing sharp contrasts between past and present. This thoughtful, complete account of one of the most legendary and long-lived careers in theater history, written by the man who lived it, is an essential work of personal and professional recollection."-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Current library Collection Call number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Biographies Gonville Library Biographies Biographies B PRI Available T00832538
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

(Applause Books). In this fast-moving, candid, conversational, and entertaining memoir, Harold Prince, the most honored director/producer in the history of the American theater looks back over his seventy-year (and counting!) career. In 1974, Prince released his first book, Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-Six Years in the Theatre . Although Contradictions has since attained cult status among producers, directors, and actors alike, Prince, in hindsight, believes he wasn't ready to publish such a tome at that point in his career (in fact, doing so was an act of "insane arrogance"). Although he doesn't regret that effort, he is at last prepared to conclude it, to "see where I was right in my assessments and where I was wrong." In Sense of Occasion , Prince returns to this seminal text, invigorating it with fresh insights cultivated through four decades of additional practice. Sense of Occasion gives an insider's recollection of the making of such landmark musicals as West Side Story , Fiddler on the Roof , Cabaret , Company , Follies , Sweeney Todd , Evita , and Phantom of the Opera , with Prince's perceptive comments about his mentor George Abbott and his many celebrated collaborators, including Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Stephen Sondheim, John Kander, Boris Aronson, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Angela Lansbury, Zero Mostel, Carol Burnett, and Joel Grey. As well as detailing his titanic successes that changed the form and content of the American musical theater, Prince evenhandedly reflects on the shows that didn't work, most memorably and painfully Merrily We Roll Along . Throughout, he offers insights into the way business is conducted on Broadway, drawing sharp contrasts between past and present. This thoughtful, complete account of one of the most legendary and long-lived careers in theater history, written by the man who lived it, is an essential work of personal and professional recollection.

Includes index.

"In this fast-moving, candid, conversational, and entertaining memoir, Harold Prince, the most honored director in the history of the American theater (22 Tony Awards and counting), looks back over his 70-year (and counting!) career. Featuring original material from Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-Six Years in the Theatre, Prince provides a fresh, new perspective on his writing from the vantage point of today. Sense of Occasion gives an insider's recollection of the making of such landmark musicals as West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, Evita, and Phantom of the Opera, with Prince's perceptive comments about his mentor George Abbott and his many celebrated collaborators, including Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Stephen Sondheim, John Kander, Boris Aronson, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Angela Lansbury, Elizabeth Taylor, Zero Mostel, Carol Burnett, and Joel Grey. As well as detailing his titanic successes that changed the form and content of the American musical theater, Prince even-handedly reflects on the shows that didn't work, most memorably and painfully Merrily We Roll Along . Throughout, he offers insights into the way business is conducted on Broadway, drawing sharp contrasts between past and present. This thoughtful, complete account of one of the most legendary and long-lived careers in theater history, written by the man who lived it, is an essential work of personal and professional recollection."-- Provided by publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Producer, director, and playwright Prince has worked in show business since he was 19. Now 89, and with a career spanning seven decades, he has won 21 Tony Awards, including eight for directing and ten for producing. His first hit was The Pajama Game. He's had his flops along the way, but it's hard to fault the number and quality of his successes: West Side Story, A Funny Thing., Company, Follies, Phantom of the Opera. In 1974, after many years working on Broadway, he published Contradictions, a part memoir, part reflection on the state of theater and an expression of love for his difficult mistress, the theater. He's updated that book here, adding comments on the already published chapters and appended sections covering from 1974 to today. It's the type of book that could easily become hackneyed, a self-serving march through past triumphs. That it isn't is a tribute to this passionate, intelligent man who has had years of unparalleled access to the greats and near-greats of Broadway and wishes to share what he's learned. VERDICT Perceptive, fresh, and engagingly modest, this book will prove irresistible to theater lovers everywhere.-David Keymer, Cleveland © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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