Author: Alan Anderson Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation ISBN: 9780879103040 Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 408
Book Description
Irving Berlin marked the end of WWI with a show that opened on Broadway just before Armistice Day, 1918, and ran for all of 32 performances. Yip, Yip, Yaphank was notable for its company, made up entirely of servicemen. The idea of an all-service show resurfaced in the wake of the U.S. entry into WWII, and the cast of This Is the Army was rehearsing and preparing to open at New York's Broadway Theatre. Their story is recalled here by Alan Anderson, whose first assignment after induction into the service was to be production stage manager and first sergeant of the This Is the Army detachment. From this vantage point Anderson enjoyed a unique perspective on the show, on all the elements that went into it, and on all the personalities that in one way or another brought the elements to life.
Author: Robert Kimball Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation ISBN: 9781557836816 Category : Music Languages : en Pages : 564
Book Description
(Applause Books). Gathered together in one volume for the first time, here are all of the incomparable song lyrics of Irving Berlin the lyrics of more than 1,200 songs, 400 of which have never before appeared in print along with anecdotal, historical, and musicological commentary and dozens of photographs. Berlin came from a poor immigrant family and began his career as a singing waiter, but by the time he was nineteen he was publishing his songs and quickly found fame with "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1911. In the extraordinary six decades that followed, Berlin wrote one popular hit after another: Blue Skies * Always * Cheek to Cheek * White Christmas * God Bless America * There's No Business Like Show Business * and many more. He also wrote a number of the classics of musical theater's Golden Age, climaxing with Annie Get Your Gun . He penned three Astaire and Rogers films Top Hat, Carefree , and Follow the Fleet as well as the scores of Holiday Inn, Easter Parade , and other films. The breadth of his accomplishment is staggering.
Author: Kathleen E.R. Smith Publisher: University Press of Kentucky ISBN: 0813185386 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 412
Book Description
After Pearl Harbor, Tin Pan Alley songwriters rushed to write the Great American War Song—an "Over There" for World War II. The most popular songs, however, continued to be romantic ballads, escapist tunes, or novelty songs. To remedy the situation, the federal government created the National Wartime Music Committee, an advisory group of the Office of War Information (OWI), which outlined "proper" war songs, along with tips on how and what to write. The music business also formed its own Music War Committee to promote war songs. Neither group succeeded. The OWI hoped that Tin Pan Alley could be converted from manufacturing love songs to manufacturing war songs just as automobile plants had retooled to assemble planes and tanks. But the OWI failed to comprehend the large extent by which the war effort would be defined by advertisers and merchandisers. Selling merchandise was the first priority of Tin Pan Alley, and the OWI never swayed them from this course. Kathleen E.R. Smith concludes the government's fears of faltering morale did not materialize. Americans did not need such war songs as "Goodbye, Mama, I'm Off To Yokohama", "There Are No Wings On a Foxhole", or even "The Sun Will Soon Be Setting On The Land Of The Rising Sun" to convince them to support the war. The crusade for a "proper" war song was misguided from the beginning, and the music business, then and now, continues to make huge profits selling love—not war—songs.
Author: Jeff Tweedy Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0593183533 Category : Music Languages : en Pages : 178
Book Description
There are few creative acts more mysterious and magical than writing a song. But what if the goal wasn't so mysterious and was actually achievable for anyone who wants to experience more magic and creativity in their life? That's something that anyone will be inspired to do after reading Jeff Tweedy's How to Write One Song. Why one song? Because the difference between one song and many songs isn't a cute semantic trick—it's an important distinction that can simplify a notoriously confusing art form. The idea of becoming a capital-S songwriter can seem daunting, but approached as a focused, self-contained event, the mystery and fear subsides, and songwriting becomes an exciting pursuit. And then there is the energizing, nourishing creativity that can open up. How to Write One Song brings readers into the intimate process of writing one song—lyrics, music, and putting it all together—and accesses the deep sense of wonder that remains at the heart of this curious, yet incredibly fulfilling, artistic act. But it’s equally about the importance of making creativity part of your life every day, and of experiencing the hope, inspiration, and joy available to anyone who’s willing to get started.
Author: Felicia Hardison Londré Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1350017485 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 325
Book Description
The Decades of Modern American Drama series provides a comprehensive survey and study of the theatre produced in each decade from the 1930s to 2009 in eight volumes. Each volume equips readers with a detailed understanding of the context from which work emerged: an introduction considers life in the decade with a focus on domestic life and conditions, social changes, culture, media, technology, industry and political events; while a chapter on the theatre of the decade offers a wide-ranging and thorough survey of theatres, companies, dramatists, new movements and developments in response to the economic and political conditions of the day. The work of the four most prominent playwrights from the decade receives in-depth analysis and re-evaluation by a team of experts, together with commentary on their subsequent work and legacy. A final section brings together original documents such as interviews with the playwrights and with directors, drafts of play scenes, and other previously unpublished material. The major playwrights and their works to receive in-depth coverage in this volume include: * Eugene O'Neill: The Iceman Cometh (1946), A Moon for the Misbegotten (1947), Long Day's Journey Into Night (written 1941, produced 1956), and A Touch of the Poet (written 1942, produced 1958); * Tennessee Williams: The Glass Menagerie (1944), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Summer and Smoke (1948); * Arthur Miller: All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), and The Crucible (1953); * Thornton Wilder: Our Town (1938), The Skin of Our Teeth (1942), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), and The Alcestiad (written 1940s).
Author: Robert L. Mclaughlin Publisher: ISBN: 9780813180946 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
"Theater is the art by which human beings make or find human action worth watching." -- Paul Woodruff, The Necessity of Theater: The Art of Watching and Being Watched Before World War II, Hollywood dictated what films were released, debuting movies such as The Man I Married (1940), The Mortal Storm (1940), Escape (1940), and The Great Dictator (1940) that conveyed an unambiguously critical view of Nazi Germany and warned the public about the dangers of fascism and the threat of war. Meanwhile, the theater stages in New York broached and debated topics of fascism, interventionism, and the democratic state of the country with productions like Watch on the Rhine (1941), The Moon is Down (1942), Tomorrow the World (1943) , and A Bell for Adano (1944) . While the United States' government used media platforms such as posters, periodicals, and radio to convey a popular opinion on the war and Germany, theater was not as highly monitored, and writers, directors, actors, and even audiences were able to discuss and argue their viewpoints on topics that would have been considered taboo on a film set. The theater became the perfect medium to express home-front tensions and anxieties. In Broadway Goes to War: American Theater during World War II, authors Robert L. McLaughlin and Sally E. Parry explore numerous theater productions during the era of the Second World War, analyzing how the American stage grappled with significant issues ranging from neutrality and isolationism, to racism and genocide, to heroism and battle fatigue. Theater engaged in public discussion about war's impact on daily life, and McLaughlin and Parry suggest that these productions raised critical topics about the war well before other forms of popular media. Through the details of each production, the authors highlight challenges faced by ordinary people during the war alongside their attempts to overcome and create a better post-war community. American drama of the 1940s is frequently overlooked, especially in comparison with the plays of the surrounding decades. Taken together, the numerous plays performed during this eventful decade provide a picture of the rich and complex experience of living in the US during the war years. Furthermore, the theater provided an understanding of the complexities of popular culture and how it functioned alongside a world war. Filling a void in World War II scholarship, McLaughlin and Parry provide a unique perspective on theater activity during a time of division and social change. Broadway Goes to War will appeal to historians of wartime studies, film, and theater.
Author: Benjamin Sears Publisher: OUP Us ISBN: 0195383745 Category : Music Languages : en Pages : 233
Book Description
The Irving Berlin Reader offers fascinating glimpses the life and work of this most famous of American songwriters. Berlin is presented here in full through writings from his earliest years to the present, including Berlin's own thoughts on songwriting. Many of the articles are otherwise difficult or impossible to find, and all are expertly contextualized by Ben Sears's introductions.
Author: P.H. Carder Publisher: McFarland ISBN: 0786483172 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 248
Book Description
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, "The Battle Cry of Freedom" became perhaps the most common patriotic song echoing throughout the North. The author of that famous tune was George F. Root, and his many other patriotic songs established him as "the musician of the people." This biography follows Root's dual career as a nationally-known traveling teacher and a composer of popular songs. His wartime songs expressed the emotions of the soldiers and of the people at home. His later songs document such events as the assassination of President Lincoln, the settling of the West, the literature and humor of his day, and the many reform movements that defined the values of that era. His biography reveals how he became the musician of the people and how his critics responded.
Author: Jeffrey Magee Publisher: OUP USA ISBN: 0195398262 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 410
Book Description
Irving Berlin's songs have been the soundtrack of America for a century, but his most profound contribution to the nation is to Broadway. Award-winning music historian Jeffrey Magee's chronicle of Berlin's theatrical career is the first book to fully consider the songwriter's immeasurable influence on the Great White Way. Tracing Berlin's humble beginnings on the lower-east side to his rise to American icon, Irving Berlin's American Musical Theatre will delight theater aficionados as well as students of music, and popular culture, and anyone interested in the story of a man whose life and work expressed so well the American dream.
Author: Peter Handke Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN: 0374715610 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 321
Book Description
An odyssey through the mind and memory of a washed-up writer, from one of Europe’s most provocative novelists, Nobel Prize winner Peter Handke Mysteriously summoned to a houseboat on the Morava River, a few friends, associates, and collaborators of an old writer listen as he tells a story that will last until dawn: the tale of the once well-known writer’s recent odyssey across Europe. As his story unfolds, it visits places that represent stages of the narrator’s and the continent’s past, many now lost or irrecoverably changed through war, death, and the subtler erosions of time. His wanderings take him from the Balkans to Spain, Germany, and Austria, from a congress of experts on noise sickness to a clandestine international gathering of jew’s-harp virtuosos. His story and its telling are haunted by a beautiful stranger, a woman who has a preternatural hold over the writer and appears sometimes as a demon, sometimes as the longed-for destination of his travels. Powerfully alive, honest, and at times deliciously satirical, The Moravian Night explores the mind and memory of an aging writer, tracking the anxieties, angers, fears, and pleasures of a life inseparable from the recent history of Central Europe. In crystalline prose, Peter Handke traces and interrogates his own thoughts and perceptions while endowing the world with a mythic dimension. As Jeffrey Eugenides writes, “Handke’s sharp eye is always finding a strange beauty amid this colorless world.” The Moravian Night is at once an elegy for the lost and forgotten and a novel of self-examination and uneasy discovery, from one of world literature’s great voices.
Author: Alan Anderson
Author: Robert Kimball
Author: Kathleen E.R. Smith
Author: Jeff Tweedy
Author: Felicia Hardison Londré
Author: Robert L. Mclaughlin
Author: Benjamin Sears
Author: P.H. Carder
Author: Jeffrey Magee
Author: Peter Handke