Mordden rambles some, as is his habit, but he’s a formidably well-informed and bracingly opinionated guide to a...
Prolific entertainment historian Mordden (Love Song: The Lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, 2012, etc.) tracks the musical from its European origins to its current offerings on and off Broadway.
The author has written a previous survey of the history of musical theater, but there have been a lot of developments since Better Foot Forward was published in 1976. Here, the author assesses the changes in the final three chapters. “The Sondheim Handbook” covers not just the late-20th-century musical theater’s most influential artist, but also such fellow innovators as Bob Fosse, Michael Bennett and Tommy Tune. “Devolution” critically chronicles Broadway’s increasing reliance on revivals (which “in effect admit that worthy new work has become…hard to find”) and on jukebox musicals that use pre-existing songs. Yet “That Is the State of the Art” is a generally positive wrap-up, with enthusiastic comments on recent shows ranging from commercial hits (Wicked, The Book of Mormon) to more austere works staged in the noncommercial theater (Marie Christine, Parade). All but the most serious students of musical theater will likely be daunted by the book’s opening 100 pages, devoted to the formative history that runs from John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera in 1728 through Victor Herbert and the Ziegfeld Follies of the 1910s. Yet Mordden makes a strong case for the crucial roles these relatively obscure works played in shaping the genre that came to full maturity in the art’s golden age (1920–1980). Chapters covering that period will sound a tad familiar at times to those who have read Mordden’s multivolume, decade-by-decade history, but they are nonetheless informative and enjoyable. An excellent discography and suggestions for further reading complete this stimulating survey.
Mordden rambles some, as is his habit, but he’s a formidably well-informed and bracingly opinionated guide to a quintessentially American art form.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-19-989283-9
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
Full of interesting factoids–-but the blatant advertising for Kushner's products is pervasive to the point the book becomes...
A wake-up call about caffeine from a committed and self-interested author.
Formerly a newspaper journalist in Russia who consumed enormous amounts of coffee and cigarettes, Kushner relocated to New York City during the early '90s. Shortly thereafter, she learned she suffered from Celiac disease, a genetic disorder that was perhaps exacerbated by products containing caffeine. She researched caffeine substitutes, none of them suiting her tastes. And she discovered that certain substitutes contain gluten, another substance that those with Celiac cannot tolerate. Thus, she "invented" soy coffee and uses this book as her marketing platform. It's frequently informative, though, once the the text moves beyond pure publicity. For instance, she mentions that England's King Charles II attempted to shutter coffeehouses in 1675 because men tended to neglect their families while staying out to consume caffeine. Widespread protest, though, defeated the ban; the Boston Tea Party of 1773 resulted in the consumption of coffee as a patriotic duty; the world's first espresso machine began making noise in France in 1882; Maxwell House coffee is named after a Nashville hotel; US coffee sales boomed during the 1920s thanks to Prohibition; the US imported 70 percent of the world’s coffee crop at the beginning of WWII; Starbucks opened its first store in Seattle in 1971. These are just a few pieces of coffee trivia the author offers. She also briefly discusses the history of the American addiction to caffeine, explaining the chemistry of the substance, listing specific health threats (heart disease, central-nervous-system disorders, ulcers, cancer) and mapping out specific routes to end dependency. Unfortunately, though, the style interferes with the substance, as the tone is often shrill and alarmist. An appendix titled "Make a Difference!" is the call to action here, urging readers to petition the FDA for fuller disclosure among coffee manufacturers of specific product caffeine levels.
Full of interesting factoids–-but the blatant advertising for Kushner's products is pervasive to the point the book becomes soporific.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-9747582-0-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An adequate guide for running high-performance workgroups within a corporate setting, but far from a guaranteed formula for...
A satisfactory business study confirming the old business saw that 10% of the people do 90% of the work.
According to Annunzio's analysis, only 10% of elite information workers work in high performance-workgroups. The remaining 90%? Apparently they labor away as modern-day Bob Cratchits, in environments that neither demand nor deliver optimal performance. Ebullient accounts of the ideal workplace are nothing new in business nonfiction, nor are the lugubrious tales of moribund organizations. The author rarely notes here, though, anything we haven't heard a million times before from Tom Peters, Steven Covey, or even Donald Trump. Her maxims are boilerplate business clichés: value people; optimize critical thinking; seize opportunities. But basing a formula for business success on such bland principles is problematic, since they are so vague as to be meaningless. Do companies fail because they neglect to do such things? Most failures had nothing to do with workgroup functioning; instead, they stemmed from lack of foresight and, more commonly, simple bad luck. Nonetheless, Annunzio does proffer good advice for companies that wish to maximize the performance of their workgroups. First, identify those that are performing at a high level, those that can provide evidence of profit/revenue growth along with product, service, or process innovation. Second, work on bringing average groups up to maximum performance. More importantly, avoid destructive behaviors such as micromanagement, bureaucratic interference, resource and information hoarding, politics, and control. She also makes the astute—and cost-saving—observation that before hiring high-priced consultants to solve business problems, companies might consider consulting their own employees, who are more likely to know the answers.
An adequate guide for running high-performance workgroups within a corporate setting, but far from a guaranteed formula for business success.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2004
ISBN: 0-59184-060-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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