With this latest edition in a highly respected series on the history of Broadway musicals Mordden (Beautiful Mornin': The Broadway Musical in the 1940s) presents a decade of radical change with both the wit and the scholarship that characterized his earlier works. More than a chronology this work discusses the good and the bad of each production and offers an in-depth discussion of the major shows from Camelot which Mordden considers the last of the Rogers and Hammerstein era to Cabaret which he calls "the essential sixties musical." Paperback
The prolific Mordden (The Fireside Companion to the Theatre) has juggled two different series in recent years one fiction and one nonfiction. Now he offers the fourth title in the latter a decade-by-decade history of American musicals following on the heels of Coming Up Roses about the 1950s. Despite Mordden's authoritative scholarly approach the book sings with stylish syncopation and chatty humor. The evolution and transition of 1960s Broadway was signaled by the failure of Irving Berlin's Mr. President Noel Coward's fading glory (Sail Away) and the beginning of The Fantasticks' four-decade run. New concepts emerged and fresh talents like Bob Fosse and Stephen Sondheim took center stage. With Cabaret in 1966 "the new age begins." Darker themes were introduced in Man of La Mancha What Makes Sammy Run? and Golden Boy. Detailing the decade's innovations Mordden tosses in fascinating bits of theatrical lore and history. Hits (Funny Girl) and flops (Sophie) are deftly described with wit panache and a clever novelistic eye. Mordden never misses a cue covering everything from off-Broadway (The Threepenny Opera) to the English musical.
