Joy Ride
Show People and Their Shows
Published on 17. September 2015
592 pages
978-0-393-24637-7 (ISBN)
Description
"Lahr creates a book worthy of its title: It is a living celebration of theater itself." —Caryn James, New York Times Book Review
Since 1992 John Lahr has written for The New Yorker, where for twenty-one years he was the senior drama critic, the longest stint in that post in the magazine's history. Joy Ride is a collection of his profiles and reviews that throws open the stage door, taking us behind the scenes both on and off Broadway to introduce such creators of contemporary drama as August Wilson, Arthur Miller, Stephen Sondheim, Tony Kushner, Wallace Shawn, and Mike Nichols. The result is a delightful, literate, and essential crash course in contemporary theater.
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Person
National Book Award finalist John Lahr is the author of Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, among other books. He was the senior drama critic of The New Yorker for over two decades. He has twice won the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism and is the first critic ever to win a Tony Award (coauthor, Elaine Stritch at Liberty).
Content
- Cover
- Title
- Contents
- Introduction
- Part I: Playwrights
- 1. Arthur Miller
- A View from the Bridge
- 2. August Wilson
- Gem of the Ocean
- Joe Turner's Come and Gone
- Seven Guitars
- 3. Tony Kushner
- Angels in America
- Caroline, or Change
- 4. David Mamet
- The Cryptogram
- Glengarry Glen Ross
- 5. Sarah Ruhl
- Eurydice
- Stage Kiss
- 6. Clifford Odets
- Golden Boy
- 7. David Rabe
- Hurlyburly
- 8. Harold Pinter
- Moonlight
- The Room and Celebration
- 9. Wallace Shawn
- The Designated Mourner
- Grasses of a Thousand Colors
- 10. Neil Labute
- The Mercy Seat
- 11. Sam Shepard
- True West
- 12. William Shakespeare
- John Barton
- Hamlet
- The Winter's Tale
- Othello
- Macbeth
- King Lear
- Part II: Productions
- Arcadia
- The Pajama Game
- The Retreat from Moscow
- Private Lives
- Company
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
- Me, Myself & I
- Oklahoma!
- The Light in the Piazza
- Orpheus Descending
- The Rose Tattoo
- Carousel
- Part III: Directors
- 13. Nicholas Hytner
- The History Boys
- 14. Ingmar Bergman
- Madam de Sade
- The Misanthrope
- 15. Susan Stroman
- The Producers
- 16. Mike Nichols
- Death of a Salesman
- Acknowledgments
- Index
- Also by John Lahr
- Praise for John Lahr
- Copyright
