Category: Backstage Book Club

Sarah Ruhl has written an incredible memoir, titled Smile, that deeply explores her decade-long journey with Bell’s Palsy (a form of facial muscular paralysis) following the birth of her twins. As a woman working in the theater, where emotion and expression are paramount, she was forced to grapple with a reality where all she had…

For as long as there have been human beings, there have been stories. Stories of kings and queens, knights and knaves, peasants and mages, and everything in between have haunted the majority of Western culture since the twelfth century, capturing the imagination of listeners across time and space. One of these legends looms above them…

James Lapine, Sunday’s book writer and director, is a legend in his own right — with Sondheim, he wrote Into the Woods and Passion, and his work on landmark pieces such as Falsettos and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee has proved deeply influential for generations of creatives. In 2017, after viewing a revival…

Up In The Cheap Seats, Ron Fassler’s 2017 memoir, explores the idiosyncratic history he experienced, and the larger than life figures who influenced him from the stage. Featuring nearly 100 interviews with theatrical luminaries such as Stephen Sondheim, James Earl Jones, and Bette Midler, it is a window into the sunset years of Broadway’s first…

Every so often I come across a book that I struggle to finish for all of the right reasons. I will sit with it at my bedside, savoring the final chapters, doubling back and rereading sections multiple times, as I take as much time as possible to avoid turning to the last page. Footnotes: The…

For our inaugural issue of the ‘Backstage Book Club’, we are celebrating Godspell’s 50th Anniversary with The Godspell Experience. First published in 2014, Carol De Giere’s excavation of the musical Godspell holds the answers to any question you have ever had about the megahit musical that launched Stephen Schwartz into the constellation of great musical…