Below is a list of theater books — recently published, soon-to-be published, or newly relevant — in four categories:
Scripts and Play Anthologies
Biographies and Memoirs
Theater History, Criticism, Interviews and Essays
Theater Design
Each title is linked to its page on Amazon where you can learn more, read a sample, and purchase it*
Scripts and Play Anthologies
All but one of the individual scripts are scheduled for productions on Broadway this season. Alice Childress’ “Trouble in Mind” ran on Broadway last season.
Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress
Cost of Living by Martyna Majok
The Kite Runner play script, by Matthew Spangle based on the novel by Khaled Hosseini
Leopoldstadt by Tom Stoppard
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Topdog Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks
The Piano Lesson by August Wilson
Contemporary Plays by Black British Writers
Biographies and Memoirs
Shy The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers by Mary Rodgers and Jesse Green.
Finding Me Memoir of Viola Davis
The Letters of Oscar Hammerstein II
Truly Madly Vivien Leigh Laurence Olivier and the Romance of the Century
Randy Rainbow Playing with Myself
I Was Better Last Night by Harvey Fierstein (My review of Fierstein’s memoir)
Theater History, Criticism, Interviews and Essays
The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act
Made Up Asians: Yellowface During the Exclusion Era
The Lost Conversation: Interviews with an Enduring Avant-Garde
Howlround Theatre Commons: Essays and Conversations from the First Ten Years
Pinter and Stoppard: A Director’s View
The Jukebox Musical: An Interpretive History
Grease Tell Me More Tell Me More: Stories from the Broadway Phenomenon That Started It All
Theater Design
Scene Shift: U.S. Set Designers in Conversation
*Your purchase through some of the links above may generate a small commission, which helps support my work. Many of these books are available to borrow at the New York Public Library.
