22 New Theater Books for Summer Reading 2022

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

Transforming Space Over Time: Set Design and Visual Storytelling with Broadway’s Legendary Directors, by Beowulf Boritt

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.

Author: New York Theater

Jonathan Mandell is a 3rd generation NYC journalist, who sees shows, reads plays, writes reviews and sometimes talks with people.

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