By Terri Schlichenmeyer
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
”Singular Sensation: The Triumph of Broadway” by Michael Riedel, c. 2020, Avid Reader Press
You know every single role in your favorite Broadway show.
You can name all the actors who’ve ever filled those roles. You know the plot and every word to every song. How many times have you seen that show, bought the T-shirts, read a playbook, coveted the posters? And how much is there that you don’t know? In “Singular Sensation” by Michael Riedel, come see.
Hollywood’s supposed Golden Age lasted from the 1930s until just after World War II. The Golden Age of Live Television, says Riedel, roughly spanned the Eisenhower years. The Golden Age of Broadway, then, was from 1943 to 1959. At about that time, a “British invasion” arrived, lasting for decades.
And then, in the later 1990s, everything changed.
Suddenly, low-budget musicals were profitable. Musical comedies became popular again, and plays “made a comeback.” Corporations began eyeing Broadway as a way to further their brand and make more money. Perhaps most importantly, “[a] new breed of producers” stood up to theater owners who’d previously had serious power, and new theaters were established. Literally, the landscape of theater-going changed.
It wasn’t all singing and dancing, though. Says Riedel, “Broadway has a knack for survival,” and it needed that knack: the AIDS crisis was in full-swing then, terrorism left its mark on theater audiences abroad, Times Square was seedy, and New York City itself was struggling financially. The industry was ripe for change, and Riedel tells about it.
He writes of egos, ideas and role replacements, all of which often clashed. He explains how money and power makes or breaks a show, especially in behind-the-scenes deal-making with theater owners who decide which shows run and which don’t. He writes of writers, actors, directors, costumers and criminals.
Riedel explains how a daytime talk show host made Broadway a must-see destination for New York City’s tourists. He explains how Disney made its mark on Broadway, with the help of Rudy Giuliani. He writes of a genius who never saw his masterpiece and never knew its popularity. And he tells of a show rescued from near-obscurity by a husband-and-wife team who couldn’t let it go…
House lights down, stage lights up and, within minutes, you’re transported to another place and time. Reading “Singular Sensation” is something like that: author and theater columnist Michael Riedel takes readers backstage, overseas, onstage and in rehearsals and meetings with people you’ll recognize if you’re perpetually Broadway-bound. The nice surprise is that this serious-but-lighthearted, semi-scandalous collection of related stories will, because of the size of the names involved, make a non-fan happy, too.
Indeed, Riedel gives readers a fly-on-the-wall feel through bit of non-catty, relatively kind celebrity gossiping, done with an absolutely correct amount of drama. This keeps “Singular Sensation” under control while maintaining a sense of insider, somewhat like reading Variety with a delightfully droll Ph.D.
It’s likely been a minute since you sat in a theater seat and you miss it very much, but that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying Broadway on paper. So grab “Singular Sensation” and roll with it.
The Bookworm is Terri Schlichenmeyer. She has been reading since she was 3 years old and never goes anywhere without a book. Terri lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books.
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