Three books that changed my life? Only three? As soon as I think of any one, a dozen more come to mind. But I will color inside the lines, so to speak, even as I leave countless loved ones up on the shelf.

1. My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

As someone intensely interested in the arts since I was young, but in a family that wasn’t particularly arts-oriented, as someone educated three days a week in conservative Judaism while in elementary school, but increasingly uncertain of what it meant to me personally, Potok’s story of an Orthodox young man whose talent for painting took him beyond the strictures of his upbringing spoke to me very powerfully, even though I didn’t meet with parental opposition to my affinity, and lacked any particular talent. Asher was compelled by talent to become a rebel and I was, to all outward appearances, a conforming good boy. His story was my own minor struggle writ large. But despite admonitions that the arts were a terrible way to make a living (albeit not the sin that Asher was cautioned about), I went my own way too. And in college, I took a philosophy seminar with Potok, and was able to thank him for what his work meant to me, even as he opened new avenues of thought for me. Corollary: Philip Roth’s The Ghost Writer.

2. What Makes Sammy Run by Budd Schulberg

Even after I began my life in the theater, I still held romantic dreams of working in Hollywood, going so far as to spend a week interviewing at studios and production companies the year I turned 30. When, as a teen (and I still reread it annually), I first read this seminal novel of two men whose lives took them from New York to Hollywood, it offered me the already bygone allure of a different life, of fame and money, even as it showed the price one might pay to achieve such things. Yet as the years progressed, what I saw in the book evolved, as I realized that I was much more like the novel’s narrator than its hyper-precocious anti-hero. I wasn’t someone who could swim in the (seemingly) shark-infested waters of movie making. Where Sammy was once a book that offered the vision of a different life, it became an affirmation of the choices I’ve made, of staying in theater, and outside the commercial arena, of staying in the form and with the people with whom I’m most comfortable. Corollary: The Player by Michael Tolkin.

3. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

As children, we were always falling into fantasy worlds: on TV, in movies and in the pages of books. This hypnotic novel, which I read when it was first published, is probably the last time I recall being immersed in a fantasy completely—a fantasy that was at times dark, uncomfortable, and even incomprehensible. I don’t think I’ll ever quite understand its hold on me, how it manages to be entirely otherworldly and impossible in some ways and utterly believable in others. Even as I had entered the working world, saw how magic was made on stage from behind the scenes, and dealt with the mundanity of such things as paying rent and car loans, Dunn’s novel of a most unconventional, fractious, fantastical, and loving family—and how the legacy of any family lives on even after they’re gone—was a reminder of how completely a book could transport me. Corollary: from years earlier, the first “grown up” book with a comparable effect, despite being about rabbits, Richard Adams’s Watership Down.

Extra-credit: Though first published in newspapers, but collected in countless anthologies, Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz, which is utterly woven throughout my life for as far back as I can remember.

This essay 0riginally appeared on the blog of the National Endowment for the Arts

The rise of internet culture has caused many shifts in how we consume information, with one of the more amusing side benefits being the rise of the fictional Twitter user. Disregarding spambots, the anonymity that comes so easily online has birthed such figures as @BronxZoosCobra and @ElBloombito, to name but two. In the theatre realm, the sunny cheerleading of @BroadwayGirlNYC has found adherents, but the sharper tongues (or typing) of @WestEndProducer and @Actor_Friend have launched them into real world publishing, within weeks of each other.

For those who haven’t been following them, a quick précis. West End Producer is, ostensibly, an individual on the production side of theatre in England, whose dishy asides about every aspect of the business always conclude with the simultaneously charming and condescending #dear. I have struck up a Twitter acquaintance with this person, we’ve shared a few jokes and they sent me a signed copy of their book. I’ve noticed their unwavering dedication to chronicling TV talent competitions as they air on weekend evenings (which can be bewildering, since the shows don’t play in the US) and just learned of a mutual passion for Sherlock, but this TV fixation doesn’t suggest someone at the country homes of those with bold faced names on the weekend. I’m newer to Actor Friend, whose full nom de tweet is Annoying Actor Friend, but the online persona is that of a snarky actor, seemingly more of a dedicated gypsy than an above-the-title star. While I won’t guess at gender (though WEP’s appearances in a latex mask disguise would indicate male, and in a  book blurb, one writer suggests AF is female), I’d hazard that AF is in their 20s while WEP is likely 30ish (or more).

In their books Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Acting But Were Afraid To Ask, Dear (Nick Hern Books, £10.99) and #SoBlessed: The Annoying Actor Friend’s Guide To Werking in Show Business (CreateSpace, $13.99), WEP and AF dispense pearls of wisdom in their trademark styles, freed from the chains of 140 characters at a time.  Early in each book, one gets the full force of their characters:

“Casting Directors are usually very nice people who like drinking far too much alcohol, and mostly during the day. The ones that don’t drink usually have other habits, which can’t be discussed here – but often end in them being discovered on a bench outside Waterloo Station at 5 a.m.”  – West End Producer

“Even after you’ve questionably noted your music, nervously mumbled some directions, and shakily clapped out a tempo, there will be an accompanist who has no effing clue how to play your Jason Robert Brown song. Seriously though – whenever I don’t get a callback, I usually find a way to blame the accompanist. It doesn’t matter if they played my audition flawlessly. It’s still their fault.”  – Annoying Actor Friend

“A serious actor has to approach acting in a serious way. This can be achieved by using various methods. One of the easiest ways is by not smiling – particularly if you don’t have good teeth. A serious actor should always save his smile for special occasions. However, this does not mean you can’t smirk. Smirking and smiling are two very different things indeed.”  – West End Producer

“As a performer, Annoying Actor Internet Law requires you to read anonymous online opinions about you, take them personally, and then complain about how all those people on theatre message boards are stupid, even though their comments are secretly murdering you from the inside out.”  – Annoying Actor Friend

Now you might imagine that an entire book of this arch tone would grow tiresome, let alone two, and I’d readily agree with you. That’s where both of these books turn out to be surprises. #SoBlessed, while the thinner of the pair, both literally and figuratively, pretty much drops all pretense of a character in one of its longer chapters, “On The Road,” which deals with touring. Offering a pointed critique of touring conditions and contracts, AF gets into some detail about the challenges of an actor’s life on tour. AF’s advocacy regarding compensation has taken on even greater urgency among some members of Actors Equity, with the full Twitter support and perhaps instigation of AF, has raised a stir about the pay structure of touring agreements over the holidays.

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Acting is more comprehensive than its title suggests, ranging over many fields in the theatre, including producing itself. While the occasional Britishism may befuddle the less worldly reader, the advice dispensed among the punchlines is in fact utterly practical, simply delivered in a tone unlikely to be heard in classrooms at Yale or the Tisch School. “When you audition,” observes WEP, “there’s always a moment when you’re perfect for the role. It’s the moment before you come through the door.” WEP also wraps up the book by enumerating concerns that face the theatre, going beyond flippant remarks about Andrew Lloyd Webber to touch upon rising ticket prices, competition from the electronic media and the need for everyone in theatre “to be braver.”

They may have found their fame in the briefest of missives and gained followings with their dark and knowing wit, but in the end West End Producer and Annoying Actor Friend are both passionately dedicated to the theatre, doling out genuine wisdom and information with nearly every wisecrack. If one is on a budget and has to choose between the books, I give the edge to WEP, even though those in the US have to wait for its release here in the spring via TCG (it seemed to be a favored holiday gift in the UK, judging by my Twitter feed). But both make for irreverent supplements to more staid but perhaps equally inspiring books in theatre. And they are not annoying. Not annoying at all, dear.

It’s not unusual for book releases to be coordinated with a related event taking place elsewhere in the media circus: the autobiography that appears just as a star’s major film is coming out, the personal memoir that primes the public for a political campaign. However, no one can accuse Julie Taymor of engaging in such wanton promotion – she certainly can’t be pleased that Glen Berger’s Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History (Simon & Schuster, $25) debuts just as she returns to the stage with A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn. One imagines she’d have been happier if there were no book at all.

Countless people are reading and writing about the book as another chapter in the seemingly never-ending saga of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, the headline generating musical that has been the target of brickbats from arts journalists virtually since the show was first announced. Spider-Man: TOTD seemed to throw raw meat to the media at every turn, ranging from fundraising challenges and production delays to several highly publicized cast injuries which seemed to turn the show into a latter-day Roman arena. It kept Patrick Healy of the Times and Michael Riedel of the Post in competition for breaking tidbits in a manner rarely seen before.

I didn’t find Berger’s book particularly revealing, largely because it covers ground that had been extensively reported elsewhere, and I confess to having consumed the events as they happened. In fact, I made a point of seeing the very final performance of the Taymor version and the opening night of the version reworked without her – and, for the most part, Berger’s – consent, after they had been supplanted by Philip William McKinley and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa respectively. Yes, I watched the show’s travails, as most did, as a theatrical car wreck in slow motion, a modern-day tragedy of creative hubris played played out in benday dots and rock chords.

For all that Berger recounts, the book constantly reminds the reader that it is the story of Spider-Man: TOTD as viewed through one person’s biased eyes – rather than the whole story. Berger goes out of his way to paint himself as a innocent caught up in the maelstrom of vastly more famous, and vastly wealthier, artists than himself. His emphasis on being separated from his family, of his personal financial troubles, of how different his world is from that of his acclaimed and wealthy collaborators Bono and Taymor – they grow tiresome, as if Berger deserves some sympathy or absolution for his role in the debacle by virtue of his less lofty perch. But he’s not exactly Nick Carraway observing the actions of Gatsby and the Buchanans – he’s a willing participant until his own calculations backfire on him, severing his ties forever with Taymor, who he has built up as his own artistic Daisy. To compare him to Faust conveys a grandeur I decline to confer.

The fact is, reading Berger’s book is like watching only one viewpoint from Rashomon, and one is all too aware that others undoubtedly have very different versions of the same events. I can’t help but suspect that the musical might at best be a page or two should Bono write his life story; producer Michael Cohl would no doubt recount the saga as a story of how he rescued a damaged show that most believed was dead on arrival; should Taymor tell her version, it will be of an artist (herself) persecuted by greedy philistines. Whether anyone will care to follow the tale repeatedly refracted through varying prisms is anyone’s guess, though that might be the only way to get the real story.

All of this should not suggest that Berger’s book has no value. It is, at the very least, a superb answer to the perennial question about troubled or failed shows: “Didn’t anyone realize how bad it was going to be?” The book is an encyclopedia of ignorance, ego and self-delusion, a look at how a theatrical property, especially one with such a high profile, almost becomes unstoppable, and the many ways in which it can go wrong, of how perspective is lost when you are so close to the work for so long.  Aspiring producers should read it as a cautionary tale – not about a one-off disaster, but rather about when it pays to just say no, shut a show down, and move on, since Spider-Man may be the most expensive show to date, but there are plenty of complete flops that followed much the same misguided path.

Inevitably, Berger’s book will find its way onto many a theatrical bookshelf, even if it doesn’t have the elegance or educational value of many other books with which it shares conceptual and theatrical DNA. As I read it, I was reminded of a book about a vastly less well known disaster: playwright Arnold Wesker’s The Birth of Shylock, The Death of Zero Mostel, a chronicle of a quick Broadway flop notable mostly for the death of Mostel, its leading actor, who died while the show was trying out in Philadelphia. Like Berger, Wesker seems almost entirely unaware of his own complicity in the show’s failure, even as he repeatedly tells about his taking aside actors to countermand the edicts of the show’s director, John Dexter.  Shylock the show is in the dustbin of Broadway history, whereas the legend of Spider-Man will surely go on; however, the author’s account of the production of Shylock makes for better literature than Song of Spider-Man.

While there are certainly great Broadway books  of autobiography (Moss Hart’s Act One is an exemplar of the kind), more often than not the best chroniclers are those on the fringes or outside of a production entirely. Ted Chapin’s Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical ‘Follies’ is an impeccable recent example of the former, derived from Chapin’s own notes as a production assistant on the original Follies; William Goldman’s The Season: A Candid Look At Broadway has long stood as a grand achievement of the latter. Of course, in both cases, the authors were given rare access, which seems almost impossible in the more media savvy world of today; the film industry was reminded about the danger of giving journalism too much access when critic Julie Solomon roamed free on the set of a Brian DePalma film, resulting in The Devil’s Candy: Anatomy of a Hollywood Fiasco, a detailed chronicle of the famous flop The Bonfire of the Vanities.

Though it covers work which is vastly less infamous and some 50 years in the past, I daresay that Jack O’Brien’s recent Jack Be Nimble: The Accidental Education of an Unintentional Director (Farrar Straus and Giroux, $35) is the more worthy, entertaining and educational insider theatre book of the year. While O’Brien could have easily produced a standard memoir, given his own considerable achievements as a director, he followed Chapin’s lead and instead opted to write about the access he had as a young man to a remarkable confluence of talents: the members of the APA and later the APA-Phoenix theatre companies, which included Richard Easton, Rosemary Harris and above all the now little-remembered Ellis Rabb. I know firsthand what a wealth of stories Jack can tell about his own exploits, but by deciding to honor the artists who formed his own aesthetic, he has written a work of history and memoir that is ultimately more important and informative than Berger’s attempt to make a few more dollars off the Spider-Man debacle.

Perhaps, one day, a young PA on Spider-Man: TOTD will emerge with his or her own book, to draw the truest picture of what went on as the web collapsed.  Until then, we’re left with a lopsided recap of a story that we mostly know, told by what is called, in literary circles, an unreliable narrator.

I have a confession to make: I am constitutionally unable to watch the acclaimed TV series Friday Night Lights. Now I realize this may be surprising to those who know and admire that program. My inability to sit through more than the first three episodes of season one is actually a testament to its effectiveness. The reason I cannot watch it is that it makes me profoundly angry.

The source of my anger is the omnipresence of the town’s obsession with football, which seems to be the only source of entertainment and focus for the Texan characters. I know the series is fiction (though drawn from Buzz Bissinger’s non-fiction book), but the single-minded portrayal of small-minded adults consumed by high school sports is by no means a false portrait in many communities, and it infuriates me.  After all, I neither play sports nor follow any with particular interest. Where, I’ve always wanted to know, is the comparable enthusiasm for the arts  in high schools, outside of magnet programs dedicated to them?

Well, per Michael Sokolove’s account in his book Drama High (Riverhead Books, $27.95), such support exists in Levittown, Pennsylvania, at Truman High School. Sokolove paints a highly appealing portrait of a school where the drama club stands alongside sports in the pantheon of school activities, and some athletes even defect from their teams to perform on the Truman stage. He credits this achievement to the just retired teacher and director Lou Volpe, who over 44 years drew attention and respect to the theatre program in an underachieving district in a moderate-income community, not in some well-financed suburban setting. For those who recall a New York Times story about $100,000+ high school productions, this school and its program are worlds away.

I had many reactions as I read Sokolove’s book, but first among was them was pleasure at seeing the story of high school theatre well-told, especially its ability to sustain young people who need to be rooted in a supportive community in a way their home lives don’t necessarily offer (as was surely the case for some of my high school drama comrades). While there have been a number of low-budget film documentaries in recent years that have looked at high school and community theatre programs for youth (including an episode of TV’s 20/20 which shares a title with this volume), Drama High is the first high profile, in-depth book on the subject that I’ve come across. As such, it immediately becomes required reading: for young people who can learn more about the challenge and rewards of theatre, for parents who may well need the same background, for anyone who doubts the value of theatre as an educational and character-building activity not only for those who would become professionals, for those who want to spark reveries of their own experiences in high school drama.

The book is at its strongest in its first half, which chronicles Volpe’s production of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s Good Boys and True, decidedly challenging work to take on at the high school level. In following the production, Sokolove really gets into the lives and heads of the kids who participate in the production and it evokes the profound importance and connectedness that theatre can bring, just like a spot on any sports team. That the play, which turns on matters of sexual orientation, can be staged in a public high school is a rebuke to small minded communities that seek to censor or eliminate drama programs over content – I’m looking at you Everett, Massachusetts and you Ottumwa, Iowa – as proxies for far too many more. That its achievements are recognized through regional and national Thespian Society competitions is icing on the cake, mirroring the plotting of Glee which focused on “making it to Nationals.” But this is real.

Friday Night Lights, also high school drama

The Glee comparison is one made in advance materials for the book (as is the Friday Night Lights connection), but unlike the Ryan Murphy TV series, Drama High never stoops to low and even ugly comedy and stereotype. Imagine if all of Glee sustained the level of quality and heart that characterized the story lines between Kurt and his dad, and you’ll get a closer approximation of what Drama High achieves.

The book is not without its drawbacks. As a graduate of Truman, Sokolove’s decision to write as a returning alumnus and ever-present observer draws attention to himself and away from straight reportage; his admiration for Volpe’s achievements is palpable, but as a result, we spend some time with Sokolove and Volpe instead of staying completely with Volpe and his kids, which is where the most compelling story lies. Also, as someone who is seemingly not immersed in the theatre (not necessarily a bad thing for a journalistic undertaking about theatre), Sokolove is drawn to Truman’s use by Music Theater International as a test site for musicals about to be launched into the high school realm, which is more about business and less about people.  That Cameron Mackintosh went to Truman to see their Les Misérables is impressive, and a feather in Volpe’s cap, but it’s not moving; the same focus on external affirmation undermines the account of Truman’s pilot production of Spring Awakening.

At one point in the book, Sokolove quotes Volpe at length talking about his own evolution as a director and teacher: “I had to learn balance, harmony, order, design, composition.” Most any theatre nerd would recognize the phrase as being drawn, almost word for word, from Sondheim’s Sunday In The Park With George; Sokolove lets it pass unremarked. He also doesn’t seem to understand that when Volpe talks about changing the order of scenes in Good Boys and True, he’s actually considering violating of the licensing agreement for the play; as it happens, Volpe was talked out of the idea.

Glee at its best

What I missed most in Drama High was the detail of exactly how Truman High School’s drama program managed to achieve such primacy. Sokolove attributes it all to Volpe, and no doubt he was absolutely central. But because Sokolove knew Volpe relatively early in his tenure, and then returns to him in the final years, we don’t have a fully rounded account of how this once-married, now openly gay man forged a respect for a program that most schools treat as an afterthought. Was it nothing more than perseverance? I yearned for a road map that other teachers and districts might follow to correct the lopsidedness that has always upset me when comparing academic arts pursuits with sports.

But there is no denying that Drama High is a moving account of how the arts can profoundly change lives and even the outlook of a community. Even by mentioning that I was reading the book, and tweeting links to a New York Times Magazine excerpt, I heard back from people who live or have lived in or near Levittown, who spoke with enthusiasm of Volpe and his program, affirming Sokolove’s view. He has fashioned a rare tribute to an influential teacher; while I suspect that perhaps few districts may have come to appreciate drama in the way they have in Levittown, I am certain there are countless other teachers, not only of the arts, but of math, science, history and yes, athletics, who have had significant impact on scores of lives who are deserving of commemoration as well.

And of course, Drama High actually manages to suggest its own sequel. Will the drama program continue to thrive with Volpe gone? Will the ongoing cuts to “non-essential” school programs take its toll in Levittown now that the revered advocate has retired? Or after generations of residents coming to appreciate theatre, is it safe, at least for the foreseeable future? That’s another story to be told, of import to arts education programs everywhere, one sure to be of high drama.

Let’s face it: railing against Broadway musicals adapted from movies is a useless exercise. As long as people keep buying tickets for them, and as long as enough of them turn out to be financial successes, they’re going to keep coming, some terrific, some blatantly and ineffectively mercenary. After all, the major Hollywood studios have now established theatrical divisions, looking to exploit their catalogues of stories and marketable titles and to them, theatrical budgets are tiny, so risk is minimal. If the pace ever slackens, I predict it’s going to be a long time coming, and likely due more to the blockbuster mentality that is overwhelming Hollywood being unable to translate to the stage. Pacific Rim, The Musical anyone?

The fact is, musicals from movies are hardly a new phenomenon. As far as I’m concerned (quoting myself from a blog post last summer), “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with musicals based on movies. When it is done with enough craft, with care and talent, no one begrudges a show its origins.”

The new Aristophanes musical!

There’s no question that lovers of musicals harbor a deep-seated desire for the wholly original musical – a story not heard or seen before, a score not lifted from some era’s Top 40 hits.  There’s a particular craft at play there that hopefully won’t be lost and don’t mistake anything in this post as not desiring more of that work. But adaptation has been around for almost as long as Broadway musicals themselves; the only change is in the source. What’s puzzling is why certain sources have largely been abandoned.

Quick what was the last memorable musical you can name that was adapted from a play? And, excluding those which first became movies, what was the last solid musical based on a book? Actually, let’s drop the question of success altogether and just look at origins.

In the past decade on Broadway, only three musicals were adapted from plays: Lysistrata Jones, Spring Awakening and The Frogs (four if you include All Shook Up, exceedingly loosely based on Shakespeare). Only one musical was made from a book that hadn’t been previously filmed. Perhaps you’ve heard of it: Wicked. And I suppose you could make the argument that the Wizard of Oz tie-in gave that show a leg up as well, and it didn’t stand solely on its direct source.

Another Aristophanes toe-tapper!

It’s easy to think up reasons why literate sources have been, seemingly, all but abandoned. Sure, they don’t have the benefit of major Hollywood marketing pushes, but isn’t there some value to decades, if not centuries in the literary and theatrical canon? Hollywood quickly options countless literary properties, some of which never get made, but don’t those rights lapse at some point? Certainly there are numerous plays and books which never get bought as potential films. Those in the public domain shouldn’t be the only ones considered.

A quick reminder may be in order. The tradition of adaptation is as old as the fully integrated musical, since Oklahoma! itself was based on the Lynn Riggs play Green Grow The Lilacs. Among the many musicals adapted from plays: My Fair Lady (from Pygmalion), Hello, Dolly! (The Matchmaker), The Most Happy Fella (They Knew What They Wanted), Where’s Charley? (Charley’s Aunt), The Threepenny Opera (The Beggar’s Opera), Porgy and Bess (Porgy) and, more recently Merrily We Roll Along (from the play of the same title). As for books, think about Show Boat, Damn Yankees, The Pajama Game, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, and Pippin (from Steinbeck’s The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication). Don’t forget that musicals have even been assembled from short stories, perhaps most notably Guys And Dolls (Damon Runyon), Fiddler On The Roof (Sholom Aleichem), and Wonderful Town (Ruth McKenney).

To be sure, when it comes to plays, subjects and scale have changed; one might more easily envision the large-cast plays of the 20s and 30s translating into musicals than todays four-to-six character plays. I’m not remotely suggesting that every play (or book, or movie for that matter) is necessarily right for musicalization. But decades since “musical comedy” has ceded ground to “musical theatre” in the artistic vernacular, it would seem there’s a rich vein of material that has been left untapped.

Sing along with Wedekind!

Hollywood studios committing resources to developing musical properties may in fact be the best argument for returning to plays and books as musical sources. Now that the studios want to handle their own stage development, the window may be closing for independent producers who seek rights to movies and the same may hold true for artists who are self-generating ideas for movie into musical adaptations. All the more reason to look beyond the silver screen.

What plays do I think might work as musicals? Peter and the Starcatcher (a book that became a play) seems an obvious one from the recent crop of Broadway plays; frankly, it already feels like a musical to me in many ways. Prelude To A Kiss has always struck me as the basis for a romantic musical with deep feeling.  I’ve gently begun nudging Alan Ayckbourn about his Comic Potential. Since Born Yesterday is already an American Pygmalion, it could work just fine. Some of August Wilson’s plays could conceivably translate into a musical blues idiom that’s already in place in his language. Remember, I’m not suggesting stereotypical musical comedy, but musical theatre. And while new plays on Broadway may be scarce, there are plenty Off-Broadway and in regional theatre.

As for books? Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, perhaps, as a musical/opera mix. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Perhaps even a particular favorite of mine, the surreal but compelling Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, with the added element of extensive puppetry work from Handspring.

Broadway remains the predominant engine and the goal of new musicals, and my suggestions may not be obvious material with built-in marketing appeal; these may need to be developed and produced in the not-for-profit sector. But as plays become operas (Doubt, Angels in America) and books have long become movies and then musicals (From Here To Eternity is coming up soon in London), there seems to be a large swath of literature that can be told combining story and song, live on stage. We just need creative people, artists and producers alike, to look beyond the obvious and the easy, and to their own bookshelves, which are stacked with novels and plays, waiting to be told anew. Time to stop watching, and start reading, imaginatively.

This is not a cranky older guy post, whining about the way things used to be, but merely an observation about how the digital revolution has affected a behavior that was long taken for granted. I am referring, specifically to the habit of browsing bookshelves and record collections when visiting a home for the first time.

For me, this was a time-honored activity because, in moments when I might be left alone in the appropriate room, or during a party seek refuge from din, I would drift to bookshelves or record (later CD) racks to peruse the archive, as it were. Visiting a new friend, it would help me to quickly understand what more we might have in common; on an early date, it might provide fodder for conversation during a forthcoming lull. Even the manner in which the materials were kept was a indicator; as a compulsive alphabetizer, a jumbled collection might give me pause; my books are still divided between fiction and non-fiction and my CDs are broken down, by rock, jazz, classical, comedy and cast recordings.

Some of my fiction books,
imperfectly organized

Long before we talked of online curation, one’s music or literary collections were a snapshot of a person just ripe for the examining. In The New York Times, Verlyn Klinkenborg has likened a book collection to being a personal reminder of one’s literary pursuits and achievements. I instead see them as somewhat more external, hunting trophies for the cultural adventurer, displays of prowess for others to marvel at. True, they’re hardly foolproof record. There was an era when nearly every self-respecting bookshelf held Stephen Hawking’s  A Brief History of Time, but I’ve never actually had a conversation with anyone who’s read it; it was the equivalent of buying a stag’s head in an antique shop rather than tracking wildlife through the Rockies (not that I’m advocating anyone running out to kill animals for display).

Mind you, the digital shift has been an enormous boon to many. One no longer need  enter someone’s home to check out their interests; the cavalcade of Facebook likes means you can surf the interests, if not ownership, of people you may have just met – or don’t yet know – allowing you to prejudge if you wish.  Trying that option with me online will prove vastly less fulfilling than a bookshelf crawl in my apartment; I tend to “like” very little on Facebook so that my news feed won’t be overrun with ads and “you may also like” suggestions. I’m not intentionally shielding my digital footprint or my enthusiasms from others, but only trying to limit marketer access to the degree that’s still possible.

A portion of my music archive,
alphabetized by artist

The iPod and the Kindle (and their competitors) are responsible for stymieing this wholly acceptable form of social and cultural snooping. If you’re spotted gazing at a bookshelf, no one would think anything of it, and might even evince a certain amount of pride, while if you were to suddenly activate their tablet while they’re off getting you a drink, they might not be so sanguine. The digital survey, even if deemed acceptable, is also not so rewarding as to do so physically; there are no book flaps and author bios to read easily, or album art or liner notes to study.  To be sure, the digital devices allow us access to our collections constantly, thanks to portability and now even cloud storage, but it has hidden our interests from view, cutting off a line of communication.

Of course, as an avid theatergoer, that aspect of my interests has always been less accessible. There are only so many Playbills and programs one can artfully array on a coffee table before it comes clutter, and theatre programs don’t have spines with the names of shows visible if stored on shelves. Part of my CD collection is  misleading, because I often acquire cast recordings for reference, not necessarily personal enthusiasm; I have musicals on disc that I have never listened to, but they’re right at hand should the subject come up.

I am a creature of habit, and my attachment to the physical is deeply ingrained. I suppose on a vacation I might download a stray mystery to the Kindle rather than carry a book (hardcover is my preference, in almost all cases, with the attendant weight burden). The stray pop tune may warrant an iTunes impulse buy, rather than an album purchase, and the same holds true for some obscure material that is no longer in print but remains downloadable. But as someone who still dreams of a room in my home called the library, with comfortable reading chairs, a great sound system and walls filled with books, I can’t let go of my prizes, which even after periodic culls, have traveled from home to home with me, not least being my copies of published plays, in weathered paperback, some of which date back to my teen years.

It wouldn’t be cost effective for me to rebuy my books in digital form, even if it would free up precious apartment space; I could convert all of my recordings to digital, but I’d need a bigger iDevice. Doing either would deprive me of a portion of my trophies (the limited edition 5-CD Elvis Costello live set; the signed, numbered first edition of Vonnegut’s Slapstick) and of the display of my cultural plumage. I’m just not prepared to give that up. And like the owner of a home “under water,” I’ve invested a lot in this ephemera, only to find its physical value eroded by the march of technology, so it wouldn’t be close to an even trade if I opted to upgrade.  I am, at this point, rooted in my outdated pursuits, even if I ever choose not to be.

Mind you, I’m told that some people also like to check out bathroom medicine cabinets when they visit a home; that’s a line I’ve never been compelled to cross. But for aficionados of that level of intrusion, it’ll have to remain a physical pursuit, unless Facebook starts letting people “like” pharmaceuticals, which I hope never comes to pass.

I’m unable to see a Shakespeare play without thinking of my late mother.

“How sweet,” you think, “He and his mother must have shared many great evenings together watching Shakespeare. Their common love of the Bard transcends her passing.”

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. I think of my mom, an elementary school teacher by training, whenever I’m headed to a Shakespeare production because, for the 23 years I lived in her house, I heard the same thing every time I was en route to see one of Bill’s plays.

“Did you read the story first?”

One of many editions of Charles & Mary Lamb’s “Tales From Shakespeare”

My mother was convinced that the only way to fully appreciate Shakespeare, because of the dense and archaic language, was to read a detailed plot synopsis immediately prior to seeing one of his plays. Specifically, she meant for me to pull down her copy of Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales From Shakespeare from the living room shelves. Far predating such study guides as Cliff’s Notes, the Lamb book was originally written in 1807; my mom’s edition probably dated from the 1930s or 40s and was a tool in her own Shakespeare studies, such as they were.

I resisted my mother’s advice on a consistent basis, perhaps because I found Tales to be stodgy and unreadable on its own, or perhaps I was just being intellectually cocky. She never quite understood how I could see Shakespeare plays without this essential crutch. But my appreciation of theatre always seemed innate, rather than inspired by my parents, so this was simply one more example of how different we were from each other.

Ultimately, I learned about Shakespeare by seeing the plays over and over again, with an assist from the standard high school curriculum (including Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth). I remember being required to memorize Mark Antony’s funeral oration from Julius Caesar; perhaps there were a few other speeches I had to commit to memory as class work (though, oddly, today I most remember Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”).

My greatest training in Shakespeare came during my eight and half years as p.r. director at Hartford Stage, which gave me to opportunity to see and discuss the plays with Mark Lamos, the artistic director, who is most responsible for what Shakespeare knowledge I may have. During my tenure, we produced Twelfth Night, Pericles, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar and All’s Well That Ends Well; I’ve also seen productions of Measure for Measure, Cymbeline, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet and Richard III directed by Mark. I’ve seen countless Shakespeare productions, but Mark was my true guide – beginning when I was 23 years old – immeasurably aided by my access to seeing the former group of plays multiple times in a short span.

Ken Ludwig’s book title says it all

I was reminded of all of this as read through the newly published How To Teach Shakespeare To Your Children (Crown Publishing, $25) by playwright Ken Ludwig, author of such plays as Lend Me A Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo.  Much as I’ve enjoyed Ludwig’s farces, I was mildly skeptical of his skills as a Shakespeare teacher, but in point of fact his book is exactly what its title says, a cogent, chapter by chapter study guide designed to empower parents to familiarize their children with Shakespeare’s language. Ludwig fundamentally believes in the primacy of Shakespeare’s work and words, so much so that he makes his case for parents teaching Shakespeare to their kids in only seven pages of the 314 page book, with memorization of key speeches as his touchstone. The rest is process.

Not having children, I can’t test Ludwig’s theories and conduct my own experiments. But surely he’s not alone in his belief in the value of memorization as introduction, as attested to by countless adorable YouTube videos of toddlers stumbling through Henry V’s speech before the battle at Agincourt and the like; an often viewed clip of Brian Cox teaching Hamlet to a youngster is a particularly delightful example. Though to be fair, the children on YouTube are younger than Ludwig’s suggested starting age of about six years, and surely the age should vary – if one wishes to embark on the Ludwig method – based upon the nature of each individual child.

As astute as Ludwig’s lessons are, I can’t help but think that they’re actually a stealth method of teaching Shakespeare to parents. Surely my mother might have grown more comfortable with the (to her) impenetrable language that got in the way of the stories; indeed, Ludwig’s book is focused more on moments from Shakespeare than with the plots themselves. A parent who doesn’t know, in particular, Hamlet, Midsummer and Twelfth Night might need a separate book to familiarize themselves with plots and cursory analysis before launching into the Ludwig method, besides reading the plays themselves.  If parents need to be eased into Shakespeare, they may want to use one of the countless graphic novel versions, an alternative study method apart from more didactic texts and the original scripts.  And there are countless imaginative films spanning the history of cinema to use as teaching (and learning) tools as well.

Yes, this is a real book

By sheer coincidence, How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare was published just weeks before, of all things, William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher (Quirk Books, $14.95) a scene-by-scene rewrite of George Lucas’s Episode IV rendered in iambic pentameter. While it’s far from the first work to mingle Shakespearean style and more modern stories (I saw a quite entertaining Tarantino travesty, Pulp Shakespeare, last summer at the New York International Fringe Festival; here’s a clip), it’s a solidly accomplished piece of work, which, like Ludwig’s curriculum, place its emphasis on language. It’s witty, but never anachronistic just for a laugh. It’s hard to tell whether it’s actually stage-worthy (I can imagine countless Shakespeare troupes racing to acquire performance rights, at least for readings or benefits, but this trailer doesn’t inspire confidence), but for the sci-fi geek who’s also a Shakespeare nerd (there are probably plenty), it’s a fun read. Purists will note that the slim volume is clearly not drawn from George Lucas’s First Folio, as it includes scenes with Jabba the Hutt which were not in the original 1977 film release, but rather in the much-later digital makeover; this version also fudges whether Han or Greedo shot first.

The Shakespeare-Star Wars mash-up might be just a lark for most (I particularly enjoyed R2-D2 proffering fully articulated asides to the audience while his companions hear only “meeps” and “beeps), but I wonder whether it might be another tool in the Shakespeare educational kit. If children and teens know Star Wars well, but are Shakespeare novices, this book might serve to teach them “Shakespeare as a second language,” since the faux-vintage language tracks so closely with the film. I don’t mean to suggest that Doescher’s gloss is equal to the Bard’s words, but especially for tweens and teens, it might be a helpful gateway text.

From the recent production by NYC’s The Shakespeare Forum

It is perhaps ironic that I’ve grown to like Shakespeare so much, because I don’t take any particular pleasure in reading him. It’s not a chore by any means, but I don’t pick up my hefty Oxford compendium of a Sunday morning for fun – it’s a reference tool. For me, the playing is all. As a result, while I know any number of the Bard’s plays rather well (in addition to numerous productions of the standard repertoire, I’ve seen no less than three Timon of Athens and three Cymbelines), I also have huge gaps in the canon, one of which was filled only two days ago when I saw The Shakespeare Forum’s production of Love’s Labour’s Lost.

For the first time in many years, I encountered a Shakespeare play that was wholly new to me. I was actually a bit concerned early on in the production, as I wasn’t immediately grasping the plot and the words weren’t even distant echoes of an ill-remembered prior production. For the very first time, I found myself wondering whether I should have read up on a Shakespeare play before seeing it; maybe my youthful defiance of my mother’s teaching tool was ill-placed.

But as I settled in with this alien story, it became clearer; flotsam of my Shakespeare knowledge took hold as I pondered whether Holofernes was written as a female role, as played in this production, and the play within the play echoed (actually, prefigured) the Pyramus and Thisbe scene in Midsummer’s Act V. Did I get every word, every plot point, every allusion? I sincerely doubt it, but that’s because I was a stranger in a strange land for the first time in a long time; since my exposure to LLL isn’t regulated at 50 year intervals, I’ll glean more from the next encounter, which will come in only weeks, with the new musical version set to debut at The Public Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park.

I have to say that in the case of Shakespeare, familiarity breeds not contempt, but respect and appreciation, and there’s no single way to achieve that knowledge (a close friend and Shakespeare fan uses recordings of the plays as a nightly sleep aid, which I can’t imagine). I do think it can come too soon (impenetrable Shakespeare surely builds up cognitive antibodies to fight off the Bard), but never too late.  Whatever the method, I suspect that anyone can come to enjoy, and even love, all of those words, words, words. I just wish I had been able to share them with my mom.

As a teen in the 1970s, I kept testing a small sociological phenomenon. When visiting a Jewish home, I would peek at the record collection of the adults in residence to see if they had the album “My Son, The Folk Singer.” If the family was Catholic or Protestant, I’d look for “The First Family” featuring Vaughn Meader. To my recollection, I never failed to find the anticipated album in the expected home, even though both records were already at least a decade old before I began my study. While this did not foretell a future career as a social anthropologist, it always gave me a little hit of satisfaction, as if I’d tumbled to some unique cultural signifier.

“The First Family” was a 1962 comedy album that satirized the Kennedy  clan very lightly and it briefly made a star of Meader. Of course, his career as a JFK impersonator was cut short in November 1963, but for one year, his fame was such that reportedly when Lenny Bruce performed for the first time after the president’s assassination, his first words were reportedly some variant of, “Wow, Vaughn Meader’s screwed.”

“My Son, The Folk Singer” was written and performed by a previously all but unknown TV writer and producer named Allan Sherman, who was in his late 30s when the recording debuted in 1962. It was such a phenomenon that it set sales records not simply for comedy records but for the recording industry in general, and demand for Sherman’s Yiddish inflected and overwhelmingly Jewish parodies of folk and later popular songs was such that he released his first three albums (out of eight in his whole career) within a single 12-month period. For a few years he was a huge name – touring night clubs and concert venues, guest hosting for Johnny Carson, appearing in his own TV specials – but he turned out to be a fad, especially as radio formats changed, marginalizing novelty records. When he died of a heart attack in 1973 at the age of 49, his career has already been all but over for several years. I discovered Sherman at roughly the same time, unaware of his passing — I can still sing any number of his parodies at the drop of a hat.

The new biography, Overweight Sensation: The Life and Comedy of Allan Sherman by Mark Cohen (Brandeis University Press, $29.95) is a comprehensive look at the career of the man best remembered today, if at all (outside of older Jews and comedy buffs), for his tale of a summer camp sojourn gone awry, “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah.” As might be expected of a book that is part of the publishing house’s “Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life,” Sensation views Sherman through a Semitic lens, arguing for his role in popular acceptance of Jews in American culture. While Jewish comedians (and writers, performers, and so on) had flourished for decades, Cohen posits that Sherman’s success was a key crossover point that freed Jewish artists to speak openly of their race, and indeed Jewish identity was central to Sherman’s earliest work. That he was welcomed at The White House is touted as a symbol of Sherman’s cross-cultural barrier breaking, as is his popular success throughout the country.

Because of its concentration on this thesis, the book seems to give somewhat short shrift to other Jews breaking into popular consciousness and in some cases into the mainstream at about the same time; the fertile environment for recorded comedy, at its height in the early 60s, is likewise diminished. Stan Freberg (The History of The United States of America) and Tom Lehrer (“Poisoning Pigeons in the Park“) merit nary a mention (despite writing both words and music to their melodic satires before Sherman came on the scene; the latter Jewish, the former not); non-singing Jewish comics like Shelley Berman and Brooks & Reiner (The 2,000 Year Old Man) are given little attention.  That’s not to say Sherman wasn’t important, but he didn’t exist in a vacuum. He burned brighter for a short time, and had a verbal dexterity admired even by Richard Rodgers, but it’s Lehrer and Freberg’s work that is often cited for its brilliance by comedians and composers a half-century later. Reiner, Brooks and Woody Allen (“The Moose“) may have started slower, but were surely more influential Jewish voices in the long run.

Sherman’s story plays out like the script of a thorough, culturally oriented “Behind The Music” episode, with a bit of Jewish motherdom thrown in for good measure. Cohen breaks down the comedian’s life as: he came from a terrible, broken family (such a shondeh) as a result of which he never grew up; he was a parodic genius (we’re kvelling); and already predisposed to poor health by his weight, he was done in by the trappings of success even as it left him (he’s always shicker, and cavorting with shiksas). There’s more than a hint of posthumous guilt being levied on Sherman for his various appetites (both gustatory and carnal) and shortcomings, while the enthusiasm for his culturally specific parodic work is unstinting. But the book’s research and complete lifetime overview makes it a vastly better reference document than Sherman’s autobiography, A Gift of Laughter, published in 1965 just as his career began to wane – and, according to Sensation, largely ghost-written and intermittently dishonest.

Coming from an academic press into a world that has largely forgotten him, Overweight Sensation is unlikely to spark a Sherman renaissance, but it does thoroughly memorialize the career of a man whose comedy prefigured that of other singing parodists, notably Al Yankovic, with whom he shared on obsessions with songs about food and weight (i.e. Sherman’s “Grow Mrs. Goldfarb” and “Hail To Thee, Fat Person“; Weird Al’s “Fat” and “Eat It“).  It also has the bonus of an appendix featuring lyrics Sherman wrote and never released commercially; based on familiar songs, readers can easily sing them for themselves. And if he was not the sole trailblazer for Jewish life and language assimilating into mainstream culture, he certainly played a key role that is deserving of acknowledgement and remembrance, as do some of his parodies, which can still bring laughs 50 years on.

The advent of mp3s has made Sherman’s work readily accessible again after long periods out of print, and YouTube offers the opportunity to sample his oeuvre, beyond the familiarity of the hazard-filled Camp Granada. For a cursory introduction (or reminder), I recommend both the heavily Jewish inventiveness of “Sarah Jackman,” “Shake Hands With Your Uncle Max,” and “My Zelda” and the more secular jauntiness of “Eight Foot Two Solid Blue,” “You Went The Wrong Way Old King Louie,” and (with Sherman on video) “Skin” and “The Painless Dentist Song.”

P.S. No relation.

Over there, on my bookshelf, sits the biography of my friend Alan. In its index, you can find an entry, “infidelities and romantic liaisons,” which directs you to pages 97-98, as well as page 209. This is, for me, rather disconcerting.

It is perhaps inevitable that if you work in the entertainment field long enough, you will encounter people about whom books have been written, even books that people have written about themselves. Because we tend to know such people at a remove, we are onlookers, and we end up with the clamor of Entertainment Tonight and talk shows, or the ironic whimsy of Celebrity Autobiography, a stage show in which actors and celebrities read with profoundly satiric intent from the fulsome memoirs of other actors and celebrities, although the texts are typically drawn from such eminences as Joan Collins and David Hasselhoff.

But when a book, be it biography, autobiography or memoir, is about someone with whom you have some genuine connection, I can assure you that your reaction and perception of these works, whether ghost-written, scholarly or deeply personal, changes radically.

In the case of Alan’s biography, which was “authorized,” I found it very strange to be reading details about my friend’s (who is 23 years my senior) early marriage, his somewhat unorthodox childhood, and so on.  One the one hand, I suppose I could have just asked him these things, but our time together is usually spent genially discussing theatre and our present lives over meals; while I have interviewed him in formal settings, those occasions have been focused on his creative work, rather than the particulars of his personal life. Reading that biography, I felt as if I was crossing a line, since, even in our Google-saturated age, it’s sort of creepy to research one’s friends.

This is hardly the only time that biographies have held secrets about people I know and work with, and each and every time I dip into such books, I feel I’m going behind their backs. In several cases, the books haven’t been about my friends, but their parents. I learned of one’s early and brief marriage (disapproved of by her hugely famous mother); in another I learned of a sister, institutionalized since birth and never spoken of to me. I’ve never brought these topics up, and I feel that it’s somehow wrong for me to know them. We typically learn about friends’ lives from sharing moments with them, or from conversation where we each choose what to reveal.

Biography poses one type of social unease, but the memoir – not a formal autobiography, but recollections of one’s own past – is even thornier. A decade ago, Cynthia Kaplan, my college roommate’s sister, long a surrogate sibling of mine, published a book of personal essays, Why I’m Like This. While to most readers, the people in the book were characters, to me they were all-but-in-blood family; I knew most everyone whose photos adorned the inside covers. I laughed in recognition over the chapter about her father’s eternal quest for the perfect Thermos (I have owned several that he has designated superior); I puzzled over the near invisibility of her brother in her tales (prompting me to say to him, “Gee, I never realized your sister was an only child”). Of course I read the book the moment it appeared; I wanted to support Cindy. But I’m still not sure I should know quite so much about her romantic life as she revealed, just as I still feel it was wrong for me to have seen her naked in a bathtub in an independent film screened at MOMA, even if her grandmother was by my side. But she gave me, and thousand who don’t know her at all, leave to do so.

A just-published memoir, Chanel Bonfire, casts yet another light on my biographical quandary. In this case, it is a book by an actress named Wendy Lawless, who I knew causally for nine weeks in 1988 when she played Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Hartford Stage, where I was the press rep. In her book, she details the somewhat harrowing story of her childhood with her glamorous, erratic, manipulative, alcoholic mother; the book concludes a couple of years before the time I met her. Because her father, who I also met years back, was an actor at The Guthrie Theatre, there are many peripheral characters in the book to whom I am also tangentially connected. There are very few degrees of separation here. On the one hand, as I read the book, my reaction was, “If I’d only known,” but on the other hand, what would I have done? She’d had a difficult life, and at times an exotic one, but would I have interacted with her differently? Would I have cultivated a friendship with Wendy, out of sympathy, instead of mere acquaintance? Did I ever say or do something that could have been construed as insensitive? This book forced a new perspective on a tiny bit of my life.

Perhaps due to the run-up to the book’s publication, Wendy and I became mutual Twitter followers. Unsurprisingly, when I reached out privately, she had not made any connection to our briefly shared past, and perhaps I am still, at best, a vague recollection (I remember every actor who worked at Hartford Stage during my tenure, a by-product of collecting and editing bios and headshots for the show programs).  I imagine we may meet once again, but we are essentially strangers, save for the fact that she has told me, and anyone else who chooses to read her revealing book, intimate details of her first 20 years. All she would know of me, should she care to look, are my biographical details, my opinions on theatre (via blog), and my social media meanderings. The relationship, should one be renewed, is unbalanced, and surely she’ll never solicit stories of my own childhood, which pale next to hers.

Social media has added yet another layer of complication to the issue of privacy and revelation, since we often know a great deal about some people without ever having met them. While I make an effort to meet in real life those with whom I correspond with some frequency, it’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever get to know all of these new friends.

Just last week, I was chatting back and forth with an actress whose name I know from assorted TV credits, and I’m aware we have some friends in common. She seems just like the sort of person I’d like to know; at least on Twitter, she comes across as smart and warm-hearted, as well as committed to theatre. But it was nagging at me whether I’d seen her on stage, so I did stoop to internet snooping. It turns out that my online friend, Christina Haag, published her own memoir, Come to the Edge, almost two years ago. Its focus: her five year relationship with John Kennedy Jr.

If Christina and I meet, that fact is just going to be sitting there in my frontal lobe and, while I have never been transfixed by the saga of the Kennedys, this connection would surely bring me closer to that family’s sad tragedies that we all know about. While I am to young to recall where I was when President Kennedy was shot, I recall precisely where I was when I heard that John Jr.’s plane was lost mid-flight. It’s one thing when memoir follows acquaintance or friendship, but it’s yet another twist when life details precede meeting.

Spending decades among artists, as well as journalists, it’s safe to assume that there will be more biographies and memoirs from which I am only one degree removed (in her second book, Leave The Building Quickly, Cindy Kaplan twice refers to her brother’s best friend, but I remain frustratingly unnamed). Indeed, as our information era makes personal data ever more accessible, perhaps my comparatively singular experiences will become commonplace for everyone, no matter who they are or what they do. If that comes to pass, then the dissonance I feel at having lives of those I know – or may soon meet – so readily available will dissipate. That’s when, to imbue a cliché with new meaning, everyone’s life becomes an open book.