The Secret Life of the American Musical Audiobook By Jack Viertel cover art

The Secret Life of the American Musical

How Broadway Shows Are Built

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The Secret Life of the American Musical

By: Jack Viertel
Narrated by: David Pittu
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For almost a century, Americans have been losing their hearts and losing their minds in an insatiable love affair with the American musical. It often begins in actors and reaches its passionate zenith when it comes time for love, marriage, and children, who will start the cycle all over again. Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical?

In The Secret Life of the American Musical, Jack Viertel takes musicals apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, marvels at their unflagging inventiveness, and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he invites us to fall in love all over again by showing us how musicals happen, what makes them work, how they captivate audiences, and how one landmark show leads to the next - by design or by accident, by emulation or by rebellion - from Oklahoma! to Hamilton and onward.

©2016 Jack Viertel (P)2016 Tantor Entertainment & Performing Arts Music Theater Funny Literary History & Criticism

Critic reviews

"An enlightening trip for lovers of musicals." ( Kirkus)

Featured Article: The Show Must Go On—Premier Audiobooks Now Playing for Theater Fans


A good play or musical is emblematic of what we love about entertainment—a chance to escape, to be fully immersed in another world, to engage with our most human emotions in a moment brought brilliantly to life by the talents of impeccable performers. It's possible to get your fix of the Great White Way in the comfort of your own home. Here are just a few of our favorite theater audiobooks to tide you over until curtain call.

Featured Article The Show Must Go On Premier Audiobooks Now Playing for Theater Fans
Encyclopedic Knowledge • Informative Exploration • Excellent Reader • Insightful Analysis • Technical Guidance

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This book is packed with details about what makes a good musical and talks about specific aspects of many of the most famous musicals. Very valuable for anybody aspiring to write a musical. Also will help you appreciate the musicals you have seen or will see.

So detailed

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An enjoyable informative look at the American Musical, I will use some of the ideas with my own students.

An Informative Lecture

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For lovers of the Broadway musical, this is a great big birthday cake of a book. Jack Viertel, a veteran producer who is also director of City Center's celebrated Encores! series, examines each part of a well-constructed musical from the overture to the finale, each in a separate chapter. He gives detailed examples of how these elements were made to work in the most successful musicals (and how they failed to work in a few unsuccessful ones), showing us how very difficult it is to put together a show that really works.

While his heart is with the great classic shows that he grew up with—he was born in 1949—he is open-minded enough to be able to recognize the merits of more modern successes like Hamilton, even when they break the rules. Even if you've heard some of the stories he tells before (I have), the book is still a hugely enjoyable tour of the Broadway musical as a form.

A Treat for Lovers of the Broadway Musical

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Jack Viertel does a masteful job of laying out (replete with examples) the way a Broadway Musical is constructed and how that construction has changed over time. The only possible improvement would have been to include cuts from the actual recordings where he reads the lyrics. NOW I have to go watch ALL these shows again and see them in this new light!

I wish my theater degree had included a course taught by him!

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I recommend this book to anyone who sees new or revivals of Broadway musicals. I missed many lines of dialog in some shows and I want to hear them again in the next revival. It has added to my thirst to see and listen classics again.

Just finished this book and plan to go back and order some CDs based on the author's recommendations.

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