Broadway, the Golden Years: Jerome Robbins and the Great Choreographer-Directors, 1940 to the Present

This book is an excellent introduction to the most vital and important Choreographer/Directors in the history of the Broadway stage. Unfortunately, it really should be taken as an introduction. Each of the Choreographers included could (and should) be a subject of volumes devoted entirely to their lives and their works. But this is a good way for someone not particularly knowledgeable about these gifted individuals in the Golden Time of Musical Theater History to gain a good basic knowledge of what true artists could accomplish.

As with the word "Hollywood," the word "Broadway" refers less to a location than to a culture. In this brilliantly written and thoroughly entertaining book, Robert Emmet Long examines several of Broadway's most productive, creative, and dynamic choreographers and choreographer-directors of that culture: Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins (to whom Long devotes three chapters), Bob Fosse, Gower Champion, Michael Bennett, and Tommy Tune. Long also includes an insightful Epilogue ("Broadway Today") followed by Notes and a first-rate Bibliography.Friends of mine who claim to "love" Broadway musicals have seen few of them performed on stage. What my friends really mean is that they appreciate the music written for those musicals which they probably first heard when seeing adaptations and/or listening to sound tracks from films such as Carousel, The King and I, Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and South Pacific. I consider myself fortunate having been able to see, live, the original cast performances of several of the musicals which Long discusses in his book. They include The Bells Are Ringing, Bye Bye Birdie, Fiddler on the Roof, The Music Man, Pajama Game, and West Side Story. Film adaptations of musicals can only suggest the energy and excitement of the choreography devised by those whom Long discusses in this book. What I especially appreciate is the fact that Long tells his reader so much about their personal lives as well as about their professional careers. Many of them collaborated on major musical productions. For example, as choreographer-director of West Side Story, Robbins worked closely with Hal Prince and Robert Griffith (co-producers), Leonard Bernstein (composer), Authur Laurents (librettist), and Stephen Sondheim (lyricist). Throughout his career, Robbins was directly or indirectly involved with many of the musicals which were introduced during what Long characterizes as Broadway's "Golden Years." Today, given the development and production costs of new musicals as well as the negative impact of the economy on those who are prospective investors in them, there is legitimate concern about the fate of choreographer-directors. Does Long share that concern? "It is far too soon to write [their] obituary. With all these gleamings of fresh life in the theater recently, it is entirely possible that the choreographer-director will after all endure -- or more than endure, will go on to triumph again and again." Long carefully explains how exceptionally high creative standards were established on the Great White Way during the past 60 years by Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Gower Champion, Michael Bennett, and Tommy Tune, among others. My fervent hope is that, in years to come, others will accept the challenge and indeed triumph "again and again" as their Broadway ancestors once did.