Ever After: Forty Years of Musical Theater and Beyond, 1977-2020

by Barry Singer

Narrated by Barry Singer—one of contemporary musical theater's most authoritative chroniclers—Ever After was originally published in 2003 as a history of the previous twenty-five years in musical theater, on and off Broadway. This new, second edition extends the narrative, taking readers from 2004 to the present. The book revisits every new musical that has opened since the last edition, with Barry Singer once again as guide. Before Ever After appeared in 2003, no book had addressed the recent past in musical theater history--an era Singer describes as "ever after musical theater's many golden ages." Derived significantly from Singer's writings about musical theater for the New York Times, New York magazine, and the New Yorker, Ever After captured that era in its entirety, from the opening of The Act on Broadway in October 1977 to the opening of Avenue Q Off-Broadway in March 2003. This new edition brings Ever After up to date, from Wicked through The Book of Mormon to Hamilton and beyond. Once again, Ever After is the first book to cover this new age. And, once again, utilizing his recent writing about musical theater for Huffington Post and Playbill, Barry Singer's viewpoint is comprehensive and absolutely unique.

424 pages, Hardcover

Published September 15, 2021

About the author

Barry Singer writes extensively about the arts and has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker, New York magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Opera News and, for more than a decade, The New York Times Arts & Leisure section, writing about theater, musical theater and popular music. He has blogged about the arts, literature and Winston Churchill for Huffington Post and written about theater and music for Playbill.
His biography, 'BLACK AND BLUE: The Life and Lyrics of Andy Razaf,' was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. He also is the author of 'ALIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD,' which won an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence in music writing and' CHURCHILL STYLE: The Art of Being Winston Churchill.'
His newest book, EVER AFTER: Forty Years of Musical Theater and Beyond -1977-2020-, will be published in September.
Barry Singer also is the proprietor of the only standing bookshop in the world devoted to the writings of Winston Churchill:
CHARTWELL BOOKSELLERS in New York City, which he opened in 1983.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Covering forty years’ worth of Broadway shows in a single book is a monumental task. Covering forty years’ worth of Broadway shows in less than 500 pages is a nearly impossible task. And yet that’s exactly what Barry Singer’s Ever After: Forty Years of Musical Theater and Beyond attempts to do. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really hit the mark. For those hoping for a glimpse behind the scenes of their favorite musicals, Ever After isn’t the book for you. It’s less of a historical account and more of a collection of reviews. In that context, it’s not too bad. However, the first half of the book is particularly hard to power through and the book’s general lack of depth hinders much of the enjoyment.

In truth, Ever After isn’t one book at all, but two. The first half comprises the original Ever After, first published in 2003, which covered all of the musicals from 1977-2002. And it’s pretty rough to get through. It’s written in the kind of detached, third-person voice that feels cold and uninviting. It doesn’t help that Singer spends much of the book’s first half endlessly complaining about the state of Broadway. And sure, Broadway was in a rough place during the 1980s and 1990s. But without any particularly intriguing behind-the-scenes looks at these shows, there’s little to offset the stream of mixed-to-negative reviews. Singer rarely dives past the surface level of any of the shows he covers. And when he does, it hardly proves revelatory to the hardcore Broadway fans this book seems marketed towards. What few interviews there are either don’t offer much in the way of insight or are from producers, rather than any of the creatives involved with the shows.

The second half is a newly-written update to the original, now covering the shows from 2003-2020. And honestly, it feels like you’re reading an entirely different—and generally more enjoyable—book. Here, Singer switches to a first-person point of view. And that personal touch helps ease some of the book’s problems. Since the second half feels like less of a historical account, it’s not as disappointing when it doesn’t delve into any of the shows with the depth you might like them to be. There are more interviews in this half, and while most of them remain less-than-revelatory, it is nice to properly hear from some of the creators. The bigger success is in the way that Singer broadens the scope of some of his reviews. In addition to his thoughts, he often mentions how his family and friends responded to whatever show he’s talking about. And it’s genuinely refreshing to hear some other opinions—especially those that run counter to Singer’s.

The biggest positive about the second half of the book is its sense of hope. The first half of Ever After feels quite hopeless. It’s a dark time for Broadway, filled with British megamusical imports and flop after flop after flop. But the second half of the book feels imbued with hope between being written during the early(ish) stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and covering the general upward trend of musicals from Wicked to Hadestown. It’s hard to walk away from these latter chapters of Ever After without feeling some kind of hope for the future of Broadway. Sure, it’s been through some dark times. But with all of the new voices on the horizon, perhaps its best days are yet to come.

At the end of the day, I’m not entirely sure who Ever After is for. It seems marketed toward hardcore Broadway fans, those who want to consume every little tidbit of all of their favorite shows. But those fans are almost certain to walk away from this book disappointed. What little light it shines on the making of these musicals is information that can be easily found elsewhere. And they’re outweighed by Singer’s personal reviews of each show. However, it seems equally unlikely that a more casual Broadway fan would be all that interested in reading an overview of such a large amount of time. And so, I remain unsure who Ever After’s target audience is. As it is, Ever After is a nice collection of reviews. It offers a quick, breezy overview of the majority of musicals from the last 40-years, and even examines some of the trends that sprouted from them. I just wish it went into a lot more depth than it does.

[Theo Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have no idea why I spent three days reading this instead of my dissertation but I enjoyed it very much!! The second time around you get over the judgement and just appreciate the author’s wide ranging knowledge. Especially the second half which covers this century, it’s really fascinating to think about the place of irony in American musical theatre - and to think about the commercial versus non profit worlds and how each interplays with the other to create a chapter in musical theatre history!! Also just so helpful to see all these things laid out and compared and placed within a continuum .

[Gabriela Veciana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t love the way this was told