Ever After: The Last Years of Musical Theater and Beyond

by Barry Singer

Ever After is more than a detailed show-by-show history of the last quarter century in American musical theater. It explains how the storied Broadway tradition, in many cases, went so very wrong. Singer takes the reader behind the scenes for an unparalleled look at A Chorus Line’s final bow, the creation of Rent, the real people behind Disney's uber-musicals, and even an afternoon with Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Ever After also celebrates the promise of the next generation of young musical theater artists, especially Adam Guettel, Michael John, LaChiusa Ricky, Ian Gordon, and Jason Robert Brown, addressing not only their work to date but their future projects.

There is no other book currently available that covers this period and subject. Through his work for The New York Times, Singer has interviewed virtually everyone of significance. They are all here, very much speaking for themselves. Ever After is both anecdotal and analytical, featuring personality profiles of important creative figures from Jule Styne to Stephen Sondheim to Jonathan Larson, while critically evaluating all of the many musicals produced during the past 25 years.

Sure to generate debate, this is a book written not only for the musical theater aficionado, but for anyone who has seen a Broadway musical or has just enjoyed the movie version of Chicago and is curious to know more.

Genres: Nonfiction, Theatre

560 pages, Hardcover

First published March 15, 2004

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

[Theo Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Singer employs a light and breezy conversational style which makes for very easy and engaging writing. There are some interesting glimpses of untold histories here - with people who may have otherwise gone unremarked on. I did feel that the author tends to insert his own opinion of shows into the 'history' he's documenting, which can lend an interesting tone that I'm still trying to figure out what I feel about: its refreshingly frank but also can start to feel a little... curmudgeonly. Singer pointedly refuses to quote reviews, but then instead reviews the shows himself - though I guess theatre is so subjective, so... anyway! it's an enjoyable read, and I found myself wondering what he might make of the Broadway/off-Broadway (because that is really the focus of the book) musicals since 2003, so I'm delighted to see there's been an updated edition covering the last 2 decades of musicals in NYC.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

The analysis of this book was so bland, surface level and unemotional that I may as well have been reading nothing but the list of musical productions on Broadway that ended the book. Barry Singer never bother looking with any depth or insight at the theatrical trends he enumerated (all right, so Jekyll & Hyde was kept open by a group of loyal fans who came over and over to performances. Could you tell us what you think that might mean, or why it might have happened?), and had the irritating tendency of dismissing anything artistically adventurous and successful in its aims (read: most of Sondheim) as 'not really Broadway' and thus statistically insignificant. This had the tiresome effect of Singer not ending up discussing in detail anything actually interesting. Throughout, I had the sense that he didn't really enjoy going to see musicals at all, which doesn't make him seem like the best choice to write such a book. Also, the structure seemed to imply that Light in the Piazza is the savior of modern musical theater, and, while Light in the Piazza is indeed lovely, I hardly think it worthy of such a title.