Books Read in 2007, 2008, 2009

January

February

1. Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, Seth Godin
2. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell
3. How to Run a Theater: A Witty, Practical and Fun Guide to Arts Management, Jim Volz
4. Invitation to the Party: Building Bridges to the Arts, Culture and Community, Donna Walker-Kuhne
5. The Art of the Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts Organizations, Michael Kaiser
6. Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business, Erik Qualman
7. PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences, Deirdre Breakenridge
8. The Commercial Theater Institute Guide to Producing Plays and Musicals, Frederic B. Vogel and Ben Hodges
9. Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
10. Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Leaders, Holly Ross, Katrin Verclas, and Alison Levine
11. The Performing Arts in a New Era, Kevin F. McCarthy, Arthur Brooks, Julia Lowell, and Laura Zakaras
12. Marketing for Cultural Organisations: New strategies for attracting audiences to classical music , dance, museums, theatre and opera, Bonita M. Kolb
13. Performing Arts Management: A Handbook of Professional Practices, Tobie S. Stein and Jessica Bathurst

March

14. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, Elizabeth Gilbert
15. Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction, David Sheff

April

May

16. School for Husbands, Wendy Holden
17. 21 Steps To Happiness, F.G. Gerson

June

18. The Break-Up Diet: A Memoir, Annette Fix

19. Everyone Is Beautiful, Katherine Center

July
20. The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown

August
21. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
22. The Giver, Lois Lowry
23. Moloka’i, Alan Brennert

September
24. The Birth of Venus, Sarah Dunant

October
25. As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, John Colapinto
26. It’s a Wonderful Lie: 26 Truths About Life in Your Twenties, Emily Franklin

November

December
27. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe

• 12/18/2005 -- 101 in 1001 – 67.33% Complete
• 7/19/2006 -- About
• 9/15/2008 -- 101 in 1001 #2 – 47.52% Complete

This post is for the Blogathon 2009! I am blogging for The Actor’s Fund. For more information about what I am doing, please click here, or you can sponsor me!

• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1958 (Blogathon ’09 #4)
• 7/26/2009 -- Theatre in 2001 (Blogathon ’09 #41)
• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1965 (Blogathon ’09 #10)

Image via Wikipedia

Mel Brooks makes his Broadway debut with Tony Award winning Best Musical The Producers.  By far the most successful of all his theatrical productions, The Producers is hilarious!

This post is for the Blogathon 2009! I am blogging for The Actor’s Fund. For more information about what I am doing, please click here, or you can sponsor me!

• 7/26/2009 -- Theatre in 2004 (Blogathon ’09 #44)
• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1965 (Blogathon ’09 #10)
• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1960 (Blogathon ’09 #5)

This musical has become a popular community theatre piece, revived all over the country.  It’s based on the 17th century novel by Miguel de Cervantes called Don Quixote.

This post is for the Blogathon 2009! I am blogging for The Actor’s Fund. For more information about what I am doing, please click here, or you can sponsor me!

• 7/26/2009 -- Theatre in 2004 (Blogathon ’09 #44)
• 7/26/2009 -- Theatre in 2001 (Blogathon ’09 #41)
• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1965 (Blogathon ’09 #10)

One of my favorite musicals of all time is Tony Award winning Best Musical Fiddler on the Roof.  This is just a stunning work, both on-stage and on-screen.  Topol is the embodiment of a time and place that no longer exist, and I cry every time!

When I was in high school we did Fiddler on the Roof my sophomore year, and that was when the theatre bug grew into the theatre interest that has brought me to where I am today.  I had always enjoyed theatre and thought it was a fun hobby, but that was the time when I realized that I needed to spend all my free time in rehearsal!

Fun fact: Fiddler on the Roof was the first run of a musical in history to surpass the 3,000 performance mark!

Once I start getting tired from the Blogathon, I’ll most likely pop in the Fiddler on the Roof DVD!

This post is for the Blogathon 2009! I am blogging for The Actor’s Fund. For more information about what I am doing, please click here, or you can sponsor me!

• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1960 (Blogathon ’09 #5)
• 7/26/2009 -- Theatre in 2004 (Blogathon ’09 #44)
• 7/26/2009 -- Theatre in 2001 (Blogathon ’09 #41)

Interesting tidbit from Wikipedia:

The original Broadway production credited the choreography to an obscure dance director named Hugh Lambert, while the much better-known Bob Fosse received only a “musical staging by…” credit. Abe Burrows explains this in his autobiography Honest, Abe. While How to Succeed… was in its early development, producer Cy Feuer attended a trade show and was extremely impressed by an elaborate dance number created by Lambert, prompting Feuer to hire Lambert to choreograph the new musical. According to Burrows, it soon became clear in rehearsals that Lambert’s creative abilities were completely used up in that one elaborate dance number. Bob Fosse was brought in to replace him, but Fosse was unwilling to hurt Lambert’s career by having him fired. Lambert’s trade-show dance number was recycled as the “Treasure Hunt” dance in How to Succeed…, while Fosse agreed to take a “musical staging” credit for choreographing all the other dance numbers.

This post is for the Blogathon 2009! I am blogging for The Actor’s Fund. For more information about what I am doing, please click here, or you can sponsor me!

• 7/26/2009 -- Theatre in 2004 (Blogathon ’09 #44)
• 7/26/2009 -- Theatre in 2001 (Blogathon ’09 #41)
• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1966 (Blogathon ’09 #11)

The play is a re-enactment of the conflicts between King Henry II and Thomas Becket as Becket, best friend to Henry II, ascends to power becoming the King’s enemy. Becket begins as a clever, but hedonistic, companion; as a result of being created Archbishop of Canterbury, he is transformed into an ascetic who does his best to preserve the rights of the church against the king’s power.

Ultimately, Becket is slaughtered by several of the king’s nobles, and the king is then forced to undergo penance for the murder.

And now . . . a little info about a contest!!!

At the end of Blogathon 2009, I will be sending either the soundtrack to a musical or the script to a play that I mention today. Yes, that’s right, you get a free dose of theatre!!! I’ll take the top three sponsors (largest donations) and let them pick one of the shows I mention today. If it’s a musical, then they’ll get the soundtrack. If it’s a play, then they’ll get the script. Don’t you want to sponsor me now?!?!?!

This post is for the Blogathon 2009! I am blogging for The Actor’s Fund. For more information about what I am doing, please click here, or you can sponsor me!

• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1965 (Blogathon ’09 #10)
• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1960 (Blogathon ’09 #5)
• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1953 (Blogathon ’09 #2)

The Sound of Music tied for the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1960 with Fiorello! – a show I honestly know nothing about.

A bit of a random note – this past December one of my professors took our class to New York City to meet with a LOT of industry people (it was amazing).  Our first stop was at the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization to meet Ted Chapin, and it was absolutely breathtaking.  Original drafts of all the music, really neat pieces from the various shows throughout the years . . . it was really awesome to see so much recent theatre history!

Look for details soon about a contest for my sponsors!

This post is for the Blogathon 2009! I am blogging for The Actor’s Fund. For more information about what I am doing, please click here, or you can sponsor me!

• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1965 (Blogathon ’09 #10)
• 7/26/2009 -- Theatre in 2004 (Blogathon ’09 #44)
• 7/26/2009 -- Theatre in 2001 (Blogathon ’09 #41)

With a book by the great Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by the budding Stephen Sondheim (a musical giant of our time), how can you go wrong? To top it all off, they used the plot of one of the top romances of all time – Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

But why did we love this musical so much?  Why was it such a big deal?  Aside from having amazingly catchy music, West Side Story brought to the Broadway stage something that had been brewing about for some time and was about to erupt across the nation – racial tension.  No longer was this story about warring Montagues and Capulets who just didn’t get along in fair Verona.  It was about Puerto Ricans vs. Anglos . . . and an interracial romance.  The stakes were raised in addition to Jerome Robbins’s famous choreography.

West Side Story is currently on Broadway for its second revival in honor of it’s 50th anniversary last year.  Learn more about it here: http://www.broadwaywestsidestory.com/

This post is for the Blogathon 2009! I am blogging for The Actor’s Fund. For more information about what I am doing, please click here, or you can sponsor me!

• 7/26/2009 -- Theatre in 2004 (Blogathon ’09 #44)
• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1965 (Blogathon ’09 #10)
• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1960 (Blogathon ’09 #5)

This important work won both the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1956.

The Diary of Anne Frank is the stage adaptation by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. of the book The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank.  At a time when America was still raw from World War II, this brought to light a completely fresh perspective, and created a work that would compel school children for years to come.

This post is for the Blogathon 2009! I am blogging for The Actor’s Fund. For more information about what I am doing, please click here, or you can sponsor me!

• 7/25/2009 -- Theatre in 1965 (Blogathon ’09 #10)
• 7/27/2008 -- Books in the Workplace (Day of Blogs ’08 #44)
• 7/16/2009 -- Blogathon 2009 – Sponsor Me and Support The Actors Fund!