Words with Music: Creating the Broadway Musical Libretto (Applause Books)

A must for anyone studying the American musical form.

I am still reading book. The slow speed is reflection of the valuable material that has been covered. It takes time to absorb the material. This book is a great learning curve for myself. It is a must for music theater students.I only wish that Lehman Engel's other book, 'Their Words are Music' is re-printed or at least offered as a kindle book by Amazon. I can assure you, it would be picked up as a standard text for music theater students in many campuses across the US. The few copies that are available are old and often full of mold other other allergens.

A little dated both in information and attitude, but still informative. Concentrates primarily on musicals prior to the Sondheim era.

Written by legendary musical director Lehman Engel in 1972, this book has been long out of print with copies selling for high amounts when you could find one at all. Now Howard Kissel, theater critic for the New York Daily News, has updated the book by applying the same analysis techniques to several modern shows such as 'A Chrous Line,' 'Rent,' 'Phantom,' 'Les Miz,' and 'Wicked.'To be sure, styles change over time as the modern audiences grew in a more rock oriented environment that Lloyd Webber was able to capture in his list of successful hits. But as the music has evolved, the basic rules of musical theater plot lines and character development have remained almost fixed.It is the current fashion to lament the passing of the musical, to look back to a supposed 'Golden Age' of the musical that is long past. This book ends with a quotation, 'The era of sterling drama and talented actors is in the past, perhaps never to return.' This came from a guidebook to New York that was published in 1868.The musical is not dead. And the same rules still apply when Mr. Engle wrote them in 1970. To be sure, most of the musicals put on Broadway are not so very good, but then one comes along ... And it is likely to have followed Mr. Engel's basic rules.

'The New Yorker' claims that "Everyone interested in the theatre can learn something from this book." Each chapter begins with a fitting quote, and Howard Kissel has updated and revised the original for today's reader.