Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway

The tale of the upward push, fall, and redemption of Broadway—its stars, its largest displays, its manufacturers, and the entire drama, intrigue, and gear performs that took place in the back of the scenes.

“A wealthy, pretty, debut historical past of New York theater within the Seventies and eighties” (Kirkus Reviews, starred evaluate), Razzle Dazzle is a story account of the folk and the cash and the ability that became New York’s gritty again alleys and intercourse-stores into the glitzy, fantastic Nice White Manner.

In the mid-Seventies Instances Sq. was once the seedy image of New York’s financial decline. Its As soon as shining big name, the popular Shubert Group, was once dropping theaters to make Manner for parking so much and dropping cash. Bernard Jacobs and Jerry Schoenfeld, formidable board individuals, noticed the crumbling corporate was once ripe for takeover and staged a coup and staved off corporate intrigue, non-public betrayals and felony investigations. As soon as Jacobs and Schoenfeld solidified their energy, they became a collapsed theater-proudly owning preserving corporate into some of the a hit leisure empires on the earth, spearheading the revitalization of Broadway and the renewal of Instances Sq..

“For the ones within the trade in the back of the greasepaint, at a riveting time in Broadway’s and New York’s historical past, that is the price tag” (USA TODAY). Michael Riedel tells the tales of the Shubert Group and the displays that re-constructed a town in grand taste—together with Cats, A Refrain Line, and Mamma Mia!—revealing the behind the scenes drama that incessantly rivaled what transpired onstage, exposing sour rivalries, not likely alliances, and within gossip. “The difficulty with Razzle Dazzle is…you can’t placed the rattling factor down” (Huffington Post).