Open a New Window

"The 1960s formed the decade in which the Rodgers and Hammerstein era ended and the next era of modern concept musicals began. In Open a New Window, Ethan Mordden continues his history of the Broadway musical by looking at the decade that bridged the gap between the romantic, fanciful entertainments that came before to the time when "dark" musicals such as Company and A Little Night Music were commonplace. In the 1960s, Camelot was the climax of the romantic musical play that had its roots in such earlier examples as Oklahoma!, Brigadoon, and West Side Story, but in 1966, a show opened on Broadway that forever changed the way we would think about the Broadway musical: Cabaret. This dark Kander and Ebb musical introduced the commentative musical play which later led to Follies, Chicago, and Grand Hotel. From the romance of King Arthur's Round Table to the decadent air of a nightclub in Nazi Berlin, Open a New Window tells of a wondrous and turbulent era in Ethan Mordden's witty signature style, putting the reader fourth row center. Curtain going up!"--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.