Few of us have made good on the promise to finally start writing that book, but New Line Theatre artistic director Scott Miller has published three during the pandemic alone. Miller had just released his deep dive on the new golden age of musicals, Idiots, Heathers, and Squips, when COVID-19 hit and New Line cut its season short. “I remember somebody posted on Facebook, ‘What do you do when your entire industry disappears overnight?’” he says. “The only thing I have ever wanted to do was taken away from me.” He turned to writing, publishing a short story anthology, Night of the Living Show Tunes, and a songbook, Broadway Musical Christmas Carols. And he had still more ideas. Enter his latest, The ABC’s of Broadway Musicals: A Civilian’s Guide.
The book begins with a basic definition of the genre, hypothesizes why people love it, lists five myths of the musical, and then gives a quick-and-dirty history. The rest is divided into listicles—five great Black musicals, five great pop operas—with spotlights on such creators as Stephen Sondheim, Harold Prince, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. The tone is conversational and fun, but that’s not to say it’s superficial. Consider, for example, musical myth No. 5, “Musicals are escapist and audiences want escape.” Not so, Miller writes: They’re about connection. “People want to know they’re not alone in the world,” he says. “They want to know that other people feel the way they feel, that other people have the problems that they have, and that other people overcome those problems.” What better artform, then, for 2021?
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