The editors provide an extensive introduction to help the reader identify trends and patterns within the development of the art form, including the effect that London's West End has had on Broadway (and vice versa). To its credit, the book also explores the development of black musicals, Asian musicals, and experimental works. Of special note are essays about producer Cameron Macintosh, Noel Coward, and marketing trends targeting multiple generations of theatergoers. Though the level of writing varies greatly from essay to essay, the book as a whole provides an excellent examination of a monumental theatrical form.
As Professor of Theatre and Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London, Robert Gordon established the first MA in Musical Theatre for writers and producers in Europe. He has worked as a playwright, director, actor and critic and is author of Pinter's Theatre of Power, Stoppard: Text and Performance, The Purpose of Playing, co-author of British Musicals since 1950 and editor of the Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies.
Olaf Jubin is Reader in Media Studies and Musical Theatre at Regent's University London; he has written, co-written and co-edited several books in the area of popular culture, the mass media and musical theatre, both in English and in German, among them studies on the dubbing and subtitling of Hollywood musicals for the German market and a comparative analysis of American, British, German and Austrian reviews of the musicals of Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber.