Hailed as "absolutely the best reference book on its subject" (Newsweek), this expanded and updated third edition of American Musical Theatre offers an unmatched blend of narrative history, expert critical insight and detailed show-by-show, season-by-season descriptions--from the first musical to the 1999/2000 Broadway season.

This book concludes Gerald Bordman's acclaimed survey of American non-musical theatre. It deals with the years 1930 to 1970, a period when the number of yearly new plays was shrinking, but a period during which American drama as a whole entered the world stage and became a dominant force. With works like Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire, and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, American theater finally reached adulthood both dramatically and psychologically. Bordman's lively, authoritative study covers...