On Broadway Men Still Wear Hats: Unusual Lives Led on the Edges of Broadway [Paperback]

Robert Simonson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2004 | ISBN-10: 1575253437 | ISBN-13: 978-1575253435

You don’t have to be involved in a play to be a Broadway enthusiast. In On Broadway, Men Still Wear Hats, the lives of some of theater’s lesser known contributors are brought to light: an accountant who gave up number crunching to write Internet theater reviews full-time, an amateur photographer who went from groupie to Tony Award nominee, a Texas ballet dancer turned kosher play seller, a Glasgow high school dropout who became Broadway’s favorite restauranteur. Author, journalist, and playwright Robert Simonson follows in the footsteps of Damon Runyon, Joseph Mitchell, and A.J. Liebling as he captures these and other passionate lives lived out along the edges of New York theater world’s white-hot spotlight.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Simonson...the Pied Piper of the Rialto...[leaves] no doubt why these environs are alluring, magical, and terribly important. -- Theater News

About the Author

ROBERT SIMONSON is the author of Role of a Lifetime, published by Back Stage Books in 1999. He is the editor of Playbill On-Line, where his column "Theater Week in Review" appears weekly. He has written frequently about the theater for the New York Times, the Village Voice, and Time Out New York. His play Café Society has been produced in New York City, Chicago, and Boston. Other plays include Corny, Kicker, Property, and Which One’s Yours?, which have been presented, in one form or another, at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Soho Rep, adobe theatre company, Clubbed Thumb, Theatre Three, Nada, and The Present Company. He lives in Brooklyn.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Smith & Kraus Pub Inc (August 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1575253437
• ISBN-13: 978-1575253435
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,249,353 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exquisite behind-the-curtain stories, April 20, 2005

By 

theatreslave (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On Broadway Men Still Wear Hats: Unusual Lives Led on the Edges of Broadway (Paperback)

Backstage sleuth Robert Simonson is a better writer than many who cover what's happening in front of the footlights. In On Broadway, Men Still Wear Hats, he steps around to the rear entrances of the theatre scene and not only plumbs the often unusual careers of publicists, designers, and columnists, but pokes around the nuts-and-bolts of wardrobe and prop creation, the resale market for old Playbills, the NY Public Library's herculean task of preserving every review they can lay hands on, and the private, frequently touching lives of ordinary vendors and suppliers who, just by being a part of the district's daily routine, seem to number among the happiest and most colorful people on the planet. As he points out in his Introduction, he wrote this book because he found these characters intensely interesting, worthier of more than the meager recognition they usually receive, and set out to correct that. He's done a beautiful--and highly readable--job. We are all richer for this off-beat labor of love.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful Theater Book, May 30, 2005

By 

D. Greven (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On Broadway Men Still Wear Hats: Unusual Lives Led on the Edges of Broadway (Paperback)

Full of telling details, this book is a gem about the theatrical milieu and its offbeat denizens. Huge amounts of warm, erudite fun for theatergoers of all kinds. And a perfect present for the theater aficianado you love! Simonson's book is highly recommended--a genuine treat.