Customer Reviews

Making It Big: The Diary of a Broadway Musical

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The cost of Broadway musicals in the 1990s was so astronomical that when shows succeeded, they succeeded big. And when they flopped, they flopped even harder. Big was one of the latter. And, though this book often feels like it wants to paint the opposite picture, from the trials and tribulations it covers, when you've finished it, you know why it's failed. Most of the book is wonderfully informative and well-written, but the show's lingering death is glossed over in a very ineffective epilogue, and its post-Broadway life is not even discussed at all. If you are at all interested in how Broadway musicals are conceived of and produced, you shouldn't miss this book.

Barbara Isenberg's living diary of "Big" reads like a fast paced novel of suspense. With everything in it's favor, it seems that "Big" will be a big hit, but the personal reflections of cast and crew reveal a deep undercurrent of doubt, fear and troubled feelings. After reading the book and sharing the journey, you feel the pain, the hope, the excitement and the ultimate disappointment. This wonderful work studies and embraces the birth pangs of creating a new work in musical theatre and the grieving period that comes with its closing. This is must reading for any theatre buff. Once you start it, you won't be able to put it down. I read it in one sitting