(Limelight). Playwright/novelist/screenwriter Goldman analyzes Broadway from the perspective of the audiences, playwrights, critics, producers and actors. "Very nearly perfect... It is a loose-limbed, gossipy, insider, savvy, nuts-and-bolts report on the annual search for the winning numbers that is now big-time American commercial theatre." Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway
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More About the Author
William Goldman has been writing books and movies for more than forty years. He has won two Academy Awards (for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men), and three Lifetime Achievement Awards in screenwriting.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By clutchhitter
Format:Paperback
Having lived in New York for so long it's scary how accurate "The Season" is, although written over 30 years ago.
Broadway has become a tourist trap with very little to offer serious theatergoers anymore except spectacle shows.
Each chapter in this book shows how Broadway was crippled with each passing season...and it makes sense that this is what it's come to.
But the book is very funny (especially the chapter on critics where he launches an all-out assault on then-New York Times reporter Clive Barnes) and explains everything you'll ever need to know about how plays and musicals are put together.
Oh, yes: there's plenty of dirt, gossip, anecdotes and name-dropping...Neil Simon, Carl Reiner, Tennessee Williams, David Merrick and NBC Reporter Edwin Newman drop in for cameos.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an extraordinary book. It is written by an author with a first class mind and genuine curiosity about his subject. Whilst one may not agree with all of it, the writing is a delight and he does not shirk dealing with controversial issues such as the influence of homosexuality on the stage and the corrupt financial practices in relation to theatre tickets, etc. Even though it was written for the 1967-1968 season, it still resonates and viewed in retrospect, it provides crucial evidence relative to the aetiology of the culture wars.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
William Goldman's groundbreaking book The Season is all it's cracked up to be and more. Though a number of the people he deals with are no longer with us, many of the shows have been forgotten, and the ticket prices are quite a bit higher, it's astonishing how much the Broadway of the late 1960s resembles the Broadway of today. The same problems, the same headaches, the same disappointments, and the same triumphs are all still a part of the Great White Way. No Broadway enthusiast should be without this book; The Season is a stunning history--and current events--lesson on Broadway theatre.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Season is the Season!
I recommend this book to anyone considering a career in Musical Theatre. Wish I had seen it much earlier, and plan to read it over again.
Published 4 months ago by Elizabeth Goldman
5.0 out of 5 stars
Broadway Laid Bare
This is a fascinated book on the backstage world of Broadway but I suspect it is a little out-of-date. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Robert S. Robbins
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful book!
If you're interested in recent theatre history or just why shows make it on Broadway or don't, buy this book! Fascinating and detailed. Read more
Published 7 months ago by MarthaP
5.0 out of 5 stars
Still one of the best theater books out there!
I read The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway when it first came out. I devoured it in one sitting, and loved every word. Read more
Published on September 20, 2010 by J. Arena
5.0 out of 5 stars
How Now, William Goldman?
I read this book first in the 1980s, while I was actually working in the theater (and I had met a few of the people talked about in the book). Read more
Published on January 4, 2008 by Richard LeComte
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wise look at Broadway
William Goldman is not only a great screenwriter, but a wonderful writer of prose/criticism, as evidenced by "The Season," probaby the smartest, if not funniest, book ever written... Read more
Published on April 4, 2006 by K. Munch
5.0 out of 5 stars
Can't I add a sixth star???
This book is it. It's just it. If you have any inclination at all to work in the theatre in any capacity, this book is required reading. Do not move to New York without it. Read more
Published on February 16, 2006 by Aaron Mark
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Book on the Theater Ever Written
I read this book when it came out and it is, without a doubt, the best, most complete and sometimes hilarious book on the theater you will ever read. Read more
Published on March 18, 2000 by DUSE
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fabulous read.
Though this was written about a Broadway season back in the mid-'60s, Goldman's lively, opinionated writing makes this as fresh as ever. Read more
Published on December 13, 1998
5.0 out of 5 stars
How theater works
"The Season" is a revelation, the best book on theater I've read so far. It's foremost quality is that it demystifies the glitter-world of Broadway (and theater in... Read more
Published on November 10, 1998
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