You Could Drive a Person Crazy: Chronicle of an American Theatre Company [Paperback]

Scott Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 25, 2002

For years, conventional wisdom has held that theatre companies have to produce brainless, well-known, flashy shows to make money and stay afloat. But one regional theatre company out in the middle of America has been proving since 1991 that conventional wisdom is wrong. New Line Theatre consistently challenges its audiences, taking them on wild, intense, roller coaster rides, assaulting them with issues, challenging them with complex characters and themes, demanding that audiences not remain passive, sometimes producing shows very few people have heard of, daring to be controversial, aggressive, confrontational. And not only has New Line survived its first ten years, it's sailing into its next ten years as healthy and as heartily supported by its public as ever.New Line Theatre has, once and for all, shattered the myth that audiences only like what they know, that audiences don't like to think when they come to the theatre, that television has made us all into passive couch potatoes. On the contrary, New Line has proven that audiences-even those in the supposedly conservative Midwest-love to be challenged, shaken up, confronted, involved. This is New Line's story.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Scott Miller is the founder and artistic director of New Line Theatre, an alternative musical theatre company in St. Louis. He holds a degree in music and musical theatre from Harvard University, and he has been writing, performing in, and directing musicals since 1981. He has written six books on musical theatre, including Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and Musicals (2011), Strike Up the Band (2007), Let the Sun Shine In (2003), Rebels with Applause (2001), Deconstructing Harold Hill (2000), and From Assassins to West Side Story (1996).

Product Details

• Paperback: 226 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (December 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595263119
• ISBN-13: 978-0595263110
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,605,136 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Scott Miller is the founder and artistic director of New Line Theatre, an alternative musical theatre company he established in 1991 in St. Louis, at the vanguard of a new wave of nonprofit musical theatre being born across the country during the early 1990s, offering an alternative to the commercial musical theatre of New York and Broadway tours. He has been working in musical theatre since 1978 and has been directing musicals since 1981. He has written the book, music, and lyrics for nine musicals and two plays. His play Head Games has enjoyed runs in St. Louis, Los Angeles, London, and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland; and his last musical, Johnny Appleweed, was nominated for four Kevin Kline Awards. He has written six books about musical theatre, From Assassins to West Side Story; Deconstructing Harold Hill; Rebels with Applause; Let the Sun Shine In: The Genius of HAIR; Strike Up the Band: A New History of Musical Theatre; and Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and Musicals. He has also written chapters for several other collections of musical theatre essays. He has written for several national theatre magazines and websites, and he has composed music for television and radio. He co-hosts, with Deborah Sharn, "Break a Leg - Theatre in St. Louis and Beyond," a weekly theatre talk show on KDHX-FM in St. Louis. Miller holds a degree in music and musical theatre from Harvard University.