Sense of Occasion

· Hal Leonard Corporation
Ebook
304
Pages

About this ebook

(Applause Books). In this fast-moving, candid, conversational, and entertaining memoir, Harold Prince, the most honored director in the history of the American theater (22 Tony Awards and counting), looks back over his 70-year (and counting!) career. Featuring original material from Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-Six Years in the Theatre , Prince provides a fresh, new perspective on his writing from the vantage point of today. Sense of Occasion gives an insider's recollection of the making of such landmark musicals as West Side Story , Fiddler on the Roof , Cabaret , Company , Follies , Sweeney Todd , Evita , and Phantom of the Opera , with Prince's perceptive comments about his mentor George Abbott and his many celebrated collaborators, including Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Stephen Sondheim, John Kander, Boris Aronson, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Angela Lansbury, Elizabeth Taylor, Zero Mostel, Carol Burnett, and Joel Grey. As well as detailing his titanic successes that changed the form and content of the American musical theater, Prince even-handedly reflects on the shows that didn't work, most memorably and painfully Merrily We Roll Along . Throughout, he offers insights into the way business is conducted on Broadway, drawing sharp contrasts between past and present. This thoughtful, complete account of one of the most legendary and long-lived careers in theater history, written by the man who lived it, is an essential work of personal and professional recollection.

About the author

Harold Smith Prince was born on January 30, 1928 in Manhattan and adopted by Milton A. Prince, a stockbroker and Blanche Stern. He earned a liberal arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania snd later served two years in the United States Army in post World War II Germany. He began work in the theatre as an assistant stage manager to theatrical producer and director George Abbott. Along with Abbott, he co-produced The Pajama Game, which won the 1955 Tony Award for Best Musical. He almost gave up musical theater right before he hit success with Cabaret in 1966. The year 1970 marked the start of his greatest collaboration, with composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. They had previously worked on West Side Story and at this point decided to embark on their own project. Their association spawned a long string of productions, including Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Pacific Overtures (1976), and Sweeney Todd (1979). Prince was the inspiration for John Lithgow's character in Bob Fosse's film All That Jazz. He was also the basis of a character in Richard Bissell's novel Say, Darling, which chronicled Bissell's own experience turning his novel 71⁄2 Cents into The Pajama Game. In 2006, Prince was awarded a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. The Harold Prince Theatre at the Annenberg Center of the University of Pennsylvania is named in his honor. Harold Smith Prince passed away on July 31, 2019 at the age of 91, from a brief illness.

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