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Digital Music Now Available:

Ann Kittredge: Romantic Notions
(Jazzheads - new digital album)
Singer Ann Kittredge's second album. "I Just Called to Say I Love You," "I Feel the Earth Move," "Mr. Tambourine Man," "You're My Home," "I Just Want to Dance with You," "Where've You Been," "Garden 2," "Together, Wherever We Go," "I Just Wanted You to Know," "There You Are," "Didn't We," "Romantic Notions." Accompanied by Tom Kochan, Christopher Denny, Alex Rybeck, Sean Harkness, Mary Ann McSweeney, Rex Benincasa, Aaron Heick, Yoed Nir, Gary Oleyar. Produced by Paul Rolnick. Liner notes by Will Friedwald.

Books Now Available:

On Bette Midler: An Opinionated Guide
(Oxford Univ Press - Hardcover Book)
By Kevin Winkler. Traces the early development of Midler's performing ethos from New York's downtown experimental theater scene and examines her impact across media, with chapters on the soaring highs (and occasional cringe-worthy lows) of her stage work, movies, recordings, and television appearances, and considers her influence as an environmental activist and social media presence. Features performance analysis and deeply researched background information, all supporting informed - and divinely opinionated - consideration of Midler the artist. 224 pages. Appears to be available ahead of publication date.

Peerless: Rouben Mamoulian, Hollywood, and Broadway
(Univ of Wisconsin Press - Hardcover Book/Kindle Edition)
By Kurt Jensen. Rouben Mamoulian, director of the original stage productions of Porgy and Bess, Carousel, and Oklahoma!, as well as films including Love Me Tonight, Queen Christina, City Streets, and Silk Stockings. Famously fired from the film version of Porgy and Bess in a dispute over publicity and quit Cleopatra after arguments over a single scene. Drawing upon Mamoulian's unfinished memoir and diaries, as well as interviews with surviving collaborators. Also explores Mamoulian's aesthetic principles and strategies as manifested in lighting, choreography, and sound design. 376 pages.

Items to Be Released By This Friday, May 10:

An Actor Convalescing in Devon
(Faber & Faber - Kindle Edition)
Play by Richard Nelson, which opened at Hampstead Theatre, London, in March 2024.

Stereophonic
(Sony Masterworks Broadway - new digital album)
OBC recording of score featuring original songs by Will Butler. Will Brill, Andrew R. Butler, Juliana Canfield, Eli Gelb, Tom Pecinka, Sarah Pidgeon, and Chris Stack. Produced by Playwrights Horizons.

Newly Listed Recordings:

Added, no release date:

White Rose: The Musical
(Yellow Sound Label - new album)
Original Off-Broadway cast recording of score by Natalie Brice (music) and Brian Belding (book and lyrics). Orchestrations by Charlie Rosen. Was produced in 2024 at Theatre Row.

Newly Listed Books:

May 15:

The Group Theatre: An Enduring Legacy
(McFarland - Paperback Book/Kindle Edition)
By Mark Connelly. Examines the history and influence of the Group Theatre, which presented the first plays of Clifford Odets, Sidney Kingsley, and William Saroyan, and launched the careers of Franchot Tone, John Garfield, Elia Kazan, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, Martin Ritt, and Luther Adler. 339 pages.

July 1:

A Sense of Theatre: The Untold Stories of the Creation of Britain's National Theatre
(Unicorn Publishing Group - Hardcover Book)
By Richard Pilbrow (British pioneer of stage lighting; appointed by Sir Laurence Olivier to help create the National Theatre of Great Britain as a member of the building committee). An eye-witness account of the birth and subsequent triumph of one of the world's most famous theatres. The theatre architecture has challenged generations of theatre makers, leading to innovation that has changed theatre worldwide. With insight from leading players in British theatre and the minutes of the deliberations between Sir Laurence, architect and leading theatre artists. 528 pages.

July 3:

Ballplayers on Stage: Baseball, Melodrama, and Theatrical Celebrity in the Deadball Era
(Univ of Tennessee Press - Hardcover Book)
By Travis Stern. Explores the relationship between professional baseball and professional theater in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Examines case studies of five representative players from baseball's pre–Babe Ruth “deadball” era: Cap Anson, Mike “King” Kelly, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, and Rube Waddell, with a concluding study of Babe Ruth himself. A historical study of baseball, theater, and the relationship between the two ... also shares insight into the creation of celebrity in early twentieth-century America. 248 pages.

July 15:

Say It with a Beautiful Song: The Art and Craft of the Great American Songbook
(Roman & Littlefield - Hardcover Book/Kindle Edition)
By Michael Lasser and Harmon Greenblatt. Looks at the Great American Songbook's craft and its mastery through essential elements of the beloved songs, investigating the qualities that make the songbook a unique staple of American culture. With anecdotes, each chapter looks at a variety of songs thematically and dives into the lives of songwriters. 210 pages.

August 2:

Brian Friel: Beginnings
(Four Courts Press - Paperback Book)
By Kelly Matthews. Based on newly discovered documents in the BBC and New Yorker archives, the book reveals Friel's youthful personality and his struggles to get noticed as a young writer. His correspondence with his first mentors - Belfast BBC radio producer Ronald Mason, New Yorker editor Roger Angell, and theatre director Tyrone Guthrie - shows how he shaped his early work, how he chose to write for the theatre, and how the patterns that became so memorable in his later plays were set in motion by his beginnings. 256 pages.

Compiled by Talkin' Broadway Staff.