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  • The Secret Life of the American Musical

  • How Broadway Shows Are Built
  • Written by: Jack Viertel
  • Narrated by: David Pittu
  • Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (5 ratings)

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The Secret Life of the American Musical

Written by: Jack Viertel
Narrated by: David Pittu
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Publisher's Summary

For almost a century, Americans have been losing their hearts and losing their minds in an insatiable love affair with the American musical. It often begins in actors and reaches its passionate zenith when it comes time for love, marriage, and children, who will start the cycle all over again. Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical?

In The Secret Life of the American Musical, Jack Viertel takes musicals apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, marvels at their unflagging inventiveness, and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he invites us to fall in love all over again by showing us how musicals happen, what makes them work, how they captivate audiences, and how one landmark show leads to the next - by design or by accident, by emulation or by rebellion - from Oklahoma! to Hamilton and onward.

©2016 Jack Viertel (P)2016 Tantor

What the critics say

"An enlightening trip for lovers of musicals." ( Kirkus)

What listeners say about The Secret Life of the American Musical

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