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Nyu music math6/20/2023 It always struck me as weird that people would write the history of 20th Century American theater and talk about Arthur Miller and Edward Albee but no one ever talked about Oscar Hammerstein or Stephen Sondheim, or people like John Guare, who straddles both fields. And another thing that made it exciting was working with Joan Marcus. It’s a nice way to talk about Broadway and offer profiles of some of its giants. There’s six chapters of narrative history and all these anecdotes and it toggles back and forth. I thought it would be a way of tracing that history. The ritual of going to a show and going to Sardi’s after, and champagne on opening night is such a tradition. There’s something about cocktails and Broadway that makes a lot of sense. You’ve written many books and produced several documentaries on Broadway. NYU News sat down with Maslon to discuss his new book, his journey from theater lover to Broadway historian, and his thoughts about Boadway today. He penned a history of recorded music from Broadway, and a companion volume to the Broadway sensation Come From Away. Maslon wrote and co-produced the PBS documentary Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me and wrote the companion volume to the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Broadway: The American Musical, which he also co-wrote. The book includes images from classic shows, vintage commercial ads, and evocative portraits of the drinks inspired by legendary productions-taken by leading Broadway photographer Joan Marcus.īut I ’ll Drink To That! is just the latest history project from the longtime professor. He puts his storytelling chops to good use in a new illustrated book, I’ll Drink To That! Broadway’s Legendary Stars, Classic Shows, and the Cocktails They Inspired (Weldon Owen), that blends his love of theater and knowledge of Broadway with his interests in mixology. Thanks to Broadway-loving parents, he was hooked on the genre from an early age, taking the train from Malverne, Long Island, to the Theater District while still in high school, before studying theater-and dabbling in acting-at Brown University.Ī popular Graduate Acting teacher and theater pundit, Maslon is also a first-rate raconteur. Broadway historian and Tisch School of the Arts professor Laurence Maslon was named for the legendary actor and director Laurence Olivier, so maybe his future in theater was destined to be.
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