Finally, a book as glorious as its subject: this lush showcase for everyone who loves musicals covers the 101 most influential, popular, and enduring Broadway shows--all of which have toured the country and been performed in theatres large and small everywhere. Each listing includes expert commentary that sets the play in historical and cultural context, plus features on the creators and performers, plot synopses, cast and song lists, production details, backstage anecdotes, and more. Four or five beautifully reproduced photographs from each show--the majority never before published--accompany the text and make the shows leap off the page. Appendices and special features include cast albums, poster artists, revivals, guilty pleasures, Off-Broadway musicals, notable flops, and much more.

Ken Bloom is the author of three seminal works on American popular song: American Song, Hollywood Song, and Tin Pan Alley. His Broadway: An Encyclopedic Guide to the History, People, and Places of Times Square was named one of the top reference books of the year by the New York Public Library and was recently reissued in a new edition. In 2003 he published Jerry Herman: The Lyrics and a two-volume history of Twentieth-Century Fox music. Bloom is also a playwright, a theatre director, a radio host, an arts consultant, and the president of Harbinger Records. Frank Vlastnik is an actor who appeared in the original casts of the Broadway musicals Big, Sweet Smell of Success, and A Year with Frog and Toad, as well as the New York premiere of Stephen Sondheim's Saturday Night. This is his first foray into writing, having previously done the photo research and editing for Ken Bloom's Jerry Herman and Richard Norton's A Chronology of American Musical Theatre.