Broadwayâ€s Unsung Artisans

 By Sally Deering

 When some folks see Broadwayâ€s Theater District for the first time they ooh, ah and buy tickets to the show theyâ€re dying to see. When Timothy White, Ph.D., an assistant professor of history at New Jersey City University first saw Broadway, he not only bought tickets, he began researching its glorious history.

Dr. Whiteâ€s curiosity centered on the artists behind the scenes, the nameless crafts men-and-women who sewed the costumes, built the scenery and provided the lights needed to spotlight all those chorus girls in musical showstoppers. Whiteâ€s curiosity led him to the Library of Performing Arts to write his dissertation for his Columbia University Ph.D. and the result is his first published book BLUE COLLAR BROADWAY: The Craft and Industry of American Theater (pub: University of Pennsylvania Press) now on the shelves of Barnes & Noble and online at Amazon.com.

 In chapters like “Second Hand Rose”: The Stage Before the Broadway Brand; and “A Factory for Making Plays” Broadwayâ€s Industrial District, White takes readers on a guided tour of what it was like when the shops and businesses in the theater district were all a part of the Great White Way, where theater artisans built the scenery, costumes, lights, and everything else that went into putting on a Broadway show for over a 100 years. Whiteâ€s book shines a spotlight on the history of those theater people barely remember in Broadwayâ€s theatrical history books.

Professor White took a few minutes of his busy schedule – he just had a performance/reading at Art House Productions in Jersey City with students of NJCUâ€s theater department singing shows from Broadway shows – and shared his passion for Broadway and its history.

RVO:  As a history professor, why did you decide to write a book about Broadway?

TW: I was trained as an historian, but I always loved theater especially when I moved from California to New York. It was 1999 and I dove head first into Broadway. I went to as many shows as I could. First off, I had to make up for long time so I went to see Cats and Phantom of the Opera and caught up on the old stuff like Thoroughly Modern Millie, a lot of great shows. Iâ€ve got the brain of an historian and my heart is in Broadway. When Iâ€m done teaching my classes, Iâ€ll drive off and do Community Theater for fun.

RVO: Why a book about the behind-the-scenes world of Broadway and not the stars?

TW: I became fascinated with the theater district and Times Square and I started doing research, I was studying business listings and Yellow Pages (phone directories) and I found backstage businesses were all over the Theater District. All through the 1940s, 50s and 60s, there were dozens of shops and stores in the Theater District – blue collar stuff. When I came to New York, they were no longer there. There are still people doing great craft work in Midtown, but nowhere near as many.

RVO: Where did you do most of your research?

TW: The Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library has the most important archive; the Billy Rose Theater collection is rich. On Broadway, thereâ€s a tremendous focus on design. The art of costuming depends on the sketch and design and itâ€s an art form. What I was interested in was who built it? Who stitched it together?  For my research, I spoke with the award-winning Broadway costumer designer William Ivey Long. He gave me a great perspective on the industry. I tried to balance my interviews with archival materials.

 RVO: Can you share an anecdote from your book?

TW: One of the stories in the book comes from Hal Prince, the incredible director and producer who has had an incredible Broadway career. It goes back to the original production of West Side Story, and in one of the pieces he wrote, he was explaining that in the original costume design, Irene Sharaff created pants the Sharks and Jets could dance in; the material was distressed, dyed and constructed to look like Leviâ€s. Prince was looking at his budget, and thought couldnâ€t he they just buy a pile of Leviâ€s blue jeans down the street? She said, no, absolutely not. The actors couldnâ€t do that kind of strenuous dancing in Leviâ€s blue jeans, it couldnâ€t be done. They could never kick as high as they needed to. That illustrates the importance of costume construction on Broadway Itâ€s also an example that you have to listen to your craftspeople. It makes the art of Broadway possible.

RVO: How about another anecdote?

TW: Another story connects to anyone who was in New York around the 1970s and knows it was such a different Times Square back then. I was tracking fabric suppliers, doing digital searches, and I got a hit on an address on W.45^th Street, a police report on a murder by a man who was on the run. A stage fabrics company had closed and in its wake, the empty space was being used as a hangout for criminals. This criminal they were looking for had dismembered a man and put the body parts in Theater District garbage cans. The closure of all these Broadway craft shops left the Theater District vulnerable to this type of activity. The musicals were still opening, but being built outside of Times Square. The decline in Broadway craft in Times Square left a lot of the buildings unrented and run down.

RVO: Your book is at Barnes & Nobles, Drama Book Shop and a new indie book store Little City Books in Hoboken. What was it like seeing your book on the shelf for the first time?

TW: It was a thrill.

RVO: Is there another book in the works?

TW: Yes. Iâ€m looking at the finances of Broadway; the behind-the-scenes of Broadway investments. Iâ€m going to try to argue that a Broadway flop helps to move the art of Broadway forward. You need flops in order to have a hit.

You can purchase Dr. Timothy Whiteâ€s book “Blue Collar Broadway” at:

amazon.com; Barnes & Noble; Little City Books in Hoboken; and the Drama Book Store in NYC.

 Excerpt from Blue Collar Broadway:

The Craft and Industry of the American Theater

 By Dr. Timothy R. White

 “…Had anyone developed a special curiosity about the people who hammered, painted, and sewed behind the scenes in the commercial theater, they would have been easy to find. Especially prior to the 1970s, such skilled workers were overwhelmingly clustered in one district: Times Square. Despite their ubiquity for many decades, previous histories of this quintessential urban space give short shrift to the carpenters, seamstresses, and other craft experts who brought stage shows to fruition They often operated major supply shops and theater-related contract businesses but have yet to Factor significantly into any history of Times Square.

From a single vantage point, Broadway between 48^th and 49^th Streets, one can easily trace the prominence of such shops throughout the twentieth century. In August 1936, for example, the visitor to this stretch of Broadway would have quickly encountered theater-related buildings, businesses, and workers. At midday he or she might have seen actors from the Federal Theatre Projectâ€s We Live and Laugh on their way to rehearsal at Ringle Studios, 1607 Broadway. Directly across the avenue, he or she may have spotted the proprietor Morris Orange or one of his seamstresses on lunch break from their costume rental store at 1600 Broadway. Immediately to the north, the visitor may have seen the cast and craftspeople of the play Stork Mad as they walked to the Ambassador Theatre next door.”

The post BLUE COLLAR BROADWAY: The Craft and Industry of American Theater first appeared on River View Observer.

Writers Forge a New Frontier with eBooks

River View Observer cover story

 by Sally Deering

 During the 2010 holiday season, Amazon.com sold 2 million Kindles and Barnes & Noble selling 1.5 million Nooks, stats that are a wake-up call to big name book publishers and a “Yahoo!” to writers everywhere who can now self-publish their Great American Novels their way. Ebook publishing is the new frontier for writers to boldly sell their fiction and non-fiction – and find their niche – and a possible income – utilizing 21^st Century technology and the social media network that connects us all.

 Electronic Readers have transformed the way we’re reading biographies, textbooks, cook books, you name it.  Books of every genre are now available via download and ebook publishers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Google (and more) are giving writers the chance to see their books in electronic print not only on Kindles and Nooks, but IPads, IPhones, Droids and other techno gadgets.  Of course, the Big Kahunas of book publishing like Random House, Harper Collins, and Simon & Schuster are still doing big business in hardcovers and paperback, but the stats indicate more and more people would rather click a button on their handy electronic reader than turn the page of a dog-eared book.

International Digital Publishing Forum which tracks wholesale ebook sales reported $304.6 million in ebook sales in 2010, a rapid-growth from the $200 million in ebooks sold from 2002-2009. And in 2010, Amazon.com reported sales of its ebooks outnumbered sales of hardcover books with 180 Kindle books sold for every 100 hardcovers. One ebook industry analyst predicts global e-book sales at Amazon could reach $2.5 billion by the year 2012.

Writer Tom Dwyer of Jersey City took the traditional route with his first two books “Broad Street,” a mystery/crime novel and the children’s book “What the Man in the Moon Saw,” which were sold through publishing houses and did pretty well. For his third book, “’60s Song,” (ebookit.com; 165 pgs,) a gritty coming-of-age novel about three Philly teenagers during the 1967 “Summer of Love” – Dwyer chose to publish it as an ebook that can be purchased through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google and other ebook publishers.

 “It’s a business that’s changing and a lot of people are jumping in,” Dwyer says. “E-books allow writers who tried to get published in the big publishing houses, the opportunity to get their books read. It’s shaking up the publishing industry and the publishing industry now is using ebooks a lot. If they put a book on the bookstore shelf and it doesn’t sell, it’s going to be taken off that shelf and they lose money. So, they test the waters with ebooks now.”

 Dwyer says ebook publishers and book writers have Stephen King to thank for legitimizing the ebook industry to the mass public.

 “Stephen King was one of the first writers to go on Amazon and he put his book up for free,” Dwyer says. “This was a couple of years back and when he did this, he said this is a great tool.”

Of course, Stephen King can put his book up for free he’s a successful writer with a huge following and millions in book sales. Writers who aren’t as famous, even first-time writers can find their niche publishing an ebook and even earn an income. Amazon.com gives a 70% royalty to writers for each ebook they sell that’s priced from 99-cents to $2.99 and a 50% royalty on books priced $2.99 to $9.99. Reading through the forums of writers who post messages about their book sales, it’s advisable to price your first book in the lower range. A writer can also hook up with  an ebook publishing company that will first publish their book in soft-and-hard-cover and assign it an ISBN number, which is required when publishing ebooks to Google and Barnes & Noble.  (Amazon doesn’t require an ISBN number and therefore allows a writer the opportunity to see their work published right away.)  The advantage of working with an ebook publishing company is that the publisher will have connections to all the outlets and will advertise and market the book, where a self-publisher will have to do all their own marketing. 

“What you’re doing is jumping in there and doing it,” Dwyer says. “You really need to do the marketing, get reviewed, get quotes. One of the biggest things in ebooks are ebook blogs, book reviewers who write blogs. I’m having two reviewed now and will get them back in two or three weeks, I’m spending almost no money to do this, I created the cover myself and photoshopped it.”

In a recent interview with ebook publishers Smashwords.com, Dan Poynter, who has sold millions of ebooks on skydiving and self-publishing and is the author of the “Self-Publishing Manual,” a guide to independent authors, says building a self-publishing career begins with a passion to write and succeeds with social networking.

 “Write what you love and sell to your colleagues,” Poynter pointed out on Smashwords. “This could be the definition of social networking for books. Go where your heart is. Write about your favorite subject: The one that gets you so excited, you wake at four in the morning to find your eyes are wide open and your head is spinning with ideas. You are so jazzed, you can’t sleep. So, you get up and head for the keyboard. I started with books on parachutes and skydiving. Sell your book to people who have an interest in your subject. They are easy to find with online searches and social media.”

Many self-published writers are turning to ebook publishing rather than the typical and very frustrating (and rarely successful) route of getting a literary agent to represent their book and a big publishing house to publish the book. (Publishing houses rarely accept unsolicited submissions from writers and only go through trusted literary agents to secure book deals.) Ebook publishing breaks through those barriers and gives writers the chance to share their stories, their passions, their knowledge and insight with the world.

“If I had gotten this book published by Random House, this book wouldn’t come out for two years, that’s the time it takes,” Dwyer says. “It’s all about people having the freedom to self-publish. I don’t have to have someone tell me I can’t publish my book.”

 Excerpt from “’60s Song” by Tom Dwyer

 “The hot morning sun was already moving through the housing project on the banks of the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. It created a haze that blanketed the city with a sweltering heat that seemed to have the whole world moving in slow motion. Frankie Johnson, a skinny, black teenager with a slight limp in his right leg, knocked on the front door of his best friend’s house. They had been friends ever since their families moved into the housing project on the same day ten years back. Frankie knocked again and heard footsteps in the house. The door opened, and George Bannon, a muscular Irish kid with wavy black hair and deep dark eyes saw Frankie standing on the steps.

“We going swimming today or what, white boy?” Frankie asked. George looked through the beat-up screen door that was hanging off one of its hinges, and then waved him in. Frankie entered the small two-story house where George lived with his mother and a younger sister. The family was on the waiting list with the housing authority to move to a bigger house up on the hill but it could be years before a vacancy might open up. The small dirty kitchen had dishes in the sink and bags of trash waiting to be put out. George opened the refrigerator and helped himself to a soda for breakfast.”

To order Tom Dwyer’s ebook 60s Song https:www.ebookit.com/books/0000000042/60s-song.html

60s Song is also available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and many other internet outlets.

The post How to Publish the Great American eNovel first appeared on River View Observer.

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