Women writing musicals The legacy that the history books left out

Tepper (The Untold Stories of Broadway), creative director at 54 Below, a nonprofit cabaret club, provides an exhaustive tribute to women whose contributions to Broadway musical history have often been overlooked. Spanning from the 18th century to the present, the brief profiles feature such figures as Ann Julia Hatton, "the first woman to write a libretto" (for 1794's Tammany); Elsie Janis, who starred in and wrote the lyrics for 1919's Elsie Janis and Her Gang on Broadway, which featured out-of-work WWI veterans; and the all-female creative team behind 1922's Just Because. Carolyn Leigh's lyrics to the mid-20th-century musicals Peter Pan and Little Me helped to make her one of the first "female musical theatre writers to enter the permanent canon of the art form," while Quiara Alegría Hudes wrote the book to Lin-Manuel Miranda's hit musical In the Heights, helping to break new ground by "paint a portrait of real modern-day Latinx people and their everyday struggles." Tepper is thorough in her research and well-intentioned in her attempt to right historical wrongs, though stiff prose and the sheer number of profiles makes this best suited for scholars and devoted fans of the genre. It's a valuable if occasionally dry accounting of a lesser-known corner of Broadway history. (Nov.)

Broadway producer Tepper (The Untold Stories of Broadway, Vols. 1--4) offers an informative and well-researched look at the women who created musicals on and off Broadway. Though information is scarce, there is evidence that many of the musicals of the 18th century were created and produced by actresses and singers. By the 20th century, women began to take a more active role in songwriting and writing books for Broadway. Most productions were produced with the backing or association of well-known men family members. For example, Mary Rodgers, daughter of composer Richard Rodgers, had a successful run with her award-winning Once Upon a Mattress. However, during the 1960s and 1970s, women slowly became more accepted as talented dramatists and songwriters, Tepper writes. This is especially true for women of color: Vinnette Carroll became the first Black director of a Broadway production (Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope), and Ntozake Shange's landmark musical poem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf won Tony Awards and, later, was adapted into a film. VERDICT Tepper has fashioned a winning book on the unsung heroines of Broadway musicals that will be appreciated by readers of women's studies and theater lore.--Leah K. Huey

The unsung women behind Broadway musicals. In 2020, stuck in her Manhattan apartment, theater historian Tepper "began to think about other New Yorkers who worked in theatre, and lived through unprecedented historic events." This led to "thinking specifically about female theatre makers who had overcome obstacles throughout the decades, and created notable works--and yet were not adequately represented in history." Hence this book, an encyclopedic reference that offers appreciations of women "who wrote stage musicals that were produced on Broadway and off-Broadway, starting in the eighteenth century and through to present day." Tepper has arranged this work chronologically, beginning with artists such as Ann Julia Hatton, whose 1794Tammany; or The Indian Chief"is widely considered the first libretto written by a woman." She then proceeds to early-20th-century pioneers and current-day artists such as Quiara Alegría Hudes, who wanted to "present Latinx characters on Broadway who were not gang members" with her book forIn the Heights; and Cyndi Lauper, who, withKinky Boots, "became the first woman to ever win the Best Score [Tony] award as a sole writer without a collaborator." Some entries are as short as a sentence. Prominent figures receive more space, such as Dorothy Parker, the "outspoken, sardonic, and unapologetic" wit whose credits included the book toCandide, and Dorothy Fields, who contributed books or lyrics to many musicals from the 1920s to the 1970s, includingAnnie Get Your Gun andSweet Charity. It's a fun, important book, albeit one to dip into rather than read straight through. And there are odd, unexpected connections, such as that "future pop legend" Toni Tennille's 1972Mother Earth was produced by 32-year-old Roger Ailes, who helped by "raising the money for it from Nixon supporters who were grateful he had helped Nixon get elected." A long-overdue tribute to female lyricists and composers. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.