Theatre World Volume 67: 2010-2011
June 13, 2012
I first became aware of Theatre World when I was a teenager living in Maryland in the 1970s; back then, these glorious volumes, rich with beautiful production photos of shows, were one of my few lifelines to the exciting world of New York theater (the annual Tony Awards show and the occasional touring company at the National Theatre or Kennedy Center being the only others).
As theater more and more became my avocation, I built up my Theatre World collection, and I now have every volume, save one, from the very beginning (1944-45 season) through 2004-05. (The one I’m missing is 1960-61, apparently a particularly rare edition.)
These are lavish, expensive books, and the fact that through the course of my day job nowadays I pretty much receive most of the same photos and press releases and other resources that Theatre World‘s staff culls to make their books means that investing in them doesn’t make much sense for me. The folks at Theatre World Media generously sent me a copy of the newest volume, covering the 2010-11 theatre season, for review. And so now the question is whether I can suggest to folks who don’t run a theatre website whether this book might be worth the $50 price tag to add to their libraries.
Sadly, I can’t really say yes. The new design of the book is unwelcoming right from the outset, resembling a textbook more than a collectible/coffee table book. Inside, quality control problems are frequent enough to merit mention here, starting with the first entry in the table of contents, which promises “Color Photo Highlights” devoted to the current Broadway season, when in fact all of the photos in the book, including the ones in this section, are black and white. The photos themselves–more than 800 of them, according to the press release (and I believe it; the book is filled with them)–are of variable quality, with many of them appearing pixilated as if they were incorrectly resized with the wrong resolution in Photoshop. This is disappointing: the best thing about the Theatre World series is the wealth of beautiful photos, and the inconsistency of them here is disturbing.
The book covers New York and regional U.S. theatre; the breakdown is 112 pages devoted to Broadway, 120 to off-Broadway, 72 to off-off-Broadway, 64 to regional theatres across the country,and 44 pages about theatre awards. (There are also sections in the back listing the longest-running Broadway and off-Broadway shows and the past year’s obituaries.) Each of the main areas of the book begins with an essay: Adam Feldman of Time Out-New York handles Broadway, Linda Buchwald (TDF Stages and StageGrade) writes about off-Broadway, Shay Gines of the New York Innovative Theatre Awards discusses off-off-Broadway, and Rob Weiner-Kendt (American Theatre magazine) deals with regional theater. Shay–who [disclaimer] is someone I know and respect, and believe to be a huge champion of indie theater–uses her space to talk about the dwindling number of off-off-Broadway spaces. Important as that issue is, I would have liked to see some of the artists and plays of the 2010-11 off-off-Broadway season mentioned in this volume.
Of course, its comprehensiveness notwithstanding, this isn’t a book about indie theater but instead one about Broadway and mainstream off-Broadway, and as a reminder of the season it is serviceable and pretty timely. I just wish it were as consistently well-put-together as its ancestor volumes from decades past.
June 13, 2012 at 4:54 pm
There are many copies of the volume you are missing at Bookfinder.com
The current design is ugly, and my name is misspelled. Twice. That never happened when John Willis was around.
June 17, 2012 at 3:02 pm
Karen,
Thanks — I found one at a good price!
Martin
June 17, 2012 at 11:17 am
It’s Ben Hodges, editor in chief of “Theatre World” here, responding to the review, as well as the response, to our latest volume, which I appreciate. It seems from the review that there are basically two criticisms of the volume: One, the lack of advertised color section; and two, the pixellation of several of the photos.
With respect to the lack of a color section, I only noticed that myself when I received my authors’ copies, and spoke to my designer, who delivered to the distributor a high res PDF of the publication, including a color section, which there was intended to be, and there was either a mistake at the printer, or a mistake at the distributor in not catching it in the proofs from the printer, but in any case it was supposed to be there and absolutely nothing I can or could have done about it not being there, other than inspecting the proofs myself next time, which I will now do. As it has not happened in the past with “Theatre World,” there was no reason to expect that it would happen this time. If the people to whom you have entrusted a publication in the past err without forseeable error, there is little I can do on the editorial end to correct it after the fact. It should have been printed and proofed correctly, and/or the persons responsible for proofing the volume (the distributor), should have caught it. Rest assured this will be corrected in the future and I appreciate the comment.
With respect to the pixellation of the photos, this is a problem that only has occurred in the recent past with this one volume, and unexpectedly so, as it has not occurred in the past several volumes. It was very much a surprise to me. (It was common, however, in the late 1990s or so when the digital photograph technology was new.) This was an unexpected result of using photos that are not high res enough to print well for print media, as most photos are intended by publicists to be used in newspapers or elsewhere and many photos distributed have tended to be too low res to be used for the demands of our unique print publication. Our designer discovered, from the printing of this publication, that attempting to “blow up” low res photos, even a little bit, as he did, resulted in this pixellation problem, and I have been assured that it will not happen again. It may mean we have to use less photos and only those large enough to blow up adequately, but obviously this is more preferable than having pixellation problems with photos. It was a valid criticism and I apologize for that one error on our part.
Additionally, this volume is as large, if not larger, as any previous volume, so the comment that it is not a “coffee table book” seems unfair to me, as it never was intended to be a coffee table book, and has always served more as a reference guide (and, for better worse, yes, probably closer to a “textbook,” than a coffee table book, in any case). In fact, it is as nearly as large or larger in length and overall size than any of its predecessors. (The length all depends on the amount of shows that opened that season, and we are getting more comprehensive in every way every year.)
Also, with respect to the commentator’s criticism of the misspelling of her name, although unfortunate and I apologize, the mammoth undertaking of keeping track of tens of thousands of names (by generally one person), inherently means that there will be the occasional error in that department. Humorously, it is because of one fan’s irate criticism of John Willis’ many errors in his books over the years that that fan eventually became the editor of our sister publication, “Screen World.” Barry Monush had written to John (while he was still alive) about the many errors he found, and John responded, “Well, if you can do any better come over here and try.” (Obviously that collaboration worked out. “Screen World” is still going strong under the supervision Mr. Monush.)
I would like to point out to the reviewer as well as to those who “run theatre websites” as to the reviewer’s point about whether this should be recommended for their libraries: “Theatre World” has more information on the theatre than can be found anywhere, online or otherwise. And ours is in one location. While some of the Broadway and Off-Broadway information can be found online, our publication has more information (with photos) in one place than any other, covering those sections. We are the only source for comprehensive Off-Off-Broadway theatre productions, as well as regional theatre publications (especially photos), including online or otherwise. (I do not know the status of the only other publication to have covered those sections, “Best Plays,” as they have not printed an edition since the 2007-2008 season, but even then, we wer and are more complete than it was in those areas.
In this age of declining print media, our production and sales have actually increased as have become completely current and have increased our production values, precisely because presumably we apparently have, and have more of, what cannot be found anywhere else. I also believe, the above criticism notwithstanding of this current volume, that our production values overall over the past several years have increased exponentially, and I stand by that, if the previous five to seven years or so of volumes since I took over my position are examined in their entirety.
Our book, I believe, again, valid criticism aside, should be understood to be a gargantuan task, and with a sixty-seven year history, errors inevitably occur from time to time, but we continue to undertake and competently execute, what in this day and age is truly a remarkable task: to document the entire American theatre season as comprehensively as possible in photographs and statistics and in that goal I believe we are unmatched in any medium.
I do this primarily because, as a historian, when all is said and done, this publication, which is distributed to colleges and universities all across the country and world, the Library of Congress, etc., will be—with ours being the seemingly last comprehensive print publication out there— the definitive (precisely because of our comprehensiveness) record of theatre in our time, destined to itself one day be digitized, somehow, by some entity, when it will probably be much easier and cost-effective to do, for posterity for generations to come. Viewed in the that historical light, I hope we will receive a bit more understanding and appreciation for the overall work we do, and although I welcome and appreciate valid criticisms of the unforseeable errors that we make from time to time, I do appreciate also the opportunity to have responded to them.
Thank you.
Ben Hodges, editor-in-chief, “Theatre World”