Description
Good dust jacket has edge wear, chipping at corners, spine discolored, clipped, $3.50 price is present. Very Good binding is rose cloth over boards. Title embossed on front, gilt stamping on the spine. Slight toning to end papers. The binding is tight and pages are clean. The book measures 8.6″ tall x 6.0″ wide.
Stated: “First Published by the Viking Press in October 1949”
About the book (from the dust jacket)
The turbulent life-history of a play, from the acceptance of the manuscript to its closing after a successful Broadway run, is the framework of this fast-moving novel about the people of the theater, told by a novelist who is also a highly successful dramatist.
The fascinating world backstage, as a play leaps into being and its characters become Hesh and blood, is brought to us through the eves of Eric, the young small-town playwright whose whole horizon is changed by this experience. Into his life. for a brief intense period are woven the destinies of the amoral, generous temperamental, and charming people of the theater. Leroy Thompson, the producer who shared his love and business life with a rich widow, Emily, the Hollywood star who was Bar Office: Ginny, the delightful redhead whom three men loved and who loved one man: Hush, the alcoholic matinee idol: Irina Lanski, the wise Continental woman who was Erie’s agent and mentor. In contrast with their sophistication are Eric’s girl, his mother and invalid father, and others back in his hometown who are affected by the production of his play.
The theatrical background makes enthralling reading as we follow the progress of the play through casting problems, emotional crises, revisions, rehearsals, the Boston opening, the first reviews – through seemingly insuperable obstacles, to its New York opening. Of all contemporary novelists, Elmer Rice best knows the theater from the inside. In The Show Must Go On he has produced another hit, destined for a long run.
