Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway

Drawing richly on interviews, reviews, memoirs, and archival materials, New York Post theater columnist Riedel crisply tells the tale of the men whose contentious battle for the Broadway theater district turned 1970s Times Square into today's mecca for theatergoers and tourists. In fast-paced prose, he chronicles the financial intrigues and rapacious feuds that set the stage for Broadway's decline and comeback. After J.J. Schubert died in 1963, he willed his 17 theaters to the Sam S. Schubert Foundation. J.J. Schubert's cousin, Larry, ineffectively tried to resuscitate his father's dying empire, only to be thwarted and challenged by Gerald Schoenfeld, chairman of the Schubert Foundation, who eventually brought the Schubert empire back to its glory days with the production of A Chorus Line in 1975. The battle for Broadway heated up when Schoenfeld and Jacobs's archrival, Jimmy Nederlander, opened Annie in 1977, beginning what the New York Times called "the Great Duel." With the prurient appeal of a gossip column and the rapid-fire and detailed chronicle of the fall and rise of cultural powerhouses, Riedel's fascinating tale gives readers a glimpse of how Broadway grew into the glittering spectacle it is today. (Oct.)