The American musical has achieved and maintained relevance to more people in America than any other performance-based art. This thoughtful history of the genre, intended for readers of all stripes, offers probing discussions of how American musicals, especially through their musical numbers, advance themes related to American national identity.

Written by a musicologist and supported by a wealth of illustrative audio examples (on the book's website), the book examines key historical antecedents to the musical, including the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, nineteenth and early twentieth-century American burlesque and vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley, and other song types. It then proceeds thematically, focusing primarily on fifteen mainstream shows from the twentieth century, with discussions of such notable productions as "Show Boat" (1927), "Porgy and Bess" (1935), "Oklahoma " (1943), "West Side Story" (1957), "Hair" (1967), "Pacific Overtures" (1976), and "Assassins" (1991).

The shows are grouped according to their treatment of themes that include defining America, mythologies, counter-mythologies, race and ethnicity, dealing with World War II, and exoticism. Each chapter concludes with a brief consideration of available scholarship on related subjects; an extensive appendix provides information on each show discussed, including plot summaries and song lists, and a listing of important films, videos, audio recordings, published scores, and libretti associated with each musical.

Show and Tell: The New Book of Broadway Anecdotes is a lively, funny and sometimes touching look at the adventures of some of Broadway's most colorful practitioners. From authors, directors, actors, producers and designers to the myriad other folk involved keeping the fabulous invalid alive, Far from a dry repetition of names, facts, and figures, Show and Tell offers up a history of Broadway shows and its practitioners from a skewed prospective in all their idiosyncratic glory.