Foster Hirsch, using Weill's letters, journals, and notes, and interviewing Weill's friends and colleagues, writes about his life, his experimental, political composing in Germany, his Broadway music in America - both aspects of his work being a source of controversy among music lovers for years. Lotte Lenya said, "There is no American Weill, there is no German Weill. There is no difference between them. There is only Weill." Hirsch details the writing, casting, and production of Weill's eleven hit shows. He writes about Weill's years in Hollywood and the friends he made and lost along the way. He evokes Weill's complicated, intense collaborations with Brecht, Maxwell Anderson, Langston Hughes, Alan Jay Lerner, Elmer Rice, Moss Hart, and Ira Gershwin. In this book Hirsch has given us a vivid portrayal of a remarkable artist and a fabulous era of American musical theatre.

From 1905 to the crash of 1929, Sam Shubert (1874-1905) and his brothers Lee (1874-1953) and J. J. (1878-1963), despite poor beginnings and near-illiteracy, created a theater monopoly unrivaled in history. Their ruthless business tactics and showmanship made 42nd Street the heart of American popular theater and won them the most sought-after stars of the day, including Al Jolson, Carmen Miranda, Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, Mae West, and Fred Astaire.

Noir 'lives', but like any genre that endures, it has had to continually reinvent itself. While its defining subjects -- violence, sex, greed, loss of innocence -- remain as do its dominant character types -- the femme fatale, her vulnerable male victim and the private eye burdened with his own code of honour -- these ingredients have been blended in strikingly new ways. Charting these ways is what Foster Hirsch accomplishes so brilliantly in this enlightening and entertaining book. He demonstrates how neo-noir has reflected changes in contemporary life from film technology to social values. Restlessly mobile camerawork, multi-layered soundtracks and lush colours now work to create dark stories that tell of growing cynicism about government, distrust of the press, tensions in gender politics and race relations. The text is illustrated with over 100 seductive, visually exciting stills. In words and pictures he enrichingly explores a landscape that now seems an indestructible part of the American cultural scene.

For decades, in one small room on West Forty-fourth Street in Manhattan, Lee Strasberg ran the Actors Studio, where dozens of acclaimed actors absorbed a technique that became known as the "Method." Based on firsthand observations and numerous interviews, Hirsch's examination of the Studio's origins reveals how its graduates forever shaped the American stage and screen. A new introduction by the author studies the Actors Studio in the twenty-first century and places it in a modern context.

Bringing to life the adventurous world of Mississippi show boats, the grittiness of turn-of-the-century Chicago, and the majesty of 1920s Broadway, Pulitzer Prize winner Edna Ferber's 'Show Boat' is a classic. Magnolia Hawks spends her childhood aboard the 'Cotton Blossom' growing up amid simmering racial tension and struggling to survive life on the Mississippi. When she falls in love with the dashing Gaylord Ravenal and moves with him to Chicago, the joy of giving birth to their daughter, Kim, is offset by Gaylord's gambling addiction and distrustful ways.

Woody Allen has carved out a unique place for himself in American movies, becoming our national auteur as well as the most prolific director in the country, and creating a singular world with each film he has released since his first movie in 1969. Foster Hirsch analyzes and celebrates that world in this expert study of the themes, visual style, and acting in each of Allen's films. With the addition of a new introduction and chapter covering the eleven movies Allen has made in the last decade, from "Alice" to "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion," this is a vital book for Allen fans and students of film alike.