(Applause Books). David Merrick is the most astonishing showman of our time, and perhaps of all time. No other producer, not even Florenz Ziegfeld nor the combined lights of the Shubert brothers, has equalled his percentage of hits or his demonic flair for publicity. In this first-ever biography, Howard Kissel from his decade-long investigation reveals the man, the mask, and the myth of David Merrick. The charismatic and reclusive mogul emerges as a Broadway version of Howard Hughes, with his own panoply of eccentricities, genius and neuroses. Merrick's much publicized and oftentimes staged battles and feuds are re-ignited here full force with such major personalities as Barbra Streisand, Jackie Gleason, Ethel Merman, Lena Horne, Woody Allen, Peter Ustinov, Andy Griffith, Anthony Newley, Peter Brook, and Carol Channing. Over a hundred interviews with the major players in Merrick's drama from his pre-Merrick St. Louis childhood as David Margoulies to his latest divorce has yielded the first serious interrogation of a life that until now has been the sole creation of Merrick's own invention and press wizardry.

Stella Adler was one of the 20th Century's greatest figures. She is arguably the most important teacher of acting in American history. Over her long career, both in New York and Hollywood, she offered her vast acting knowledge to generations of actors, including Marlon Brando, Warren Beatty, and Robert De Niro. The great voice finally ended in the early Nineties, but her decades of experience and teaching have been brilliantly caught and encapsulated by Howard Kissel in the twenty-two lessons in this book.

In New York Theatre Walks, Howard Kissel provides a series of seven self-guided walking tours not just of the theatre district but of the East and West Village, the Lower East Side, and the Upper West Side - neighborhoods uptown and downtown that illuminate the theatre's intimate relationship with the city. On one tour, we follow the career of Irving Berlin from the sites of his theatrical triumphs to the ultra-posh corner where this Lower East Side boy eventually made his home. There's also "Adolph Green's Daily 'Commute, '" a route on which he went to meet and work with his musical theatre writing partner Betty Comden, and on a culinary tour we see the way Times Square eateries contributed to theatre history. The book abounds in Broadway anecdotes, but it also gives the walker a sense of the city's own complex, rich history. East Side, West Side, All Around the Town, New York Theatre Walks provides enjoyment and instruction not just for visitors eager to get off the beaten path but for the native who wants to find the theatrical past lying behind the sights one passes on a regular basis.