Spectacular!, 18 Jan 2008
Six stars!

Give this book to a young person who has a budding interest in theater or who loves Disney theatricals. You'll help inspire a life-long love of theater when you do.

Two of my children are very devoted to the technical aspects of theater. Trips to Broadway brought much fascinated investigation of everything that could be seen. As much fun as those visits were for my youngsters, getting a copy of this book at age 14 would have been even better.

Pretty much every aspect of theater is covered from how to put on your own show at home to trying out for a musical on Broadway to being a young star. The brief, informative sections are supplemented by gorgeous illustrations from Disney theatricals and wonderful inserts.

I've never seen such inserts (a Lion King ticket envelope, a Lion King Playbill, pages of the script from Tarzan you can pull of a pocket to read, sketches and swatches from the Lion King's costume designs, fold-outs to show the effect of wigs on actors' appearances, a fold-out to show the stages of putting on Rafiki's makeup, two fold-out pages to show a center stage scene, a script from Tarzan with stage manager cues).

I find that the Disney theatrical productions to exceed the quality of their films. It's been a marvelous gift to the world that they have made this commitment to live theater. If you haven't seen these shows, read this book . . . and buy tickets for you and a youngster.

Thomas Schumacher loves his craft and knows how to talk about it simply without talking down to his audience. It's a great story!

Spectacular!, 18 Jan 2008
Six stars!

Give this book to a young person who has a budding interest in theater or who loves Disney theatricals. You'll help inspire a life-long love of theater when you do.

Two of my children are very devoted to the technical aspects of theater. Trips to Broadway brought much fascinated investigation of everything that could be seen. As much fun as those visits were for my youngsters, getting a copy of this book at age 14 would have been even better.

Pretty much every aspect of theater is covered from how to put on your own show at home to trying out for a musical on Broadway to being a young star. The brief, informative sections are supplemented by gorgeous illustrations from Disney theatricals and wonderful inserts.

I've never seen such inserts (a Lion King ticket envelope, a Lion King Playbill, pages of the script from Tarzan you can pull of a pocket to read, sketches and swatches from the Lion King's costume designs, fold-outs to show the effect of wigs on actors' appearances, a fold-out to show the stages of putting on Rafiki's makeup, two fold-out pages to show a center stage scene, a script from Tarzan with stage manager cues).

I find that the Disney theatrical productions to exceed the quality of their films. It's been a marvelous gift to the world that they have made this commitment to live theater. If you haven't seen these shows, read this book . . . and buy tickets for you and a youngster.

Thomas Schumacher loves his craft and knows how to talk about it simply without talking down to his audience. It's a great story!

Moving account of the triumph of the soul over adversity, 25 Apr 2002
One can only be grateful that the author saw fit to research this book while it was still possible to interview those who had lived through the events it records. Terezin itself was an extraordinary place, intended as it was to present the acceptable face of National Socialist anti-semitism to the world, despite its being essentially a stop on the way to Auschwitz . The tale of how many of Europe`s best musicians - composers, performers and conductors (the most famous of the last being probably Karel Ancerl) - were thrown together there and (despite the Nazi`s original intentions) were actually encouraged to continue their artistic work beggars belief. No problem defeated them; piano music was performed initially on a piano without legs, (which needed retuning between movements), orchestras performed with accordions playing the brass parts, rehearsals for Verdi`s Requiem were disrupted by most of the chorus being transported to Auschwitz - where does one stop ? And yet (paradoxically) musicians had unlimited practice time, no worries about earning a living, and a large and ever-changing appreciative audience for an incredible variety of concert performances - and even Viktor Ullmann as an astonishingly demanding resident critic ! The testimonies of survivors, and the quality of the surviving works says it all. Certainly hyperbole creeps in. How could it not ?

A history of creativity in the shadow of brutality, 17 Feb 2001
This book documents the incredible creative achievements of the inmates of Terezin concentration camp. It provides both overviews of the types of music created or played, and more detailed studies of the main protagonists. Whilst the information is fascinating, it is not always well presented, with a tendency to hyperbole. The book remains, however, the only serious study of the considerable musical creativity that took place at Terezin, in the face of Nazi oppression and the constant threat of death.