Miss and Hit: 5 musicals and the stories behind them

by Peter Kellogg

Miss and Hit features the scripts for 5 acclaimed Desperate Measures, Winner of the 2018 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical and Winner of Drama Desk Awards for Best Music and Best Lyrics; Anna Karenina, Tony nominee for Best Book and Best Score; Front Page Girl, about the life of Nellie Bly, New York's first female reporter; a musical of Sheridan's The Rivals; and Nicolette and Aucassin, a musical about the love between a Christian and a Muslim in 1224. The author also offers a humorous inside look into their first productions. You'll find out what went wrong with the first production of Anna Karenina, and how everything went so right with the first production of Desperate Measures. Also how faithful Front Page Girl is to the real life of Nellie Bly, why Mrs. Malaprop is one of the 3 great comic characters in all of fiction, and how Nicolette and Aucassin seems more timely and relevant with every passing year. Desperate Measures, Front Page Girl and Nicolette and Aucassin were written with composer David Friedman, Anna Karenina with composer Dan Levine, and The Rivals with composer Steve Weiner, all 3 of whom contributed significantly to the scripts. This is a great book for directors, producers and theatre owners looking for smaller musicals (Desperate Measures needs only 6 actors, The Rivals and Nicolette and Aucassin each need 10); for writers looking for insights into writing for the stage (like never do your first production of a show on Broadway); or for anyone who loves musicals and the stories behind them. Half of any profits will be donated to the Actor's Fund.

428 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 25, 2020