New Book The Show Goes On: Broadway Hirings, Firings and Replacements Is Out Today

Author, theater historian, and critic Ron Fassler’s new book The Show Goes On: Broadway Hirings, Firings and Replacements is available today from STCK Books. Click here for information on how to order. Fassler is also the author of Up in the Cheap Seats.

Conducting more than a hundred interviews, Fassler has cultivated a series of stories from the New York theater community about these topics and more: What goes into a replacement making a role their own in the shadow of another’s highly lauded performance? What happens when an actor replaces a flailing actor in a multi-million dollar production during an out of town tryout? How do understudies and swings go on sometimes without a single rehearsal?

The book includes anecdotes about David Bowie, Richard Burton, Whoopi Goldberg, Anthony Hopkins, Raul Julia Angela Lansbury, Patti LuPone, Shirley MacLaine, Ethel Merman, Liza Minnelli, and Bernadette Peters.