Author: Steve Capra

Publisher: Scarecrow Press, Inc

ISBN: 0810850478

The following review was contributed by:  NORM GOLDMAN:  Editor of Bookpleasures &CLICK TO VIEW  Norm Goldman's Reviews   

To read Norm's Interview with the Author  Click Here

After auditing a university course pertaining the introduction to the theatre, I was quite eager and delighted to read playwright and theater critic, Steve Capra`s collection of interviews with twenty-seven theatre personalities, that he had conducted over a period of eight years.

Capra has been involved in the theater for many years, mostly in Boston, but also off-off-Broadway.  He also chairs an annual playwrighting award committee for the New England Theater Conference. 

Preferring to term these delightful and informative interviews conversations rather than interviews, Capra explores different facets of the theatre, as represented by such notables as actress Julie Harris, playwright Alan Ayckbourn, musical theater/cabaret teacher and coach, Fred Silver, former Dean of Yale School of Drama, Robert Brustein, and several more. 

Zeroing in as to what makes these theatrical personalities tick, readers will be captivated by the tidbits of information illustrating just how each contribute their distinct ideas and methods to theatrical production.

Capra mentioned to me, when I had interviewed him, that his intent was to show, by putting the interviews all together, that there is no single right way to create theater.  

As a great fan of Julie Harris, I was particularly interested in what she had to say about the profession of acting and its development over the past several years.

According to Harris, when she started in the theater in 1945, there was a very good chance it could give you a good living if you had the right start and were accepted.

Today, Harris still believes it is possible to make a career of acting, notwithstanding the fierce competition. 

On the subject matter of the survival of the theater, Harris maintains as many of the other interviewees, that it will only become as important as it was in Ibsen’s audiences, or Shaw’s audiences, if it is subsidized.  

Another fascinating chapter was Capra’s conversation with Fred Silver, author of Auditioning for the Musical Theatre.  Silver tells us that the musical theater began to loose popularity ``with the advent of the Beatles, Elvis and Hair. The latter was the writing on the wall. The musical theater no longer represented the music of America. The musical theater was like opera. It was a relic of a bygone day that had its aficionados, but not enough to support it.``  

The only shortcoming of the book is that I found the print a wee bit on the small size and the font not dark enough. I also found that there was an overcrowding of the presentation of the interviews-no line breaks between questions and answers. In fact, at times I was reduced to squinting, something I rarely do when reading.