John Lahr

A biography of one of America's most treasured playwrights describes the writer's public persona as well as his more personal life, including conflicts with his family, his sexuality and multiple affairs and even his misreported death. 35,000 first printing.

Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh

Tennessee Williams

John Lahr, New Yorker critic, novelist, and biographer reconstructs both the life and death of Joe Orton, an extraordinary and anarchic playwright, whose plays scandalised and delighted the public, and whose indecisive loyalty to a friend caused his tragic and untimely death. 'I have high hopes of dying in my prime,' Joe Orton confided to his diary in July, 1967. Less than one month later, Britain's most promising comic playwright was murdered by his lover in the London flat they had shared for fifteen years. In Prick Up Your Ears, originally chosen Book of the Year by Truman Capote and Nobel Prize-winning novelist Patrick White when it first appeared in 1978, Lahr chronicles Orton's working-class childhood and stage struck adolescence, the scandals and disasters of his early professional years, and the brief, glittering success of his blistering comedies, Entertaining Mr. Sloane, Loot, and What the Butler Saw.

The Biography of Joe Orton

Prick Up Your Ears

An insider's account of a great clown and a great act, this book goes backstage at London's Theatre Royal, with Barry Humphries, and into the weird and wonderful world of his show-stopping creation, Dame Edna Everage. 8 photos.

Backstage with Barry Humphries

Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilization

Show People and Their Shows

Joy Ride

Astonish Me, Adventures in Contemporary Theater

John Lahr describes the lives and careers of playwrights, directors and performers, providing a vivid backdrop to his critique of particular productions in this book of theatrical criticism, history and gossip. He also makes the reader feel present at the run-up to an opening night: in London with Dame Edna, with Tony Kushner in Los Angeles. Lahr is everywhere, from the newest Brian Friel play in Dublin, to Toronto on a Hal Prince revival of Show Boat, from Stockholm on Ingmar Bergman's production of Yukio Mishima's Madame de Sade, to London and Broadway.

Adventures in Theatre

Light Fantastic

A dazzling celebration of theatre, its workings and its most compelling playwrights by the New York's senior drama critic emeritus and the author of Tennessee Williams

Typescript, dated March 22, 2002. Without music. Typescript unmarked by videographer when used by The New York Public Library's Theatre on Film and Tape Archive on April 5, 2002, when videorecording the stage production at the Neil Simon Theatre, 302 West 52nd Street, New York, N.Y. The production opened Feb. 21, 2002.

Elaine Stritch at Liberty (Musical)

Jonathan Price

9 Plays from the Avant-garde Theater

The Great American Life Show

John Lahr traces his father's career as a leading clown of the American theater against the tribulations of his personal life

The Biography of Bert Lahr

Notes on a Cowardly Lion

Twyla Tharp

Richard Avedon

Mike Nichols

Andre Gregory

More than two hundred portrait images by the celebrated photographer capture some of the greatest stars and artists of the performing arts from the latter half of the twentieth century, including actors, comedians, pop stars, musicians, and dancers, accompanied by insightful essays on the photographer by critics and perfoming artists.

Performance

Joe Orton

Fron December 1966 to his murder in August 1967, Joe Orton kept a series of diaries that prove to be one of the most candid and unfettered accounts of that remarkable era. They chronicle his life from his literary success to his sexual escapades.

Including the Correspondence of Edna Welthorpe and Others

The Orton Diaries

'John Lahr manages to write better about the theatre than anybody in the English language,' says Richard Eyre. Joy Ride, which includes the best of his New Yorker profiles and reviews, makes his expertise and his exhilaration palpable. From modern greats, like Arthur Miller, Harold Pinter, David Mamet, Tony Kushner and August Wilson, through the work of directors like Nicholas Hytner and Ingmar Bergman, to Shakespeare himself, the depth of Lahr's understanding is plain to see and extraordinary to read. He brings the reader up close and personal to the artists and their art. Whether you are a regular theatre-goer, or just starting out, Lahr's book delights as both a celebration and a guide.

Lives of the Theatricals

"What a talented, wonderful, and complete writer."--Mel Brooks "By far the best thing about my stuff I've ever read."--Arthur Miller "These are wonderful portraits."--Edna O'Brien "The high-water mark of theatrical reportage. Exhilarating! Smart! Lahr gives as much thunderous pleasure as the great entertainers he writes about."--Richard Avedon "There's never been an American critic like John Lahr. His writing exalts, honors, and dignifies the profession and, more importantly, the art."--Tony Kushner

John Lahr

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