Present at the Creation: Leaping in the Dark and Going Against the Grain (Hardcover)

“The best way I know to resuscitate the theatre is to produce dangerous new works.” – Stuart Ostrow.Producer Stuart Ostrow's manifesto of how intelligent life might be restored to the theatre is also a unique personal memoir of the producer-creator relationship and an evaluation of the essentials that can make a show fly, or remain earthbound. As a solo producer, Ostrow's many productions include M. Butterfly, which won the Tony Award for Best Play; Pippin; and 1776, which received both the New York and London Drama Critics Awards as well as the Tony Award for Best Musical. He produced the original Broadway production of the critically acclaimed La Bête, which won the Olivier Award in London for Best Comedy. Ostrow was brought in to fix the original production of Chicago, collaborated with Anthony Hopkins on a London production of M. Butterfly, that was not meant to be, and even had his own play, Stages, directed on Broadway by the avant-garde theatrical pioneer Richard Foreman. He riffs about the heroes and heels he's met along the way and that great cast includes Frank Loesser, Meredith Willson, Mel Brooks, Mike Nichols, Bob Fosse, David Geffen, Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Henry Hwang, John Kander, Fred Ebb, and many more.