Gifts for theatre lovers

Okay, Jan at Broadway & Me is my inspiration for this. She wrote about 12 terrific gifts - one for each day of Christmas - that you can get for the theatre lover on your shopping list. So I tried to come up with my own list of 8 presents, one for each night of Chanukah, which begins Dec. 21. But really, the items on both of our lists would be great to give and receive for any holiday. I took most of the prices from Amazon, just to give you some idea of the cost involved.

1.) Broadway: The American Musical. If I could pick just one gift, it would be this 6-hour documentary tracing the history of musical theatre that aired on PBS in 2004. I watched it before making my first trip to Broadway, and it got me even more excited. I even bought the companion 5-cd box set. Plus, there are hours of extra interviews on the dvds that didn't make it into the documentary. Since it's been out for a few years, I'm assuming most people reading this already have a copy. But there are new musical theatre fans being born every minute and they'll be needing one of their very own. Cost: dvd, 59.99; cd box set, $53.99.

2.) A Raisin in the Sun. 2009 marks the 50th anniversary of the original Broadway production of Lorraine Hansberry's play about the struggles and aspirations of an African-American family. A copy of the play would make a nice gift, along with a dvd of the recent Broadway revival starring Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad and Audra MacDonald that was filmed for television. Several theatre companies (and probably more) are putting on A Raisin in the Sun during its anniversary year. So if you live near one of them, consider buying a pair of tickets for that special someone. Cost: book, $6.95; dvd, $15.49.

3.) Carols for a Cure, Vol. 10. Whenever I'm at a show and there's an appeal for donations to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, I always drop some money in the fundraising bucket. While I've never bought anything at their online store, this year is different. I have my eye on the 10th anniversary Carols for a Cure CD. Every year, the casts of Broadway and off-Broadway shows record holiday songs, and this year's two-disc set includes classic tracks from past volumes. I can't wait to hear the cast of Hairspray sing "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel!" Cost: $20.

4.) Broadway Nights and The Q Guide to Broadway. These books by Seth Rudetsky are quick, very fun reads. I bought Broadway Nights, his novel, in the spring. It's about the life and loves of a pit musician who gets his big break when he's hired to be the musical director for a new show. So you get a bird's-eye view of how a Broadway musical comes together. I picked up the Q Guide during my trip to New York last month. It's filled with useful information, like the Top 10 Broadway CDs you must have, and the difference between an understudy, a standby and a swing. There's also some (discreet) backstage gossip. Cost: Broadway Nights, $10.85; The Q Guide to Broadway, $11.86.

5.) Long Day's Journey Into Night What makes the short-lived 1986 Broadway revival of Eugene O'Neill's classic play different from all others? It's got Kevin Spacey as the ne'e-do-well, alcoholic Jamie Tyrone, of course! And Jack Lemmon, Bethel Leslie and Peter Gallagher, too. I love watching Spacey and Lemmon engage in some brutal verbal sparring as father and son. As a bonus, there are two audio interviews - one with Spacey and a second with director Jonathan Miller. Spacey's interview is great - he talks about getting started in the business, how Jack Lemmon became a mentor and the slightly devious method he used to get an audition for Long Day's Journey. Aspiring actors, take note! Cost: $22.99.

6. Home: A memoir of my early years. Julie Andrews' memoir is an an exquisitely written, wonderfully detailed look at her youth in wartime England and her career on stage in London and New York in the late 1950s and early 1960s. My favorite parts are about her experiences on Broadway, where she starred in three shows in quick succession - The Boy Friend, My Fair Lady and Camelot. The book concludes with Andrews heading to Hollywood for the filming of Mary Poppins. I hope she's working on a sequel. Cost: $17.79.

7. 13. Tickets to a Broadway musical about a Jewish teenager who moves from New York City to Indiana and wonders whether the cool kids will come to his bar mitzvah - the perfect Chanukah (or Christmas) gift. I really enjoyed this sweet, funny, exuberant show about not simply going along with the crowd just because its the popular thing to do. It's got a catchy rock 'n' roll score by Jason Robert Brown, and a very energetic and appealing all-teenage cast. While 13 is closing Jan. 4, there's still time to see it over the holidays. You can also get the cast recording and the book based on the musical (which I haven't read yet.) Cost: book, $11.67; cd, $13.99

8. Broadway magnet. I have all my ticket stubs and Playbills, I love the Broadway posters and the souvenir programs and the coffee table books. And there's nothing better than eating your cereal and milk in the morning while gazing up at a refrigerator covered with magnets from your favorite Broadway shows. (Don't ask how many I have. Too many.) The Playbill store has a great selection of magnets and other merchandise for the theatre lover on your holiday shopping list. Cost (magnets): $4 and up

Broadway Nights

Sometimes there's a book that's so much fun, you don't want it to end. I just finished Seth Rudetsky's witty and informative novel Broadway Nights: A Romp of Life, Love and Musical Theatre, and it definitely falls into that category. Emily, who writes the blog Pop Culture Book Review, gave it an enthusiastic review, so I picked up a copy at The Drama Book Shop the last time I was in New York.

Unless you follow musical theatre on Broadway, you've probably never heard of Seth Rudetsky. But if you do follow Broadway, well, he's pretty ubiquitous. He hosts Seth's Broadway Chatterbox, a weekly talk show featuring theatre actors. He writes for Playbill.com and he has a show, Seth's Big Fat Broadway, on Sirius Satellite Radio. And that's not even all he does. If he's not already Mr. Broadway, he probably should be.

Broadway Nights is written in the form of a diary that substitute pit musician Stephen Sheerin is keeping at the suggestion of his therapist. So we hear a lot about his complicated love life, with past, current and soon-to-be boyfriends, and about his opera singer mother, who never gave him enough attention growing up. (She's terribly disappointed when her son decides show tunes are his real passion, not classical music.) There's a funny story about how Stephen's babysitter unexpectedly took him to see Annie, his first Broadway show, and he was hooked.

All that was fine, but what I really enjoyed was the insider's look at how a Broadway musical comes together. Stephen has just gotten the big break of his career: he's hired to be the musical director for a new show, Flowerchild. It's kind of a 1960s jukebox musical, about the residents of a hippie commune making the transition to the 1970s. So we get to accompany him all the way through the process. He attends auditions, deals with the parsimonious husband-and-wife producers, works with the cast during rehearsals, and finally, after a bit of drama, (It is the theatre, after all!) arrives at opening night.

All of the details are probably old hat to veteran Broadway fans, but they were new to me. While the story isn't totally autobiographical - I don't think his mother was an opera singer and his father, her accompanist, who left her for his page turner - Rudetsky has drawn on his own life for a wealth of stories. And he does dish up a lot of stories about Broadway shows. (I'm sure someone who knows more about Broadway could figure out the real-life people upon whom he bases his characters).

Rudetsky has a breezy, conversational style, and he tells Stephen's story with a great deal of humor and sympathy. Stephen's a very likable Broadway journeyman - not a star but one of the myriad musicians, actors, dancers, and singers who toil in semi obscurity, entertaining us and waiting for their moment in the spotlight. My only complaint is that near the end of the book there's a plot twist that's resolved so quickly it practically gave me whiplash. And a second twist, involving Stephen's love life, seems a bit unbelievable. But those really are minor points.

Plus, there are lots of cool facts that I didn't know, but now that I do know them, I can sound like a Broadway insider. For example, I didn't realize that "half-hour" is the time actors have to get to the theatre. Now I understand that verse from "Show People" in Curtains - "Our days are tied to curtains, they rise and they fall. We're born every night at half-hour call." Thanks, Seth!