'Razzle Dazzle' offers Broadway drama

If you follow Broadway even casually, you know that some of the most intense drama unfolds behind the curtain, often outside the theater altogether.

For those who crave such intrigue, Michael Riedel's column in The New York Post has long been the go-to place for dish. His coverage of the multiple crises surrounding the musical Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark made national news, titillating fans and insiders alike (and proving a bane for those involved in the production).

In his scrumptious new book, Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway, Riedel turns his focus to a time before dancers duked it out in high-tech aerial combat, or theater geeks could duel virtually on social media. We're transported back to the 20th century, when giants roamed the theater district, and not just in the form of great actors, directors, and creative artists. Certainly, the author weaves in such personalities; Michael Bennett, the groundbreaking director and choreographer of A Chorus Line and Dreamgirls -- who died at 44, after battling AIDS -- emerges as a particularly prominent and poignant figure.

But the leading men in Razzle Dazzle are the power brokers who determined what ran on Broadway -- chief among them Bernard Jacobs and Gerald Schoenfeld, who as partners running the Shubert Organization owned the lion's share of theaters and produced some of the most notable critical and commercial successes of the 1970s, '80s and '90s. (Jacobs died in 1996; Schoenfeld remained active until his death in 2008.) Riedel offers a richly human portrait of both men, revealing the complementary strengths and shared pluck that allowed them to grab a struggling company -- from the booze-addled (as depicted here) heir Lawrence Shubert Lawrence, Jr. -- and revitalize it.

The personal and professional foibles of various Shuberts are documented with color and wit, as are the changing political and social dynamics that Broadway faced as a key part of New York City's cultural and economic fabric. We learn about history of corruption known as "ice," a black market in ticket sales dating back to the 19th century.

We're led through Times Square's transformation from a place the great director and producer Harold Prince, one of Riedel's numerous subjects, "would not go near" in 1987 (to stage The Phantom of the Opera) to the home of Disney's The Lion King less than a decade later.

Some of the inside chatter and commentary will raise eyebrows and stoke debates. Sondheim fans will surely bristle when Riedel describes the composer/lyricist's work, more than once, as "cynical." A certain former theater critic gets rather too much unflattering attention.

But there is no mistaking the positive, infectious zeal at the core of Razzle Dazzle. For those interested in the business behind the greasepaint, at a riveting time in Broadway's and New York's history, this is the ticket.

Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway

By Michael Riedel

Simon & Schuster, 403 pp.

3.5 stars out of four