Holiday gifts: Vicarious peeks behind scenes of the arts

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This is the third of six articles devoted to arts-and-entertainment-oriented gifts: books, CDs, videos and DVDs. Look for future installments in this spot on Sundays through Dec. 19. For past stories in the series, see related stories below.

Many of us who like to go to movies, plays and dance performances also like to curl up and read about the creative artists who make such things happen; ponder photographs of them; and dig into all the backstage history, lore and gossip we can munch on.

So for that cinephile, theater maven or dance freak on your list, here are some suggestions for swell new tomes they'll be delighted to unwrap:

Movies

"Oscar Night: 75 Years of Hollywood Parties," by Graydon Carter and David Friend, with an afterword by Dominick Dunne (Alfred A. Knopf, $75). It's big, it's expensive, and it'll break your arms if you try to read it in bed, but those in thrall to celebrity glamour will find "Oscar Night" worth staying up for. It's mostly photos, with little text, but many speak volumes: Consider the shot of Joan Crawford, who begged off attending the 1946 ceremony because of illness but happily posed for photographs with her Oscar in bed — in full makeup and a pink dressing gown that coordinates perfectly with her bedspread and lampshade. Fun stuff.

Ideas for everyone on your list. · Classical music · Books · Movies, theater and dance · Jazz · TV and film DVDs · Art books · Gifts that rock: CDs and books

"In the Picture: Production Stills from the TCM Archives," by Alexa L. Foreman, Ruth A. Peltason, Mark A. Vieira, with an introduction by Robert Osborne (Chronicle Books, $35). Lovers of classic movies should be dazzled by this handsome picture book, filled with black-and-white production stills from Turner Classic Movies' substantial vault. See Orson Welles perched precariously on a camera crane for "Citizen Kane," Katharine Hepburn daintily climbing that dinosaur skeleton in "Bringing Up Baby," Grace Kelly laughing poolside in "High Society," and dozens more, including many rarities, reminding us why they call it the Golden Age.

"The Art of 'The Incredibles,' " by Mark Cotta Vaz, with forewords by John Lasseter and Brad Bird (Chronicle Books, $40). Most books issued in conjunction with a film's release are perfunctory, but here's an exception: an elegant volume that flips open the trap door to this movie's wizardry. Sketches, costume studies and early renderings fill the book, giving a hint at the volume of work (and imagination) behind this season's best animated film.

Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times movie critic

Theater

"Broadway: The American Musical" by Michael Kantor and Laurence Maslon (Bulfinch Press, $60). This glossy, phone-book-size compendium of Broadway musical fact, personality and illustration is a deluxe companion to the recent PBS television documentary of the same title. It's a terrific browse-book and crammed with wonderful photos of Broadway's people, posters and palaces from the district's late 19th-century infancy to its embattled but still-kicking present.

For true aficionados, the six-part TV series of "Broadway: The American Musical" is available as a DVD boxed set (Paramount Home Video, $59.99) as is a related CD boxed set of numbers culled from the scores of a wide array of Broadway musicals (Sony, $59.98).

"Broadway Musicals: The 101 Greatest Shows of All Time" by Ken Bloom and Frank Vlastnik (Black Dog & Leventhal, $34.95). Yet another great (and hefty) Broadway musical coffee-table book, this one is less comprehensive but more opinionated. The authors have selected their "best of the best" list, from "Annie" to "Zorba," with playbill details, sidebars and lush photo spreads for each show.

You can argue about some glaring omissions (why doesn't the book recognize more recent hits such as "Hairspray" and "Urinetown"?), but what is covered constitutes a nostalgic treasure trove.

"The Federal Theatre Project" by Barry Witham (Cambridge University Press, $60). Closer to home, this study by a noted University of Washington drama professor illuminates a lively, acutely controversial swatch of Seattle's "hidden" theatrical history: the city's federally subsidized dramas of the Great Depression era. Scholarly but accessible, the book gives fascinating accounts of such politically-charged Seattle productions as a "Negro" version of the anti-war play "Lysistrata" and hotly debated docudramas about the greed of private power companies, a national syphilis epidemic, labor unrest and other burning issues of the time.

"Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee" by Mona Z. Smith (Faber and Faber, $27). A trailblazing African-American actor who rose to prominence in the 1930s, Lee has long deserved a thoughtful, thorough biography like this one. Smith gives an engrossing, sympathetic account of Lee's journey from a Harlem boyhood, to a youthful career as a boxer, and on to his rare achievement (for the time) of fame on Broadway (in Orson Welles' production of "Native Son") and films (in Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat").

The book also offers an unsparing account of this multigifted, well-liked artist's crushing professional and personal ruination after being blacklisted as a "Red" and hounded by the FBI during the post-World War II, anti-Communist witch hunts.

"The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness" by Joel ben Izzy (Algonquin Books, $22.95). What happens when a world-traveling storyteller in his 30s suddenly loses his voice?

As ben Izzy writes, "People make plans and God laughs." In this graceful weave of autobiography and resonant fables from different cultures, the engaging author (a California-based performer) offers a concise, inspiring memoir about surviving cancer, gaining wisdom and rediscovering one's true vocation.

"The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson" by Harry J. Elam Jr. (University of Michigan Press, $49.50).This isn't the first major consideration of the oeuvre of Seattle based, Pulitzer Prize-honored playwright Wilson, author of such Broadway gems as "Fences" and "Seven Guitars." But it is the newest and one of the more encompassing.

Theater scholar Elam places much of his analysis of Wilson's scripts in a historical context. And he examines themes that ripple through the dramatist's pungent, decade-by-decade cycle of plays about African-American culture — from the atmospheric and symbolic role music plays in his works to the recurring motifs in Wilson's depictions of women and men.

Misha Berson, Seattle Times theater critic

Dance

"Jerome Robbins: His Life, His Theater, His Dance," by Deborah Jowitt (Simon & Schuster, $40). A proper antidote to Greg Lawrence's sensationalistic 2001 biography of the great Broadway and ballet choreographer. Author Deborah Jowitt, with her impeccable dance-historical credentials, focuses less on gossip and melodrama and more on the work that illuminated Robbins' genius ("Afternoon of a Faun," "Dances at a Gathering," "West Side Story," "Fiddler on the Roof").

"Margot Fonteyn: A Life," by Meredith Daneman (Viking, $32.95). About time we had a big, contemporary biography of the great English ballerina. This one's a bit flowery at times ("Margot is what I must call her," writes Daneman in her prologue. "I must forgo 'Fonteyn' reluctantly, along with my own sense of propriety at doing so, and adopt the intimacy of her Christian name"). But it's well researched and comprehensive, and a solid addition to any balletomane's shelf.

Lynn Jacobson, Seattle Times assistant arts & entertainment editor

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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