Noël Coward on (and in) Theatre

From "the master" of sophisticated, daring comedy; actor, playwright, songwriter, composer, director, whose light, sharp wit shaped, seduced, (at times) shocked, and enchanted the English and American stage for half a century--his thoughts, lyrics, essays, commentary, asides on everything having to do with the theatre and his dazzling life in it.

The book Noel Coward wanted, promised, threatened to write--and never did . . .

His essays, interviews, diary entries, lyrics, verse, his views on his fellow playwrights: "My Colleague Will," Shaw, Wilde, Chekhov, Barrie, Maugham, Eliot, Osborne, Albee, Beckett, Miller, Williams, Rattigan, Pinter, and Shaffer . . . On the critics--many of whom irritated him over the years but came to admire him: James Agate, Alexander Woollcott, Graham Greene, Kenneth Tynan among them . . . On the plays he wrote, among them: The Vortex; Hay Fever; Private Lives; Design For Living; Blithe Spirit . . . The producers who crossed his path: André Charlot, C. B. Cochran, Binkie Beaumont . . . And the actors in the Coward galaxy: John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Gertrude Lawrence, the Lunts, etc. . . . His views on the art of acting: auditions, rehearsals, learning the lines, clarity of delivery, timing, control, range, stage fright, fans, theater audiences, revivals, comedy, "the Method," plays with a "message," taste, construction, "Star Quality," etc. . . . His experience in, and thoughts on: revue, cabaret, television, and musical theater, Bitter Sweet, Conversation Piece, Pacific 1860, After the Ball, Ace of Clubs, Sail Away, The Girl Who Came to Supper, Words and Music, This Year of Grace, London Calling! . . . and much more.

Ingeniously, deftly compiled, edited, and annotated by Barry Day, Coward authority and editor of The No?l Coward Reader and The Letters of No?l Coward.