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Kaufman & Co.: Broadway Comedies

Edited by Laurence Maslon

“The best anthology of American plays that anyone’s put out in years.” — Boston Phoenix

Overview
News & Views
Table of Contents
Contributors

Overview

Interviews Ian Frazier on why Ring Lardner is “a major figure in twentieth-century letters”
April 23, 2019

Story of the Week Ring Lardner, “Some Like Them Cold”
March 15, 2019

The Moviegoer A “completely modern” comedy of façades and human frailty, Dinner at Eight still surprises
December 20, 2016

If Eugene O’Neill represents the tragic mask of American drama, then George S. Kaufman can easily lay claim to its smiling counterpart. No other comic dramatist in America has enjoyed more popular success and perennial influence or been more fortunate in his choice of collaborators, who included George and Ira Gershwin, Moss Hart, Irving Berlin, and the Marx Brothers.

Here, in the most comprehensive collection of his plays ever assembled, are nine classics: his uproarious “backstage” play The Royal Family (1927, written with Edna Ferber); the Marx Brothers–inspired mayhem of Animal Crackers (1928, with Morrie Ryskind), in a version discovered in Groucho Marx’s papers and published here for the first time; June Moon (1929, with Ring Lardner), a hilarious look at a young composer trying to make it big on Tin Pan Alley; Once in a Lifetime (1930, with Moss Hart), one of the first and best satires of Hollywood; Pulitzer Prize winners Of Thee I Sing (1931, with Morrie Ryskind and Ira Gershwin) and You Can’t Take It with You (1936, with Moss Hart); Dinner at Eight (1932, with Edna Ferber), a tart ensemble piece that mixes comedy and melodrama; Stage Door (1936, with Edna Ferber), his much-loved story about young actresses trying to make it big in New York City; and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939, with Moss Hart), an unforgettable burlesque of America’s cult of celebrity.

Bursting with vernacular wit, farcical ingenuity, and theatrical panache, these plays have remained beloved favorites and exuberant reminders of Broadway in its glory days.

Laurence Maslon, editor, is an associate arts professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a former associate artistic director at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. He was senior consultant and co-writer for two episodes of the six-part PBS series Broadway: The American Musical, as well as coauthoring, with Michael Kantor, the companion volume for the documentary.

Official George S. Kaufman website

This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.

This volume is available for adoption in the Guardian of American Letters Fund.
News & Views

Interviews Ian Frazier on why Ring Lardner is “a major figure in twentieth-century letters”
April 23, 2019

Story of the Week Ring Lardner, “Some Like Them Cold”
March 15, 2019

The Moviegoer A “completely modern” comedy of façades and human frailty, Dinner at Eight still surprises
December 20, 2016

The Moviegoer Tinseltown meets the Great White Way: Classic musicals that thrived on stage and screen
October 6, 2016
Table of Contents

The Royal Family, George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber

Animal Crackers, George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind; music and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby

June Moon, Ring Lardner and George S. Kaufman

Once in a Lifetime, Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman

Of Thee I Sing, George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind; music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin

Dinner at Eight, George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber

Stage Door, Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman

You Can’t Take It With You, Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman

The Man Who Came to Dinner, Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman
Contributors

Edna Ferber
Ira Gershwin
Moss Hart
George S. Kaufman
Ring Lardner
Morrie Ryskind

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ISBN: 978-1-93108267-9 911 pages

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N° 152 Library of America Series

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Ira Gershwin: Selected Lyrics

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