John Lahr Books

"We all perform. It's what we do for each other all the time, deliberately or unintentionally. It's a way of telling about ourselves in the hope of being recognized as what we'd like to be."--Richard Avedon, 1974The preeminent stars and artists of the performing arts from the second half of the 20th century offered their greatest gifts―and, sometimes, their inner lives―to Richard Avedon. More than 200 are portrayed in Performance, many in photographs that have been rarely or never seen before. Of course, the great stars light the Hepburn and Chaplin, Monroe and Garland, Brando and Sinatra. But here too are the actors and comedians, pop stars and divas, musicians and dancers, artists in all mediums with public lives that were essentially performances, who stand at the pinnacle of our cultural achievement. The celebrated author and critic John Lahr offers an elegant assessment of Avedon’s achievement. Four supremely talented artists from the performing arts―Mike Nichols, André Gregory, Mitsuko Uchida, and Twyla Tharp―contribute lively and moving memoirs about their collaborations with Avedon.

Elia Kazan was the twentieth century’s most celebrated director of both stage and screen, and this monumental, revelatory book shows us the master at work. Kazan’s list of Broadway and Hollywood successes—A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, On the Waterfront, to name a few—is a testament to his profound impact on the art of directing. This remarkable book, drawn from his notebooks, letters, interviews, and autobiography, reveals Kazan’s method: how he uncovered the “spine,” or core, of each script; how he analyzed each piece in terms of his own experience; and how he determined the specifics of his production. And in the final section, “The Pleasures of Directing”—written during Kazan’s final years—he becomes a wise old pro offering advice and insight for budding artists, writers, actors, and directors.

Critic Kenneth Tynan, the impresario who created Oh Calcutta, was also an eccentric and connoisseur of cuisine, wine, literature and women. His diaries record a judicious blend of aesthetics, theatre lore, love, marriage, sex and politics.

A great theater critic brings twentieth-century playwright Arthur Miller's dramatic story to life with bold and revealing new insights