"If Broadway's triumphant musical hits are exhilarating, the backstage tales of Broadway failures are tantalizing soap operas in miniature. Behind every fabled flop is a set of claims, countercharges, and recriminations from some of the biggest egos in the public eye, struggling to save face. Second Act Trouble puts you with the creators in the rehearsal halls, at out-of-town tryouts, in late-night, hotel-room production meetings, and at after-the-fact recriminatory gripe fests." "Steven Suskin has compiled and annotated long-forgotten, first-person accounts of 25 Broadway musicals from the 1930s to the 1990s that stubbornly went awry. Contributions come from such respected writers as Patricia Bosworth, Mel Gussow, Lehman Engel, William Gibson, Lewis H. Lapham, and John Gruen. No mere vanity productions, these; you can't have a big blockbuster of a failure, it seems, without the participation of Broadway's biggest talents. Caught in the stranglehold of tryout turmoil are Richard Rodgers, Jule Styne, Jerry Herman, Cy Coleman, Charles Strouse, John Kander, Mel Brooks, and even Edward Albee." "These cautionary tales are provocative, highly instructive, occasionally brutal, and, from a safe distance, downright hilarious, making Second Act Trouble the perfect Broadway bedtime reader - unless you are prone to nightmares."--Jacket.