Reviewed by: Creating Musical Theatre: Conversations with Broadway Directors and Choreographers by Lyn Cramer Rockford Sansom Creating Musical Theatre: Conversations with Broadway Directors and Choreographers. By Lyn Cramer. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013; pp. 304. Creating Music Theatre: Conversations with Broadway Directors and Choreographers offers critically minded interviews with some of Broadway’s most prolific and honored directors and choreographers. Lyn Cramer’s selection of interviews features both veterans and rising stars, many of whom are well-known to the dance community, though they may not have received mainstream attention. The focus of this book ultimately calls attention to how each interviewee perceives his or her role and personal artistic process as a director/choreographer. Through entertaining personal accounts and process-oriented dialogue, each interviewed artist offers practical advice and insights into the theory and practice of musical theatre dance. The catalog of interviews presents choreographers and directors whose work crosses virtually every form of the performing arts, yet all have had great influence and success in musical theatre on Broadway. The twelve interviews include: Rob Ashford (Thoroughly Modern Mille), Andy Blankenbuehler (In the Heights), Jeff Calhoun (Bonnie and Clyde), Warren Carlyle (Chaplin), Christopher Gattelli (Newsies), Kathleen Marshall (Anything Goes), Jerry Mitchell (Legally Blonde), Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon), Randy Skinner (White Christmas), Susan Stroman (The Scottsboro Boys), Sergio Trujillo (Jersey Boys), and Anthony Van Laast (Sister Act). Cramer states that through the interviews she aims both to transcribe a contemporary director/choreographer’s creative methodology and to explore each of their personal journeys through the musical theatre world. Every interview contains a fairly systematic arc. Cramer begins with the individual’s background and early entertainment career, predominantly highlighting how each dancer transitioned into a choreographer and then, if applicable, director. Each artist describes seminal works in his or her career, and the influence that these works have had on more recent projects. Cramer then shifts to the creative process and delves into topics like using research to create dance, the nature of collaboration, preproduction concepts, casting, and rehearsal techniques. Each interview ceremoniously closes with a request for advice to young dancers moving to New York City for the first time. In the foreword Cramer argues that she intends the interviews for three different audiences: the musical theatre performer searching for audition and rehearsal advice; the aspiring director/choreographer looking for inspiration; and the researcher investigating how each artist perceives their own creative process. The greatest strengths of this text lie in the material for the first two audiences. The interviews are intensely pragmatic; Cramer and each choreographer speak artist-to-artist and dancer-to-dancer in frank, simple, and consistently practical terms that dancers at any level of the theatre industry will find insightful and useful. Through questions like “[o]nce they’re hired, is there something dancers need to know before they walk into the rehearsal room?” [End Page 308] (45) and “[d]o you communicate with your creative team any differently, regardless of whether you’re choreographing, directing, or both?” (75). Cramer keeps the conversations refreshingly balanced and practical, avoiding inquiries that could have easily turned unproductively erudite. Her casual yet respectful tone as interviewer encourages the choreographers to offer humorous and intriguing antidotes that concurrently entertain and reinforce the lessons they are trying to teach. A few of the interviews even contain harmless jabs at some of the icons of the dance world and a playful lampoon of elements within the theatre, such as the audition process, out-of-town tryouts, and so on. Cramer also avoids dance jargon and interpolates explanations about each artist within the interviews, making the book user-friendly to those who do not have extensive musical theatre knowledge. For the researcher, Cramer does ask questions that critically explore every director/choreographer’s aesthetic theories and praxis. The discussions of each artist’s early mentors and how these influences have affected his or her process stand out as noteworthy examples. Additional significant dialogues include the artists’ explanations of how a choreographer transitions from early choreographic concepts to the rehearsal room, and how to best utilize the rehearsal process. Cramer’s personal knowledge of musical theatre dance seeps through the interviews in...