Rating: 
Summary: Completely Brilliant
Review: As a bi-continental director (London, New York, and Los Angeles), I was delighted to find that Miller doesn't have an American prejudice in his work -- in fact he highly respects the work non-American directors have done on American classics and that's quite refreshing. His books (this one and "From Assassins To West Side Story") are the best examples I've seen of serious considerations of important, interesting musical theatre, yet with a sense of fun and joy, and with a devilish penchant for denying conventional wisdom when it doesn't make sense. In fact, he makes cases (in both books) for changing the conventional wisdom on a number of American classics. These terrific books are must-reads for both the theatre professional and the rabid fan as well -- both are inestimable treasures.
Rating:
Summary: Long overdue
Review: At last -- a book about musicals where the author doesn't spend half his time trying to impress us and the other half making factual errors. This is one of the few books I've read on this subject that is just good, interesting, solid info. This guy knows his stuff and he makes it all easy to understand. I've been a lover of musicals all my life and still this book taught me a lot.
Rating:
Summary: a must-read for ANY theatre enthusiast
Review: Every analysis that Miller wrote in this book just blew me away. It completely opened my eyes to all the subtext behind musicals that prior to this just seemed...well, dull. However, I suddenly acquired new views on musicals like "The Music Man" and "Camelot" and I now appreciate them not only as classics but engaging pieces of theatre. His ideas on all the other musicals, especially the Sondheim pieces are simply enlightening. What are you waiting for? Buy it!
Rating:
Summary: The perfect book for people who really love musicals
Review: How wonderful and unusual to find a book about musical theatre that is never pretentious, never dull, brilliantly opinionated, and that has a healthy sense of humor about its subject. There is more joy and humor in this book than in any other similar book I've ever read. Miller's intelligence and enthusiasm overflows and you'll find yourself smiling, laughing out loud, and humming along as you read this happily readable, entertaining, irreverent book.This book understands that the dark side of humanity is always more complex and more interesting and so it focuses mostly on shows that tackle the dark side -- Camelot, Chicago, Falsettos, King and I -- but interestingly, all shows that use a lot of humor to make their very serious points. This is not a book for those grumpy old curmudgeons who are always grumbling that musicals ought to be silly, sappy, escapist comedies. This is a book for people who love Grown-Up Musicals, the kind that feed both brain and soul. If that's you, you have to buy this book. You'll love it.
Rating:
Summary: A GREAT ONE FOR THE READING LIST
Review: I am a Lecturer in Acting and Music Theatre at the Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music (Bachelor of Music Theatre program) and DECONSTRUCTING HAROLD HILL is on my book list for the students. Why? Because underneath your writing is an undeniable energy, love, support for our craft; this fragile crystal of a business called 'show'. I am not really concerned whether or not I agree with your opinions, apothesis, arguments, discussions etc...what I want is my students to be infected by PASSION and your book is an undeniable example of that. Like you and me, I WANT them to have opinions, to engage in lively and researched debate, to listen to/see the works of the repertoire, to know which song/scene comes from what and that takes energetic, rigourous and PASSIONATE research. If your book goes a wee way to get them off their arses and into action...so be it. I thank you for a book that has not only enthused my students but that goes one step further towards securing the fragile architecture of our business... WILL CONYERS
Rating:
Summary: A GREAT ONE FOR THE READING LIST
Review: I am a Lecturer in Acting and Music Theatre at the Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music (Bachelor of Music Theatre program) and DECONSTRUCTING HAROLD HILL is on my book list for the students. Why? Because underneath your writing is an undeniable energy, love, support for our craft; this fragile crystal of a business called 'show'. I am not really concerned whether or not I agree with your opinions, apothesis, arguments, discussions etc...what I want is my students to be infected by PASSION and your book is an undeniable example of that. Like you and me, I WANT them to have opinions, to engage in lively and researched debate, to listen to/see the works of the repertoire, to know which song/scene comes from what and that takes energetic, rigourous and PASSIONATE research. If your book goes a wee way to get them off their arses and into action...so be it. I thank you for a book that has not only enthused my students but that goes one step further towards securing the fragile architecture of our business... WILL CONYERS
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, Playful, and Occasionally Brilliant
Review: I loved this author's first book, From Assassins to West Side Story, but I wasn't prepared for the further depth and greater brilliance of his second book, Deconstructing Harold Hill. This is a man who knows his theatre, who understands human nature, and who cares enough about great art to treat it seriously and respectfully without being afraid to criticize it or demand fresh approaches. This is a work of great intellect that is still accessible to readers with no theatre or music background (a rarity), and yet, I would guess, in depth and surprising enough to aid the most experienced professional. In his introduction, Mr. Miller complains that American directors don't come at older American musicals with fresh enough perspectives, and the rest of the book does what those directors can't -- it looks, as if for the first time, at a collection of wonderful, important musicals, looking at them fresh, taking the time to think about and question the things nobody else will. His discussin of the use of musical themes in The Music Man is incredble -- there's so much there I hadn't noticed before -- and his writing makes it all accessible for someone with no music background. His discussions of the character of Harold Hill -- basically a villain who acts like a hero -- is fascinating. He sees glorious little details in this show I've never seen before. His chapter on Camelot opened my eyes like never before to the depth and possibilities of this show that usually falls into the shadow of My Fair Lady. Mr. Miller sees complexity and nuance in these characters that I've never seen explored before. How amazing it would be to see a production of Camelot that used Mr. Miller's ideas. The show would be transformed instantly from a pretty musical into a soaring, searing piece of tragic theatre. His chapter on Chicago makes a compelling case for why the revival doesn't do the show justice. And his chapters on Sondheim musicals (Passion and Sunday in the Park) confirm for me that Mr. Miller is the preeminent American interpreter of Sondheim's works. Though I live in Seattle, I may just venture down to St. Louis to see Mr. Miller's ideas at work on his own stage. How lucky the people of St. Louis must be to have an artist this intelligent, this passionate, and this emotional working in their city.
Rating: 
Summary: Amateur psychologist makes a place for himself as a directah
Review: I loved this book. I've been studying musicals for years, directing them, performing in them, even writing them, and I don't know if I've ever come across anybody who understands them -- or loves them -- like this guy Miller. I thought I knew it all but he talks about stuff I never even THOUGHT about. If you love musicals, you'll love this book. It's got lots of substance but never gets boring or dry. It's every bit as informative and smart as a textbook but a lot more fun. I can't wait to read Miller's other book "From Assassins to West Side Story." Get this -- you'll love it.
Rating:
Summary: Really great book
Review: I loved this book. I've been studying musicals for years, directing them, performing in them, even writing them, and I don't know if I've ever come across anybody who understands them -- or loves them -- like this guy Miller. I thought I knew it all but he talks about stuff I never even THOUGHT about. If you love musicals, you'll love this book. It's got lots of substance but never gets boring or dry. It's every bit as informative and smart as a textbook but a lot more fun. I can't wait to read Miller's other book "From Assassins to West Side Story." Get this -- you'll love it.
Rating:
Summary: Amateur psychologist makes a place for himself as a directah
Review: I was immediately cautioned by Scott Miller's line in his "Overture" that "truly brilliant works like Adam Guettel's Floyd Collins, William Finn's A New Brain, and Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry's Parade can't sustain a long run in New York, perhaps it's time for us to stop looking to Broadway as a role model for our work." He's right, it may be time to stop looking at Broadway as a role model, but the reason these shows could not sustain runs of any length is because they are pretentious, artistically monotonous, and most importantly, DULL. He also praises the productions of foreign directors, for instance the recent revivals of Cabaret, Company, The King and I, for their "daring" - "daring" meaning, evidently, making the shows dark, darker, darkest. He praises Hal Prince's revival of Show Boat, a production that in many ways subverted the text (cutting songs, inserting scenes with no textual authority - or artistic merit) and often directly perverted the authors' intentions. As he begins analyzing his few model shows (two admitted classics: The King and I, The Music Man; two semi-classics: Camelot, Chicago; one modest hit: March of the Falsettos; one modern hit: Ragtime; and two snob hits: Passion and Sunday in the Park with George - interesting that all but one of his examples have a healthy share of "darkness" to begin with; whatever could he do with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum or Anything Goes?), Mr. Miller continues the trends that have helped to destroy new musical theater in the late 20th Century, potted psychologizing and directorial arrogance. Discussing Camelot, he attempts an amateur (and amateurish) analysis of Alan Jay Lerner's relationship troubles, conveniently ignoring Lerner's work that celebrates the possibility of a mature relationship (look at Love Life, for instance). He also analyzes Lancelot in Camelot as possibly homosexual because he "loves" Arthur. (A note to Mr. Miller: love does not always imply sex.) He is also given to making generalized statements, such as "All well-drawn characters change over the course of their story..." Well, sometimes, but not always. And only in certain European traditions of the last century or two - other literatures and theaters have different standards. For instance, do the characters in The Importance of Being Earnest change, grow, develop? Is this not acknowledged as one of the few perfect comedies? Mr. Miller has some relatively interesting things to say in his book, and he does throw a crumb or two to the daring notion of traditional stagings and interpretations; but these are drowned beneath his whole-hearted love of the dark and psychologically twisted. The death of modern musical comedy has many causes, the most important of which is the loss of a common musical vernacular between shows' creators and the audiences they must satisfy. But an equally important cause is the increasing ponderous, pretentious seriousness of the shows being written, reaching its apex (or nadir) in the works of Frank Wildhorn, where a laugh is scarce to be found. Seriousness of intent and seriousness of execution in art are always necessary, however frivolous the results - prentention can have no place. Mr. Miller's book, unfortunately, promulgates pretention.
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