Who’s Who In the Theatre ed. by Ian Herbert, and: American Theatre Annual–1979–1980 ed. by Catharine Hughes, and: Theatre: Stage to Screen to Television by William Torbert Leonard, and: At the Royal Court: 25 Years of the English Stage Company ed. by Richard Findiater, and: Arts Management: An Annotated Bibliography compiled by Stephen Benedict and Linca C. Coe (review)

boos and company For the Reference Shelf: Who's Who In the Theatre (17th ed.). Edited by Ian Herbert. Gale Research, 2 Vols. 749 +277 pp., Vol. 1-$75, Vol. 2-$50, Set-$110 (cloth). American Theatre Annual-1979-1980. Edited by Catharine Hughes. Gale Research, 276 pp., $42 (cloth). Theatre: Stage to Screen to Television. William Torbert Leonard. Scarecrow Press, 2 Vols. 1,812 pp., $74.50 (cloth). At the Royal Court: 25 Years of the English Stage Company. Edited by Richard Findiater. Grove Press, 201 pp. + chronology, $30 (cloth). Arts Management: An Annotated Bibliography. Compiled by Stephen Benedict and Linca C. Coe. Center for Arts Information (625 Broadway, NYC). There's a rumor that the 17th may be the last edition of the invaluable Who's Who in the Theatre, formerly published in Britain by Pitman. Hopefully , Gale will continue the series, for editor Herbert's attention to detail and concern for style make the biographical entries both readable and reliable. From its beginnings in 1912, under John Parker's editorship, this Who's Who has always documented important events, provided lists of long runs both in London and New York, and printed cast lists and other production information about West End and Broadway shows season by season. These playlists are a godsend for those doing studies on British theatre; such information is hard to find because there has been no regular theatre annual in Britain since 1965. Sources for the initial years of the century, such as The Era, The Stage Yearbook, and The Green Room are scarce and often in shreds, so the ongoing record of Who's Who is vital. For the first time, Gale has put the playlists in a separate volume, making them easier to use. Seasons covered are 1976-79 on both sides of the Atlantic, including festivals , such as Chichester, Stratford-on-Avon, and Stratford, Ontario. (For those who want immediate coverage of the London scene, Ian Herbert himself edits and publishes a bi-weekly London Theatre Record, with statistics, 112 dates, and complete London theatre reviews of new productions. $95 for 26 issues per year sent airmail; 4 Cross Deep Gardens, Twickenham TW1 4QU, Middlesex, England.) Catharine Hughes' American Theatre Annual has been especially valuable for its capsule quotes about shows. It also provides synopses of their plots, cast lists, and production credits. Oddly, instead of giving the number of performances, it cites opening and closing dates, leaving one to compute the possible number of repetitions. Apparently, this volume, the fourth, is to be the last in the admirable series. Its competitors are the strongly entrenched Best Plays, with its condensations of ten major dramas and wealth of critical and economic comment and statistics, and Theatre World, with its hordes of interesting production photos. Hughes' annual fell somewhere in between. No dates are cited for regional productions, a regrettable lack for historians. Leonard's two-volume record of translations of notable stage-plays to other media, Theatre: Stage to Screen to Television, is an impressive achievement in documentation. Three hundred and twenty-seven plays are covered, among them O'Neill's The Emperor Jones, which is presented with a synopsis , an astute commentary on its genesis and development, capsule critiques of stage, film, and TV versions; followed by detailed chronological records of stage productions-New York, London, the road, opera versions, sound-recordings, the 1933 film, and two TV productions. For Dumas' Camille , Leonard has assembled a lengthy stage history, plus a list of actresses who played the role (with dates), and complete details on the fable on the opera stage as La Traviata and as a ballet, as well as film versions and TV showings. Not only is Leonard's study soundly organized and painstakingly researched, but it also makes a really good "read" for the theatre addict to dip into from time to time. It's an important reference which should be more widely known. At the Royal Court is certainly a definitive reference book, notably for the detailed production chronology of George Devine's English Stage Company from 1956 to 1980 and the equally detailed annual statistics on attendance, production costs, and box-office income, figures seldom...