Blue Collar Broadway: The Craft and Industry of American Theater

Abstract

Timothy R. White’s exploration of Broadway from the bottom up does much to underscore the importance of theater’s craft workers, whom were affected (for better and worse) by a constantly evolving industry dramatically affected by social, economic, and cultural change. White’s craft workers—in scenery construction, costume design, lighting, and other related industries— adapted and changed over most of the twentieth century in ways that paralleled as well as diverged from other industrial craft workers. They too were affected by changes in production, anti-unionism, capital flight, urban redevelopment, and globalization.