Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller was a driving force behind several unexpectedly triumphant out-of-left-field musicals. In Theater Kid: A Broadway Memoir, he describes with candor and flair a life that seemed as unlikely to be a smashing success as those shows were.
Seller was born in 1964 and grew up in Oak Park, Mich., "the poor enclave in a rising Jewish suburb" north of Detroit. His parents were combative and frequently on the brink of divorce; his father largely left it to his wife to support the family with hourly wage work. When Seller was in fourth grade, he was cast in his Sunday school's Purim production; while in the play, he felt "filled with purpose for the first time." He stuck with the performing arts--at school and through community productions--and came to believe that through the theater, "I will get out." He did, and he has the Tony wins to prove it.
Theater Kid is told in the present tense in three acts, and some of Seller's lean, rapid-fire recollected dialogues could pass for excerpts from a polished script. He has a light touch, whether he's contemplating being gay and adopted or engaging in Broadway-insider wheeler-dealing. A reader needs no prior familiarity with Rent, Avenue Q, In the Heights, or Hamilton, all of which Seller had a hand in, to enjoy chapters devoted to the origins of these against-the-odds hits. For each show, Seller has written a gripping underdog story, which is another way to describe his memoir. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer