One of our favorite lively desk references, "Show Tunes," by Steven Suskin, will get a fourth edition in 2010, to be released by Oxford in March. Suskin, who pens Playbill.com's On the Record and DVD Shelf columns, told us that the newly minted tome that explores American theatre music (arranged by composer) will address musicals from the early 20th century up through June 2009.
The previous third edition included shows up through 1998, when the final "new" entries were The Lion King, Ragtime and Parade. Among the shows added to the 2010 book are The Full Monty, The Producers, Avenue Q, Hairspray, Wicked, The Light in the Piazza, Grey Gardens, Spring Awakening, In the Heights, Road Show and Next to Normal.
The book will index more than 9,000 show tunes (compared to about 6,500 in the first edition, back in 1985). And four new composers now receive their own chapters. (We can't give everything away in this tease!)