Behind every Broadway show is a story. Discuss a recent memoir and a documentary that explore the hopes, dreams, successes, and failures of young people who eventually make it on Broadway. Theater Kid (2025) by Jeffrey Seller is a coming-of-age tale that recounts Seller’s early life as a misfit in a dysfunctional household outside of Detroit before coming to terms with his family’s poverty, his adoption, and his sexuality on his way to becoming a Broadway producer of blockbusters such as Rent, In the Heights, and Hamilton. The documentary film The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened (2016) directed by Lonny Price chronicles the young actors cast in the original 1981 Broadway show Merrily We Roll Along, an ambitious musical directed by Hal Prince with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. This revealing retrospective, with cameos by Seinfeld star Jason Alexander and others, revisits the thrilling anticipation of opening night and the devastating aftermath of its immediate failure, closing after only 16 performances. The memoir is available in print or as an audio book narrated by the author as well as several Broadway actors; the film is available for streaming on Amazon Prime.
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