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For Immediate Release:

University of North Texas Press
Publishes first book on the innovative Broadway designers

"The Performing Set"
The Broadway Designs of William and Jean Eckart
By Andrew B. Harris
Foreword by Carol Burnett
Preface by Sheldon Harnick


The large-scale Broadway musical is one of America’s great contributions to world theatre and the husband and wife design team of  William and Jean Eckart were stage designers and producers at the peak of the musical. Their revolutionary  Broadway production designs are the subject of a new book entitled "The Performing Set" by Andrew B. Harris and published by the University of North Texas Press---the first book on the innovative Broadway designers.

“They placed emphasis on the continuity of a play. Rather than close the curtain and change a set, they felt the best way to change a set was in front of the audience. The set changing or shifting had to be part of the show, not something you had to try to hide.” said Harris, a visiting professor of theatre at University of North Texas.

The book contains more than 500 full-color illustrations, including production stills and the Eckarts’ artistic renderings depicting their work in the “golden age” of American musicals. Among the Eckarts’ most famous sets are “Damn Yankees” in 1955, in which a curtain of baseballs, beads and tassels captured the play’s theme of seduction; and “Once Upon a Mattress,” in which Carol Burnett had her first big role in 1959. Other sets they designed included the live television production of “Cinderella,” featuring Julie Andrews in 1957, and “Mame,” starring Angela Lansbury in 1966.

Harris met the Eckarts in 1985 when he served as chairman of the Southern Methodist University theatre department and the Eckarts taught theatre design at the university. At Bill Eckart’s request, Harris began working on the book in 1995, two years after Jean Eckart’s death in 1993. When Bill Eckart died in 2000, Harris continued his research, using documents from the Eckart Collection, now housed at Universtiy of North Texas..“Bill never threw anything out,” Harris said. “There are things that are missing, but he kept an extremely detailed group of his own work … renderings, books, models, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, contracts, letters, bits of set. He had a two-car garage full of stuff.”

Praise for The Performing Set:

“The show that Jean and Bill offered me gave me my big break. And so they were not just brilliant designers and producers, but also really good friends.”

—Carol Burnett, actor and star of television and Once Upon a Mattress on Broadway

“The sets for Mame were the first of the really magnificently choreographed sets. The furniture and the set pieces moved on and off without breaking the flow of the action. We never needed the curtain to come down for a change of scenery. It never stopped. Everything was just so fluid and marvelous.”

—Angela Lansbury, actor in Mame, Anyone Can Whistle, and Sweeney Todd

“Chock full of new and valuable information and which in my opinion will be an important book on the history of the American musical. I found it an excellent précis of the theatrical process and one which brilliantly shows the collaborative aspects of design.”

—Robert Taylor, curator of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

About the author:

ANDREW B. HARRIS is the author of the award-winning "Broadway Theatre" and a stage director and producer. He has chaired theatre departments at Columbia University, Texas Christian University, and Southern Methodist University, where he met William and Jean Eckart. He lives in McKinney, Texas.

Available in hardcover for $37.95
ISBN 1-57441-212-4

11 x 8 1/2. 256 pages and 521 color illustrations

Visit your local bookstore or call (800) 826-8911 to order.

University of North Texas Press
www.unt.edu/untpress

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