Act One cover art

Act One

An Autobiography

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Act One

By: Moss Hart
Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
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About this listen

Moss Hart's Act One, which Lincoln Center Theater presented in 2014 as a play written and directed by James Lapine, is one of the greatest American memoirs - a glorious memorial to a bygone age filled with all the wonder, drama, and heartbreak that surrounded Broadway in the early 20th century. Hart's story inspired a generation of theatergoers, dramatists, and readers everywhere as he eloquently chronicled his impoverished childhood and his long, determined struggle to reach the opening night of his first Broadway hit. Act One is the quintessential American success story.

©1959 Catharine Carlisle Hart and Joseph M. Hyman, trustees (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Art & Literature Authors Entertainment & Performing Arts Heartfelt

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All stars
Most relevant
This is so well written, so inspiring, and so well read. Congratulations for including it in the audible store.

a riveting story

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Hugely enjoyable. Perfect narrator matched to Moss Hart's funny, articulate account of his rise to success.

Perfect narrator for a great memoir

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if you are fascinated in life in the theatre, playwriting in 1920s New York, this audio gives a very good insight into how life was. Written as an autobiography we learn that Moss Hart's love of theatre was inspired by his whimsical and drama loving aunt. Born into poverty and a life of lavour, Aunt. Her influence made him dream of the glamour of the footlights.

Moss Hart's path to success involved working as social manager on New York State holiday camps, being an office boy and general goffer. His break came when one of his plays caught the attention of George Kauffman who helped him write his smash hit Days of Our Life. Although the language and prose is of its time and therefore beyond political correctness, this is a well written and entertaining expose of life on Broadway, from the perspective of as a wannabe playwright.

Class Act

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Moss Hart stated at the outset of his memoir that it would not be about his successful career but rather about his early experiences of poverty and the ambition and events that ultimately led to his incredible success in the theatre.
His is an honest if naive account of one mans experience of how his ‘American Dream’ came true. As with so many, he is grateful to the country and the ‘system’ that he believes gave him that opportunity, and oblivious to how that same country and its system condemned millions including his own extended family, for generation’s, to the soul sapping corrosive poverty that led to the deaths of family members he loved so much.
His experiences of Broadway and how it worked (or didn’t) during an incredible period of artistic and commercial success is seen from this distance as if through a haze. Everything so small, so localized, serendipitous and almost romantic. How one of the greats was so easy to access, so ready to collaborate with a complete unknown, seems impossible to imagine in todays corporate world where no one in the business ever seems ‘available’ to anyone they don’t already know and no one can get a start without years of often tedious ‘training’ and the like.
Moss was a talent and at least one of his plays seems likely to last almost eternally. His story seems like an echo of so many others from that time and place, but while honest about his ambition for wealth and position, he seems to be lacking in real practical empathy for those without an extraordinary talent or experience to lift themselves out of the morass. Perhaps a glib life, lived without guilt precisely because he came from such a harsh background.
For those interested in theatre, and how a play comes to fruition it is indeed a very insightful memoir, for those who look at the US today incredulous at the persistence of the ‘American dream’ in the face of its increasing debasement it points to Mammon, its absence and its pursuit as the eternal villain.

One part of one mams life as allegory

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