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Off the Shelf |By Stephen PeithmanLast-Minute IdeasBooks, CDs and DVDs for the hard-to-please — or youLast month we trotted out a number of holiday gift ideas,and this time we add several more. These books, CDs andDVDs might well please that hard-to-shop-for theatre personin your life — or please you, for that matter.The Best Plays Theater Yearbook 2006-07 is the latestin a series that dates back to 1919 and remains a must-readfor anyone who cares about theatre. The “Best Plays” includeBlackbird (David Harrower), The Clean House (Sarah Ruhl), TheCoast of Utopia (Tom Stoppard), Dying City (Christopher Shinn),Frost/Nixon (Peter Morgan), The Pain and the Itch (Bruce Norris),Passing Strange (Stew and Heidi Rodewald), Radio Golf (AugustWilson), The Scene (Theresa Rebeck) and Spring Awakening(Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik). The articles on each of theseworks are excellent, as always, but for many people, the mainattraction is the overview of the theatre season in New Yorkand cast/production credits of new productions around thecountry. There’s also the “Facts and Figures” section, with itslists of long runs (on and off Broadway), 2006-07 award winners,Best Plays and major prizewinners from 1894 to 2007.[$49.95, Limelight Editions]There’s much to be said for the Internet’s ability to help uslocate theatrical resources, but it can’t replace a well-organizedand vetted directory of product and service providers. That prettywell sums up The Entertainment Sourcebook 2009. It’s packedwith more than 5,000 company entries from across the country,plus listings of products and services organized by category.You’ll also find Web resources, support services and professionalorganizations. This is truly an insider’s guide to finding any itemimaginable, from authentic Amish clothing to 19th-century chandeliers,from human skulls to plumbing supplies and fixtures.[$39.95, Limelight Editions]If you know a young person who’s contemplating a careeron the stage, you might consider giving them Laying theFoundation for a Successful Acting Career: A Teen DramaStudent’s Guide, by Debbie Lamedman. This thoughtful booktakes the reader through all the necessary steps — beginningwith how to commit to, or rule out, an acting career. (Perhaps themost important step of all.) Lamedman discusses the importanceof good training and explains how a teen can determine whathe or she wants to achieve in a college program, how to pick theright program to match those objectives and the best ways tonavigate the college-application process. Throughout, she doesa good job of balancing the dream with the reality, pointing outwhy a successful career needs a strong foundation in the basicsof theatre. [$16.95, Smith and Kraus]Musical theatre fans usually enjoy having recordings of rareor unusual musicals in their collection, and The Body Beautiful isboth. This 1958 production marked the first work by the Fiddleron the Roof team of Jerry Bock (music), Sheldon Harnick (lyrics)and Joseph Stein (book). With a plot centering on boxing, it’s oneof the few musicals of its time not based on a book or film, andthe new recording of the score by the York Theater Company isa pleasure. Several songs are standouts — “A Relatively SimpleAffair,” “Fair Warning” and “All These and More.” Once heard, therock-tinged “Uh-Huh, O Yeah” is hard to get out of your head.Bonus tracks include two singles recorded by the 1958 show’soriginal star, Mindy Carson, and demos from Bock and Harnick— including one song cut before the show opened. [$17.95,Original Cast Records]Getting some mileage from the name “American Idol” and thepopularity of High School Musical is a new CD collection for childrencalled Future Idols. New and older roadway tunes include“Do-Re-Mi” (The Sound of Music), “Tomorrow” (Annie), “Popular”(Wicked), “Consider Yourself” (Oliver!), “A Day With the Cat in theHat” (Seussical), “Getting to Know You” (The King and I), “Put on aHappy Face” (Bye Bye Birdie), “Closer and Closer” (The Little Prince),“Big Rock Candy Mountain” (from the relatively forgotten SingOut Sweet Land), “Anything You Can Do” (Annie Get Your Gun) and“76 Trombones” (The Music Man). It makes for a stylistic jumble,but it certainly would help youngsters understand the varietyinherent in American musical theatre. [$13.98, Hip-O Records]Style is a mixed blessing when it comes to filmed stage plays.For one thing, the stage set, which we accept as real in the theatre,may look contrived when we watch it on TV. Still, the 1984filmed version of Mister Roberts — the 1948 Broadway hit thatbecame an even more successful film — has fine performancesby Charles Durning as the tyrannical captain of a Navy supplyship in World War II, Robert Hays as the title character, a youngKevin Bacon as Ensign Pulver (so memorably portrayed by JackLemmon in the movie) and Howard Hesseman as the ship’s doctor.It’s good to see what fine stage actors these four really are.[$25.94, Acorn Media]Finally, there’s the return of the 1995 concert performance ofLes Misérables, featuring cast members of various internationalproductions and supported by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestraat London’s Royal Albert Hall. The new DVD couples this withthe documentary, Stage by Stage — The Making of Les Misérables,which features interviews with producer Cameron Mackintoshand the composer and lyricist, Alain Boublil and Claude-MichelSchonberg. [$34.98, BBC/Warner Home Video]40 December 2008 • www.stage-directions.com