Kurt Gänzl
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kurt Gänzl is a writer, musicologist, casting director and singer best known for his books about musical theatre.
Gänzl was born in New Zealand and is of Austrian extraction. He joined the New Zealand Opera Company as a bass soloist, after which he moved to London. For the next 20 years, he worked as a performer, then as a talent agent and as a casting director both for musicals and plays in London's West End theatres and for musical and operatic productions in Europe and America.
Beginning in 1986, Gänzl focused on writing. In that year, he published his two-volume history, The British Musical Theater (Macmillan/OUP), followed by his Book of the Musical Theater (Bodley Head/Schirmer) and The Musical: A Concise History (1997). His seminal reference work, The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theater (Blackwell/Schirmer), was published in 1994 and greatly expanded in a second edition in 2001.[1] Gänzl has published over a dozen important books on musical theatre.[2][3]
He has retired to New Zealand, where he owns several racehorses.
