Jeff Calhoun

Jeff Calhoun is the director and producer of the musical Brooklyn, which opens on Broadway this week.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (Penguin, $14). This is not only one of my favorite novels, but it happens to be the most recent book on my nightstand. The writing is as beautiful and original as the story. “Having just directed the Broadway revival of Big River,” I was taken with the similarities between young Lily and Huckleberry Finn, as well as the relationship between their respective black companions, Rosaleen and Slave Jim.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (New American Library, $9). We always remember our firsts. I was performing in the Broadway musical My One and Only when fellow actor Roscoe Lee Brown introduced me to this book. Until then, I honestly did not appreciate and enjoy literature. Just as I remember Van Gogh’s sunflowers as introducing me to the world of art, I remember The Fountainhead as the book that taught me to read.

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Cry to Heaven by Anne Rice (Ballantine, $8). Of all the guilty pleasures Anne Rice has given us, this is my favorite. A warm fire, a cold vodka martini, and 18th-century castrati…how can you go wrong?

Elia Kazan: A Life by Elia Kazan (Da Capo, $30). For those of us who never had the honor of working with this controversial legend, his invaluable stories live on in this show-business “bible.” Kazan’s blunt and courageous depiction of his life is essential reading for anyone contemplating a life in the theater.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures by Ralph Waldo Emerson (Library of America, $35). What can I say about the man who said everything better than anyone else? Reading Emerson helps me live my life the way I want to remember having lived it.

The Giving Tree