"Dark, demented humor, as horrifying as it is hilarious."--Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press

    In The Open Door the visionary director and theorist offers a lucid, comprehensive exposition of the philosophy that underlies his work. It is a philosophy of paradoxes: We come to the theatre to find life, but that life must be different from the life we find outside. Actors have to prepare painstakingly yet be willing to sacrifice the results of their preparation. The director’s most reliable tool may be his capacity to be bored. Brook illustrates these principles with anecdotes that span his entire career and that demonstrate his familiarity with Shakespeare, Chekhov, and the indigenous theatres of India and Iran. The result is an unparalleled look at what happens both onstage and behind the scenes, fresh in its insights and elegant in its prose.

    Any number of books preached persistence, but O'Neil was the first writer who actually told actors how to be persistent. The book is such a vital resource that it won a spot on "Entertainment Weekly"'s exclusive list of Industry Bibles.Now in this third edition, O'Neil updates his indispensable resource to keep up with the latest show-business trends and help you put control of your acting career where it belongs: in your own hands. You won't just read "Acting As a Business," Third Edition, you'll dog ear, underline, and bookmark it as you discover: a how-to guide to writing your theatrical resume - for both the East-Coast and the West-Coast actor specific examples of cover letters and other important correspondence practical ways to join the performer's unions tactics for getting an agent and finding out casting information well in advance tips on preparing for and answering the questions most often asked by agents in an interview - and what you should ask them techniques for auditioning in an agent's office the dos and don'ts of effective interview follow-up strategies for finding work in the theater, on soap operas, and in independent films a chart for recording which casting directors know your work an effective approach to interviewing a prospective personal manager a discussion of the "League" schools the best ways to make use of the internet.

    Written from and for the Left, Unmarked rethinks the claims of visibility politics through a feminist psychoanalytic examination of specific performance texts - including photography, painting, film, theatre and anti-abortion demonstrations.

    The revised edition of this book features 11 songs from Tim Burton's creepy animated classic, with music and lyrics by Danny Elfman. Songs include: Jack's Lament * Jack's Obsession * Kidnap the Sandy Claws * Making Christmas * Oogie Boogie's Song * Poor Jack * Sally's Song * This Is Halloween * Town Meeting Song * What's This? * Finale/Reprise. Now Back in Print!

    Winner of the 1991 Chalmers Canadian Play award, this stand-up-sit-down comedy nightmare introduces one of the most original creations in recent Canadian theatre--a character who develops his mesmerizing hold of the audience by foregrounding his own performance.

    

    Critics have ranked him with such influential directors as Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Brecht, and Grotowski. Known in the United States primarily for his visually stunning productions, he is also highly regarded throughout Europe for his theoretically adventurous writings. Michal Kobialka, whom Kantor authorized to translate his work, provides us with the first collection of Kantor's essays in English, together with his analysis of the corpus of Kantor's work, both written and staged.

    Derived from interviews with a wide range of  people who experienced or observed New York's 1991  Crown Heights racial riots, Fires In The  Mirror is as distinguished a work of  commentary on current Black-White tensions as it is a  work of drama.

    The complete script of the Obie award-winning satire is presented, with photographs depicting each scathingly honest character and an introduction from the author describing his experiences growing up in the South American immigrant community that inspired the play.

    She first addresses each of the obstacles which prevent access to language and offers ways to overcome them. Part Two includes "Working with the Text," a series of exercises in which Rodenburg uses the language of Shakespeare, Romantic poetry, contemporary prose and numerous other texts in order to prompt the reader to discover his or her own unique need for words.

    Award-winning pros share secrets of the trade in an informative, gorgeously illustrated book that's equally well suited for the coffee table and the reference shelf.

    Red Noses is a political satire about the plague and takes place in 1348. Set in medieval Italy during a crisis in the Church, Sunsets and Glories is "a work of the highest and most thrilling theatrical energy" (Independent on Sunday), whilst Bye Bye Columbus is a "highly entertaining" (Guardian) television play."Peter Barnes is one of the unrecognised geniuses of the English theatre" (Plays and Players)

    

    It was a daring ahead-of-its-time piece of dazzlingly inventive theatre that exploded every myth about what constitutes a successful musical. Revised and updated to include a special section on the Roayl National Theatre's production that Cameron Mackintosh is presenting on Broadway in spring of 2002, OK! The Story of "Oklahoma!" celebrates this watershed work that has taken its place in the pantheon of American musical theatre.

    This second collection of his plays is now available in the contemporary classics series.

    Edited by Sydne Mahone, this volume contains plays by such celebrated authors as Aisha Rahman, Susan Lori Parks and Adrienne Kennedy, among others. Although some of the material such as Kennedy's Funnyhouse of a Negro and Parks' The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World is a little abstract, this anthology is a must-read for any one with an interest in Black theater and an eye-opener for anyone intelligent enough to want to delve into the mind of the African-American woman. Moon Marked as a collection deals with the paradoxes of being Black, being female, and being an artist in a world which can be cruel to each and everyone of them. WARNING: This book is not for the weak at heart or mind: it contains some profanity and extremely thought-provoking material.

    Included in this collection of plays by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright are: "The Moonlight Tape," "A Poster of the Cosmos," "The Great Nebula in Orion," "The Family Continues," "Victory on Mrs. Dandywine s Island," "Wandering Stoop," "Sextet," "Ludlow Fair," and "Home Free."

    New edition reorganizes material, adds coverage on instrumentation and control, and provides new chapter on the Performer. Many new illustrations.

    It explores the possibilities of these tools for "active learning and personal empowerment; co-operative education and healing; participatory theatre and community action."This collection is designed to illuminate and invigorate discussion about Augusto Boal's work and the transformative potential of theatre. It includes two interviews with Boal, and two pieces of his own writing.

    

    Improvising Real Life is illustrated with dozens of real-life stories told in performances and workshops. Includes 15 photos and a glossary of playback terms.

    The book’s contributors see directing not as an ideologically neutral set of skills, but as something that has served historically to preserve existing forms of authority.   What happens, then, when a feminist who directs for the theater decides that there is something called a feminist director, someone who sees her job as protesting and intervening in the existing system of representation? The contributors to this volume provide a wide range of answers, in original essays that disrupt traditional approaches of directing by showing how feminist theory might be applied in practice.   Essays and interviews by a wide variety of directors, scholars, and other theater specialists offer fresh new models for thinking about directing. The collection includes essays on African-American theater, feminist “classics,” and male directors working on feminist plays, as well as concrete suggestions for directing a variety of plays, from works by Shakespeare and Euripides to those by Caryl Churchill, Aishah Rahman, and Helene Cixous. The theoretical material, drawing from a wide range of contemporary critics and theorists, has been written with the director in mind, partly for the purpose of analyzing texts but also for inspiring creative directorial and design solutions.

    Whether it's a big classic like My Fair Lady or an all-but-forgotten show like Top Banana, if there's a musical in your future—or if you’re just a fan of the genre—Let’s Put on a Musical! will be an essential and fun-to-read addition to your theater library.

    Once they ve decided on the color scheme of the races, a little concerned that white people will feel slighted being such a boring color, they create sex and the sexes. Afraid women will have too many advantages, the Beings decide to make childbirth painful and to give men enormous egos as compensation. From this moment, the audience is whisked through the outrageous universe of Kathy and Mo, where two actresses play men and women struggling through the common rituals of modern life: teenagers on a date, sisters at their grandmother s funeral, a man and a woman together in a country-western bar. With boundless humor, PARALLEL LIVES reexamines the ongoing quest to find parity and love in a contest handicapped by capricious gods or in this case, goddesses.

    From the movie's portrayal of obsession in Hollywood and its atmosphere of romance, decadence, and cynicism, Lloyd Webber has created a haunting score and one of the greatest musicals of all time. This lavishly illustrated, definitive account traces the origins of the film and tells the fascinating story of the making of Lloyd Webber's latest masterpiece. Directed by Billy Wilder, the film Sunset Boulevard first appeared in 1950 with Oscar-nominee Gloria Swanson in the most memorable role of her career. As Norma Desmond, the great star of the silent screen, she attempted to use a failed young screenwriter, played by William Holden, as the means to make her return to the movies. Among the hundreds of films set in Los Angeles that used the silver screen as a mirror for Hollywood culture, Sunset Boulevard is recognized as one of the finest and has had an extraordinary influence on Hollywood cinema and film noir. As an introduction to Wilder's film, author George Perry looks at the famous street, Sunset Boulevard, and the history of silent movies. He describes the creation of the film and its significance in the chronology of American cinema and includes a recent interview with the director, archival photographs, and film memorabilia. For the remarkable musical staging of Sunset Boulevard, Andrew Lloyd Webber amassed a wealth of artistic talent - from director Trevor Nunn, stage designer John Napier, and costume designer Anthony Powell, to a magnificent cast headed by Patti LuPone and Kevin Anderson. Through interviews with all the principals, George Perry sheds light on the show's complex production machinery and pays tribute to the creativity of the many people who have contributed to its extraordinary success. The book includes a scene-by-scene synopsis of the film, the complete libretto of the musical, and specially commissioned color photographs of the stage production.Sunset Boulevard: From Movie to Musical is the definitive account of a memorable Hollywood film classic and a superb record of a great stage musical.

    Although only eleven of the some forty plays he wrote survive, his unique blend of slapstick, fantasy, bawdy, and political satire provide us with a vivid picture of the ancient Athenians—their social mores, their beliefs, and their exuberant sense of occasion. Wasps is a lowcourt satire; Clouds a lighthearted look at education; Birds a search for the perfect society; Festival Time a feminist trial of Euripides and Frogs a celebration of and debate around the theatre. Introduced and translated by Kenneth McLeish, with a general introduction by series editor J. Michael Walton.

    CODCO's satiric plays expose universal perversity, ignorance, prejudice and abuse with the ironic wit of the people of Newfoundland. The plays are distinguished by their graveyard or gallows humour. CODCO played an important role in the evolution of Canadian theatre and is an early signifier of Canada's attainment of cultural maturity. CODCO's current weekly television series commenced broadcasting in 1988.

    This anthology includes: "Native Speech," "On the Verge," "In a Pig's Valise," "In Perpetuity Throughout the Universe," "The Heliotrope Bouquet by Scott Joplin and Louis Chauvin," and "Dark Rapture."

    Engelgardt's Letters painted the most lively, entertaining, and insightful portrait of Imperial Russia's rural countryside. Now translated into English for the first time, judiciously abridged, and fully annotated for the modern reader, Engelgardt's account stands revealed both as a major primary source on nineteenth-century Russia and as an ever-more-timely analysis of a peasant culture in the wake of reform. A distinguished chemist at the St. Petersburg Agricultural Institute, Engelgardt was also an eloquent spokesman for liberty and reform, especially on behalf of Russia's peasant majority. Accused of conspiratorial activities by the Tsarist government, he was exiled in 1871 to his modest estate in impoverished Smolensk province, where, under police surveillance, he wrote his Letters for publication in St. Petersburg. With scientific precision, Engelgardt produced the first comprehensive eye-witness account of the peasant's daily affairs and environment, with detailed descriptions of land reform and collectivization, reflections on the role of peasant women and the effects of emancipation, discussions of local agriculture and the economy, and vivid accounts of peasant attitudes about everything from the Russo-Turkish War to anti-semitism. With an extensive introduction and copious notes, this translation is ideal for anyone interested in Russian history and peasant studies.

    Spanning his involvement with the Surrealist movement, the seminal Theatre of Cruelty and his 9-year asylum incarceration, this is the definitive biography on this legendary figure of 20th century culture.Stephen Barber is a noted cultural historian and the leading authority on Artaud. Previous publications include: The Burning World (Edmund White biography), Caligula and Artaud: The Screaming Body (Creation).

    Each Noh has a detailed introduction and footnotes.

    Theatre architecture is one of the most vital ingredients of the theatrical experience and one of the least discussed or understood. In Architecture, Actor and Audience Mackintosh explores the contribution the design of a theatre can make to the theatrical experience, and examines the failings of many modern theatres which despite vigorous defence from the architectural establishment remain unpopular with both audiences and theatre people. A fascinating and provocative book.

    Segal shows how these plays draw on ancient traditions of poetic and ritual commemoration, particularly epic song, and at the same time refashion these traditions into new forms. In place of the epic muse of martial glory, Euripides, Segal argues, evokes a muse of sorrows who transforms the suffering of individuals into a "common grief for all the citizens," a community of shared feeling in the theater. Like his predecessors in tragedy, Euripides believes death, more than any other event, exposes the deepest truth of human nature. Segal examines the revealing final moments in Alcestis, Hippolytus, and Hecuba, and discusses the playwright's use of these deaths--especially those of women--to question traditional values and the familiar definitions of male heroism. Focusing on gender, the affective dimension of tragedy, and ritual mourning and commemoration, Segal develops and extends his earlier work on Greek drama. The result deepens our understanding of Euripides' art and of tragedy itself.