What we as her audience take away from this remarkable drama is a keener sense that, while death is real and unavoidable, our lives are ours to cherish or throw away—a lesson that can be both uplifting and redemptive. As the playwright herself puts it, “The play is not about doctors or even about cancer. It’s about kindness, but it shows arrogance. It’s about compassion, but it shows insensitivity.” In Wit, Edson delves into timeless questions with no final answers: How should we live our lives knowing that we will die? Is the way we live our lives and interact with others more important than what we achieve materially, professionally, or intellectually? How does language figure into our lives? Can science and art help us conquer death, or our fear of it? What will seem most important to each of us about life as that life comes to an end?The immediacy of the presentation, and the clarity and elegance of Edson’s writing, make this sophisticated, multilayered play accessible to almost any interested reader. As the play begins, Vivian Bearing, a renowned professor of English who has spent years studying and teaching the intricate, difficult Holy Sonnets of the seventeenth-century poet John Donne, is diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. Confident of her ability to stay in control of events, she brings to her illness the same intensely rational and painstakingly methodical approach that has guided her stellar academic career. But as her disease and its excruciatingly painful treatment inexorably progress, she begins to question the single-minded values and standards that have always directed her, finally coming to understand the aspects of life that make it truly worth living.

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    Skylight premiered at the National Theatre in 1995 and then went on to become one of the most internationally successful plays of recent years.This is the definitive edition of Skylight.

    In this first collection of writings by Tony Kushner, including his latest play Slavs!, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright grapples with the timeless issues of bigotry, war, faith, love, as well as tackling the contemporary topics as AIDS, gay rights and the moral horrors of the Gulf War.

    Tracing her extensive career, this volume includes 195 illustrations, 110 in color, as well as Taymor's personal production notes.

    This backstage farce by the author of Lend Me a Tenor brought Carol Burnett back to Broadway co-starring with Philip Bosco as her megalomanic, drunken husband and leading man. Fate has given these thespians one more shot at starring roles in The Scarlet Pimpernel epic and director Frank Capra himself is en route to Buffalo to catch their matinee performance. Will Charlotte appear or run off with their agent? Will George be sober enough to emote? Will Capra see Cyrano, Private Lives or a disturbing mixture of the two? Hilarious misunderstandings pile on madcap misadventures, in this valentine to Theatre Hams everywhere.

    The book furnishes information regarding discoveries which the actor can understand in practice, without having to start each time from zero. Thomas Richards has worked with me systematically since 1985. Today he is my essential collaborator in the research dedicated to Art as Vehicle.' - from the Preface by Jerzy Grotowski

    McNally later adapted the script for the 1997 film of the same name.

    In these three essays he returns to the concept of his first book The Empty Space and examines what that means for the life of a production.

    Infidelity, flirtations, soul-searching, AIDS, truth-telling, and skinny-dipping mix monumental questions about life and death with a wacky dress rehearsal for Swan Lake performed in drag. The result is a cross between a gay Big Chill and Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. To read it is to join in a dance of life.

    The first major collection of plays by leading lesbian playwright Paula Vogel.

    He wrote Carmen Jones, Carousel, Show Boat, and, with longtime collaborator Richard Rodgers, Oklahoma!, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. Hugh Fordin enjoyed complete access to the Hammerstein archives and conducted numerous interviews with family and colleagues like Rodgers, Berlin, Robbins, and Sondheim. The result is the definitive biography of a creative giant, who changed forever the texture of American theater.

    This expansive guide covers the where, when, and how for every step of school play production, including play selection and adaptation, auditions, casting and dealing with disappointed students, budgeting, coaching actors, setting up a production team, rehearsals, publicity, and promotion.

    This best-selling drama anthology is an unusually comprehensive collection of classic theatre and contemporary drama drawn from around the world.

    In her classic handbook, Cicely Berry, Voice Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and world-famous voice teacher, tackles the reasons for this anxiety and explains her practical exercises for relaxation and breathing, clarity of diction and vocal flexibility - everything that you need to achieve good speech.

    The full script is presented here with stills from the film.

    The first book of its kind, offerring an inside view of theatre today from the literary manager's point of view.

    This book shows through exercises, stories, anecdotes, and metaphors how to focus attention on the body's awareness of the present moment, moving away from preconceived ideas. Improvisations move through fear, boredom, laziness, and distraction to a sustained awareness of creative options.

    An anthology of five plays by Lee Blessing including: Down the Road; Two Rooms; Lake Street Extension; Patient A; and Fortinbras.

    Book annotation not available for this title...Title: .Twenty One-Act Plays from Twenty Years of the Humana Festival..Author: .Volansky, Michele (EDT)/ Dixon, Michael Bigelow (EDT)/ Humana Festival (COR)..Publisher: .Smith & Kraus Pub Inc..Publication Date: .1995/12/01..Number of Pages: .374..Binding Type: .PAPERBACK..Library of Congress: .95045877

    Speech Sounds:* helps develop the fundamental skills of the phonetician* investigates the various aspects involved in the production of speech sounds* uses data-based material to reinforce each new concept* includes examples from a wide range of languages* provides dozens of exercises with solutions and cross-references* can complement existing course or textbook material.The second edition of Speech Sounds has been revised and updated throughout and includes new examples and exercises, a new appendix giving information on career prospects; and a fully updated further reading section.

    One of Meyerholds students was the great Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein. Gathered from private Moscow archives, this is the first book-length study of Meyerholds stylized training method in practical detail, as well as Eisensteins theoretical analysis of Biomechanics.

    "By a mile, the best new play of the season>"--John Heilpern, New York Observer.

    Plays One: A Chorus of DisapprovalA Small Family Business Henceforward...Man of the Moment Alan Ayckbourn introduces his first volume of collected work that contains his morality plays from the 1980s.

    In this eloquent and insightful book, an eminent critic explores the reasons behind the enduring power of Chekhov's works.Richard Gilman examines each of Chekhov's full-length plays, showing how they relate to each other, to Chekhov's short stories, and to his life. He also places the plays in the context of Russian and European drama and the larger culture of the period. Gilman interweaves biographical narrative with textual commentary and with a discussion of stagecraft and dramaturgy—Chekhov's techniques for influencing viewers, the scenic framing of the action, and issues of genre and temporal structuring. Although previous critics of Chekhov have tended to view him as an essentially social dramatist or as an observer of the smaller aspects of existence, Gilman asserts that Chekhov was far more of an innovative playwright, a revolutionary, than has been seen. His book—the most complete, acute, and elegant study of this master playwright ever written—will appeal to all those who care about Chekhov, theater, and the life of the mind.

    16 plays, ed w/intro by Douglas Messerli

    The Guide contains a wealth of information on all aspects of theater past and present: major playwrights, works, important traditions, theories, companies, practitioners, venues and events; the origins of popular theater tradition, including folk drama, street theater and mummers plays; the work of actors, directors and designers, including lighting and sound, technical theater, theater architecture and theater design. In this revision, all entries have been reviewed and updated to incorporate political changes and reflect the rise and fall of individual reputations. There are newly commissioned articles on Canada, Spain, New Zealand, Germany, the Caribbean and French-speaking Africa. Special attention has been paid to costumery and gay, lesbian, and feminist theater. A particularly strong feature of the new edition is the weight given to Asian theater and Asian influences on Western drama. By providing information and entertainment, the Guide will prove an indispensable reference tool both for scholars of theater and general theater lovers alike.

    What is the definitive 'version' of A Doll's House: original text, translation, stage presentation, radio version, adaptation to film or television? What occurs when a drama intended for recipients in one language is translated into another, or when a play written for the stage is adapted for radio, television or film? And to what extent do differences between the media and between directorial approaches influence the meaning of the play text? Discussions of these issues include an internal analysis of the dramatic text and comparative performance analysis, framed by the biographical background to the play and its impact on dramas by Strindberg, Shaw and O'Neill and on films by Ingmar Bergman. The book concludes with a list of productions and a select bibliography.

    At Stanislavsky's invitation he returned to Moscow and founded an experimental studio to find a new direction for the Art theatre's work. Absorbing influences from Maeterlinck, the Russian Symbolists, commedia dell'arte and Oriental theatre, Meyerhold went on to develop a theatrical style that exploded the conventions of naturalism. His re-evaluations of the Russian classics culminated in his masterpiece, the 1926 production of The Government Inspector. In 1917, he supported the Bolshevik cause and was the pioneer of revolutionary theatre, but this great innovator fell foul of the Stalinists and was executed in 1940 on concocted charges of treason and espionage. Edward Braun takes us through the journey of this extraordinary life of experiment and discovery. He uses eye-witness accounts to bring to life Meyerhold's productions, their genesis, the problems the director encountered and the inventive solutions he provided. Braun describes Meyerhold's rehearsal techniques and exercises and provides an acute assessment of his continuing influence on contemporary theatre. In this fully revised and greatly expanded edition of his book The Theatre of Meyerhold, Edward Braun draws on papers only now being made available in Russia to describe the director's last days, his final tragic confrontation with the NKVD.

    Presenting 17 one-act and full-length works by a new generation of American playwrights, this groundbreaking book reflects the diversity of voices emerging in today's theater.

    Playwright Simon Gray's account of Stephen Fry's walk-out and disappearance following criticism of his performance in Gray's Cell Mates.

    It attracted attention worldwide, violated many of the taboos of culture and government, and unleashed a backlash of arrests, imprisonment, and attempts at suppression, all while presenting the work of some of the world’s preeminent artists, including Tennessee Williams, Frank O’Hara, James Agee, Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery, Merce Cunningham, and John Cage.

    It survives not only in cultural traditions, but in plays which can still be read and seen and in artistic images. This book examines the history of Greek theatre as seen through representations on painted pottery, terracotta figures, sculpture, mosiacs, metalware and gems.

    A collection of this major 19th century French playwrightThe Moods of Marianne dramatises Coelio's courtship of Marianne through his go-between friend Octave; Fantasio is set in a fictional Munich and concerns the marriage of a young princess to Leopold of Belgium as a sacrifice for international peace following the Napoleonic Wars; Lorenzaccio is a vast fresco of fifteenth-century Florence, mixing freely a depiction of public life, court intrigue, intimate scenes and moments of deep personal introspection; Don't Play with Love concerns an arranged marriage gone awry; and Caprice is about the marriage of Mathilde to Monsieur du Chavigny and is already about to cheat on her.

    With a palpable affection for the traditions of the stage and a taste for surreal comedy, Margulies "manages to transform what might have been kitchen-sink drama into theatre that is unsettling, imaginative and quite hilarious"--Howard Kissel, New York Daily News

    it can hold an audience spellbound."—Financial TimesThe Rehearsal: "Jeremy Sams has translated impeccably."—Observer