Best of
Theatre

1999

Plays 5: Arcadia / The Real Thing / Night and Day / Indian Ink / Hapgood


Tom Stoppard - 1999
    Arcadia received the Evening Standard, the Oliver, and the Critics Awards and The Real Thing won a Tony Award.

Cabaret: The Illustrated Book and Lyrics


Joe Masteroff - 1999
    Surely one of the most acclaimed and beloved plays of all time, this modern classic is honored for the first time in a lavishly illustrated book. Here is the complete musical book by Joe Masteroff and all the words of the songs written by John Kander and Fred Ebb. It is illustrated with more than 100 photographs and drawings (including 74 in full color) of the original cast of the Roundabout 's smash Broadway production by Joan Marcus, never-before- published backstage photographs by Rivka Katvan, and archival photos of past productions. The accompanying text explores the evolution of the play in all its incarnations, from the 1930 stories of Christopher Isherwood to two films and three stage adaptations. Here are all the fantastic artists who have brought this play to life: Julie Harris (the original Sally Bowles), Joel Grey, Liza Minnelli, Natasha Richardson, Alan Cumming, Ron Rifkin, and directors Hal Prince, Bob Fosse, Sam Mendes, and Rob Marshall. Also featured are original drawings by costume designer William Ivey Long and set designer Robert Brill. For theatre lovers and film fans, for those who've seen the play and those who haven't, this book is an exclusive insider's glimpse into a stage and film phenomenon, one of the most astonishing artistic achievements of our time.

Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov


Stella Adler - 1999
    As a Stanislavsky disciple and founder of her own highly esteemed acting conservatory, the extravagant actress was also an eminent acting teacher, training her students--among them Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, and Robert DeNiro--in the art of script interpretation. The classic lectures collected here, delivered over a period of forty years, bring to life the plays of the three fathers of modern drama: Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, and Anton Chekhov. With passionate conviction and shrewd insight, Adler explains how their plays forever changed the world of dramaturgy while offering enduring insights on society, class, culture, and the role of the actor. She explores the struggles of Ibsen's characters to free themselves from societal convention, the mortal conflicts that trap Strindberg's men and women, and the pain of loss and transition lyrically evoked by Chekhov. A majestic volume, Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov allows us to experience the work of these masters "as if to see, hear and feel their genius for the first time." (William H. Gass)

Plays 1: Low in the Dark / The Mai / Portia Coughlan / By the Bog of Cats...


Marina Carr - 1999
    Love in the Dark'One of the most exciting, new and absolutely original aspects of Carr's writing is the manner in which the sexism of the language and religious imagery is exposed... Marina Carr is a playwright to be watched.' Sunday TribuneThe Mai'The writing is at once gentle and raucous... capable of articulating deep-seated woes and resentments in a manner you rarely find outside Eugene O'Neill.' ObserverPortia Coughlan'A play of precocious maturity and accomplishment.' Irish Times'Portia Coughlan packs a hell of a punch. It hurts to look at it. But it has to be seen.' Irish IndependentBy the Bog of Cats...'A poetic realism steeped in the past... Carr has an extraordinary ability to move between the mythic and the real.' Guardian'A great play... a great work of poetry... the word should soon carry across both sides of the Atlantic.' Independent

Certain Fragments : Contemporary Performance and Forced Entertainment


Tim Etchells - 1999
    Written by the artistic director of Forced Entertainment, it investigates the process of devising performance, theatre's interdisciplinary role, and the city's influence.

The Weir and Other Plays


Conor McPherson - 1999
    collection of an extraordinary new voice in Irish drama.

Postdramatic Theatre


Hans-Thies Lehmann - 1999
    Newly adapted for the Anglophone reader, this is an excellent translation of Hans-Thies Lehmann's groundbreaking study of the new theatre forms that have developed since the late 1960s, which has become a key reference point in international discussions of contemporary theatre.In looking at the developments since the late 1960s, Lehmann considers them in relation to dramatic theory and theatre history, as an inventive response to the emergence of new technologies, and as an historical shift from a text-based culture to a new media age of image and sound.Engaging with theoreticians of 'drama' from Aristotle and Brecht, to Barthes and Schechner, the book analyzes the work of recent experimental theatre practitioners such as Robert Wilson, Tadeusz Kantor, Heiner Muller, the Wooster Group, Needcompany and Societas Raffaello Sanzio.Illustrated by a wealth of practical examples, and with an introduction by Karen Jurs-Munby providing useful theoretical and artistic contexts for the book, Postdramatic Theatre is an historical survey expertly combined with a unique theoretical approach which guides the reader through this new theatre landscape.

The Play Goes On


Neil Simon - 1999
    Simon's same willingness to open his heart to the reader permeates The Play Goes On. This second act takes the reader from the mid-1970s to the present, a period in which Simon wrote some of his most popular and critically acclaimed plays, including the Brighton Beach trilogy and Lost in Yonkers, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. Simon experienced enormous professional success during this time, but in his personal life he struggled to find that same sense of happiness and satisfaction. After the death of his first wife, he and his two young daughters left New York for Hollywood. There he remarried, and when that foundered he remarried again. Told with his characteristic humor and unflinching sense of irony, The Play Goes On is rich with stories of how Simon's art came to imitate his life. Simon's forty-plus plays make up a body of work that is a long-running memoir in its own right, yet here, in a deeper and more personal book than his first volume, Simon offers a revealing look at an artist in crisis but still able and willing to laugh at himself.

Light Fantastic: The Art and Design of Stage Lighting


Max Keller - 1999
    As beautiful as it is instructive, this award-winning book on allaspects of theatrical lighting design has become the standardresource in the field. Light Fantastic has received accoladesfrom the theater community, including the Golden Pen Awardfrom the Institute for Theater Technology and OutstandingAcademic Title award from Choice magazine.Now in its third edition, Light Fantastic has been expanded toinclude breathtaking new photographs from author MaxKeller s most recent productions. The text has been broughtup to date to reflect the latest technological advances, whilenew essays on light in architecture, lighting for musicconcerts, and the metaphysics and politics of light broadenits scope. Keller s extensive knowledge and experience onsome of the world s most celebrated stages make him thedefinitive source for veterans or those new to the field of stagelighting. Throughout the book hundreds of vibrant colorphotographs convey the excitement of live performance. Thisremarkable volume is an indispensable handbook to stagelighting design.

Technical Theater for Nontechnical People


Drew Campbell - 1999
    All sides of production are clearly explained in jargon-free prose, and unfamiliar terms are highlighted and defined in an appended glossary. In addition to discussions on the more traditional elements of technical theater, this book gives equal weight to the new technologies that have become mainstream, including software (DMX, MIDI, and SMPTI) for show control systems, software to build audio cues, and PC-based audio play-back systems.Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.

Other People's Shoes: Thoughts on Acting


Harriet Walter - 1999
    In this book, she uses her experience to illustrate the processes involved in performance.

Stalag 17


Billy Wilder - 1999
    Billy Wilder developed the play and made the film version more interesting in every way. Edwin Blum, a veteran screenwriter and friend of Wilder's, collaborated on the screenplay but found working with Wilder an agonizing experience.Wilder's mordant humor and misanthropy percolate throughout this bitter story of egoism, class conflict, and betrayal. As in a well-constructed murder mystery, the incriminating evidence points to the wrong man. Jeffrey Meyers's introduction enriches the reading of Stalag 17 by including comparisons with the Broadway production and the reasons for Wilder's changes.

Plays 4: Dalliance / Undiscovered Country / Rough Crossing / On the Razzle / The Seagull


Tom Stoppard - 1999
    This fourth volume of Tom Stoppard's work for the stage brings together five of his most celebrated translations and adaptations of plays by Arthur Schnitzler (Dalliance and Undiscovered Country), Ferenc Molnar (Rough Crossing), Johann Nestroy (On the Razzle) and Anton Chekhov (The Seagull).

Never the Sinner


John Logan - 1999
    and Richard Loeb -- abducted and killed fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks, horrifying a nation. Never the Sinner is John Logan's brilliant documentary play about the infamous Leopold and Loeb case, known in its time as the "crime of the century" and still one of the most notorious.Leopold and Loeb were richer than most, and smarter. They knew every hot topic of the day, from Freud to Nietzsche; they were also lovers. Considering themselves Nietzsche's "supermen, " they decided to commit the "perfect murder, " just for the thrill of it. But they proved to be considerably less than supermen, and within a matter of hours police questioners cracked their alibis. In the ensuing sensational trial, they were defended by the legendary Clarence Darrow, who got them life sentences rather than the expected execution.

Edward Albee: A Singular Journey


Mel Gussow - 1999
    Mel Gussow's critically-acclaimed biography of the three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright ( Seascape, A Delicate Balance, 3 Tall Women ), who first electrified the American theatre scene in the 1960s with his groundbreaking The Zoo Story followed by the legendary Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Kazan: The Master Director Discusses His Films: Interviews with Elia Kazan


Elia Kazan - 1999
    60 black & white movie stills and posters, Index, Filmography.

Shakespeare's Sonnets


John Kerrigan - 1999
     Written as a form of personal confession - of love, of grief, of anger, of jealousy and of lust - the sonnets encompass a huge range of human emotion beautifully expressed within the restrictions of the form. Some, such as 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day' or 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds' will be instantly familiar to readers, while others, equally rich in imagery, are less well known. Together they form a powerful meditation on the nature of love, marriage, beauty and time.

The Mystery of Irma Vep and Other Plays


Charles Ludlam - 1999
    The plays are funny, erudite, poetic, transgressive, erotic, moving, and so theatrical they seem the Platonic ideal of everything we mean when we use that word. The plays are the sublime expressions of what Ludlam insisted was not an aesthetic, but a moral vision: anti-Puritan, unsentimentally utopian, sexually destabilizing—a transporting, a transcendence by means of deflation, a joyous and subversive, even dangerous revelry leading to revelation, a wise and ecstatic celebration of the world.” –Tony Kushner (from his Preface)Artistic director, playwright, director, designer and star of New York's acclaimed Ridiculous Theatrical Company, the late Charles Ludlam ransacked theatrical and literary history in an evolutionary quest for a modern art of stage comedy. His more than 30 plays are among the most thought-provoking entertainments in the modern repertoire. As Ludlam himself put it, "This is farce, not Sunday school." This collection includes an introduction by Tony Kushner alongside Ludlam's most famous and celebrated works for the stage:The Mystery of Irma Vep: Ludlam's most famous play, this is a hilarious send up of Daphne de Maurier, Jane Eyre and Victorian cross dressing. One of the most produced plays in the United States, The Mystery of Irma Vep is “the most perfect expression of Ludlam’s approach to theatre: a play that simultaneously provokes terror, laughter and a grotesque mockery of all gender, literary and special boundaries” (Village Voice).Camille: based on La Dame aux Camélias, this satirical take on the tubercular courtesan brings any audience “to unexpected heights of pathos and laughter” (San Francisco Chronicle).Galas: the life of opera singer Maria Callas imagined as a modern tragedy, in which Ludlam himself assayed the part of the diva.Stage Blood: Ludlam's take on Shakespeare, with actors putting on Hamlet both on stage and back stage; somehow, in this tragedy, everything comes out for the best.Bluebeard: somewhat based on H.G. Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau, Bluebeard tells the story of a mad vivisectionist in search of a third sex.Charles Ludlam: Artistic director, playwright, director, designer and star of New York’s acclaimed Ridiculous Theatrical Company. During his twenty years with the Ridiculous, he won Obie and Drama Desk awards as well as playwriting fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller and Ford foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts. His more than thirty plays are among the most thought-provoking entertainments in the modern repertoire and continue to be widely performed throughout the world.

Dancing Into Darkness: Butoh, Zen, and Japan


Sondra Fraleigh - 1999
    As a student of Zen and butoh, Fraleigh witnesses her own artistic and personal transformation through essays, poems, interviews, and reflections spanning twelve years of study, much of it in Japan. Numerous performance photographs and original calligraphy by Fraleigh's Zen teacher Shodo Akane illuminate her words.The pieces of Dancing Into Darkness cross boundaries, just as butoh anticipates a growing global amalgamation. "Butoh is not an aesthetic movement grafted onto Western dance, " Fraleigh concludes, "and Western dance may be more Eastern than we have been able to see. "

And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank (A Play)


James Still - 1999
    

The Complete Plays, Vol. 1: 1989-1998


Theresa Rebeck - 1999
    There are many ways to categorize me and my work. But for myself, I would most like to be considered a playwright. - Theresa Rebeck, Introduction

Stanislavski for Beginners


David Allen - 1999
    After common myths and misconceptions are shattered, the groundbreaking ideas and practices of Stanislavski, actor/director turned visionary, remain. "Stanislavski For Beginners" is both an invaluable guide to the Stanislavski system and a fascinating chronicle of the life of its creator, who remains one of the most important figures in theatre worldwide. The For Beginners series aims to explain complex, abstract, and esoteric ideas in a comprehensive, compelling style. Every title—topics include Philosophy, Art Theory, Astronomy, Black History, and many more—is accompanied by illustrations that support the subject and create an enjoyable experience for all readers.

Silence


Moira Buffini - 1999
    

Over the River and Through the Woods


Joe DiPietro - 1999
    His parents retired and moved to Florida. That doesn't mean his family isn't still in Jersey. In fact, he sees both sets of his grandparents every Sunday for dinner. This is routine until he has to tell them that he's been offered a dream job. The job he's been waiting for - marketing executive - would take him away from his beloved, but annoying, grandparents. He tells them. The news doesn't sit so well. Thus begins a series of schemes to keep Nick around. How could he betray his family's love to move to Seattle for a job, wonder his grandparents? Well, Frank, Aida, Nunzio, and Emma do their level best, that includes bringing the lovely - and single - Caitlin O'Hare as bait.

Between Two Silences: Talking with Peter Brook


Peter Brook - 1999
    Theatre professor Dale Moffitt has edited and arranged by subject twelve hours of spontaneous question and answer sessions from Brook's visit to the Southern Methodist University campus.Ranging widely over many topics, Brook talks about his innovative and award-winning production of Marat/Sade, his film and stage versions of King Lear, his nine-hour production of the Indian epic The Mahabharata. With passion and clarity he discusses acting, directing, auditions, film vs. the stage, his responses to the work of other theatre figures like Grotowski and Artaud, and the multiculturalism which characterizes his most recent work.

Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century


Jo Bonney - 1999
    Each artists' work is introduced by a journalist, artist, critic, agent, producer or educator who is intimately familiar with the material and its links to other forms such as vaudeville, theatre, cabaret, music, standup comedy, poetry, the visual arts and dance. In Bonney's words, "This anthology documents a part of our literary/stage history and offers the possibility of its being appreciated in a new context, for a new generation."Includes work by Beatrice Herford, Jackie "Moms" Mabley, Ruth Draper, Lord Buckley, Brother Theodore, Lenny Bruce, Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner, Andy Kaufman, Ethyl Eichelberger, Laurie Anderson, Rachel Rosenthal, Spalding Gray, Eric Bogosian, Jessica Hagedorn, Diamanda Galás, Ann Magnuson, Rhodessa Jones, Tim Miller, John O'Keefe, Anna Deavere Smith, Danitra Vance, David Cale, Whoopi Goldberg, John Fleck, Reno, Heather Woodbury, Robbie McCauley, Lisa Kron, Brenda Wong Aoki, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Holly Hughes, Luis Alfaro, John Leguizamo, Josh Kornbluth, Deb Margolin, Roger Guenveur Smith, Anne Galjour, Danny Hoch, Marga Gomez, Mike Albo and Virginia Heffernan, Dael Orlandersmith and Dawn Akemi Saito.

Players of Shakespeare 4: Further Essays in Shakespearean Performance by Players with the Royal Shakespeare Company


Robert Smallwood - 1999
    Twelve actors including Sir Derek Jacobi, Jane Lapotaire and Julian Glover describe the Shakespearian roles they played in productions between 1992 and 1997. The plays covered include The Merchant of Venice, Love's Labour's Lost, The Taming of the Shrew, The Winter's Tale, and Romeo and Juliet, among others. The essays divide equally among comedies, histories, and tragedies, with emphasis among the comedies on those notoriously difficult "clown" roles. A brief biographical note is provided for each of the contributors.Contents: Robert Smallwood - IntroductionChristopher Luscombe - Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice and Moth in Love Labour's LostDavid Tennant - Touchstone in As You Like ItMichael Siberry - Petruccio in The Taming of the ShrewRichard McCabe - Autolycus in The Winter's TaleDavid Troughton - Richard IIISusan Brown - Queen Elizabeth in Richard IIIPaul Jesson - Henry VIIIJane Lapotaire - Queen Katherine in Henry VIIIPhilip Voss - Menenius in CoriolanusJulian Glover - Friar Lawrence in Romeo and JulietJohn Nettles - Brutus in Julius CaesarDerek Jacobi - Macbeth

The Comic Mask in the Commedia dell'Arte: Actor Training, Improvisation, and the Poetics of Survival


Antonio Fava - 1999
    Why? Because clearly, he goes on, we have Shakespeare's texts, but nobody knows what to do with the improvisation that is the basis of the Commedia dell'Arte, despite massive documentation. This book by Fava, one of the few living master teachers of Commedia dell'Arte, is the first aesthetic and methodological study of the traditional Italian theater form--the first to describe, in a precise and practical way, what Commedia is and what it should be. The mask--as object, symbol, character, theatrical practice, even spectacle itself--is the central metaphor around which Fava builds his discussion of structure, themes, characters, and methods. Drawing on twenty years of research conducted through his work as performer, director, mask maker, and scholar, he offers extensive practical, philosophical, and technical guidelines to performing the stock characters of Commedia, observing its structure, extracting its poetics, exploring its themes, and using the mask. A densely layered text combining historical fact, personal experience, philosophical speculation, and passionate opinion, and including copious illustrations--period drawings, prints, and color photographs of leather Commedia masks made by Fava himself--The Comic Mask in the Commedia dell'Arte is a rich work of singular insight into one of the world's most venerable forms of theater.

A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting


Steven Louis Shelley - 1999
    Readers will benefit from experience-based tips, techniques and traps to avoid in preparing and executing a lighting design. Anecdotes illustrate why some techniques succeed while others fail.Existing textbooks about theatrical lighting analyze artistic vision and visual concepts, which are important for the aspiring designer. These texts do not, however, provide any information about the mechanics required to produce those visions. This book addresses the realities of working in the theatre using practical methods to squeeze flexibility out of a lighting system and present solutions to common problems.

The Gilbert and Sullivan Lexicon in Which is Gilded the Philosophic Pill: Featuring New Illustrations


Harry Benford - 1999
    

Merrily We Roll Along


George Furth - 1999
    Kaufman and Moss Hart. Beginning with its short run on Broadway and continuing through various rewritings and restagings over the years, Merrily may be the most-discussed, least well-known work in Sondheim's canon. The musical has an unusual, and unusually intriguing form, following the careers of three theatre artists from the present day back through time to the days when they were starting out, young and idealistic. This homage to the Broadway musical is considered by many to contain one of Sondheim's most ebullient and tuneful scores.

The Taste Of Sunrise


Suzan Zeder - 1999
    Set in the 1920's - 1930's, in multiple locations we follow the childhood of Tuc (in the dreams of the adult Tuc) in a moving prequel to Zeder's acclaimed MOTHER HICKS. Time is memory. 10 men, 1 woman, 2 deaf actors needed. Multiple locations.The play takes place in the mind and memory of the adult Tuc as he journeys through his childhood from the fever dream that took his hearing, to the language of nature which he shares with his beloved father, to the Deaf school where his mind explodes with the discovery of sign language. Along the way Tuc meets the mysterious Nell Hicks who heals with herbs and singing spells. He also meets Rosecoe who gives Tuc his name-sign and cultural identity, and Maize, a wild child of Deaf parents, teenaged and pregnant with a head full of movie palace dreams. After the death of his father, Tuc must navigate the perilous path of loss, love, and language as he struggles to weave a family out of wishes, and explores the moral ambiguities of our times and the cultural complexities of Deafness, with humor and compassion.

Deconstructing Harold Hill: An Insider's Guide to Musical Theatre


Scott Miller - 1999
    This is a book for all fans of musical theatre, and a must for directors and actors. Scott Miller's thoughtful analyses of some of the great works of the musical theatre take the buff or the professional on a journey of discovery. Each chapter looks at one musical, addressing:textual and musical themesways in which production design can support those themesinsight into the motivation and background of the charactershistorical and social context of the action of the showand much more.Miller spotlights The Music Man, Chicago, The King and I, Passion, Ragtime, Sunday in the Park with George, and others. All are innovative works, providing a springboard for the kind of in-depth discussion among directors, their actors, and designers that can make working on a musical - or just seeing one - the most satisfying experience you've ever had. You'll never look at musicals the same way again! Visit Scott's website at http: //www.geocities.com/Broadway/3164/

The Lion King - Broadway Selections


Hal Leonard Corporation - 1999
    Now available! Our deluxe songbook features piano/vocal arrangements of 14 songs by Elton John and Tim Rice from this beloved Tony -winning musical: Be Prepared * Can You Feel the Love Tonight * Chow Down * Circle of Life * Endless Night * Hakuna Matata * He Lives in You (Reprise) * I Just Can't Wait to Be King * King of Pride Rock * The Madness of King Scar * The Morning Report * Nants' Ingonyama * Shadowland * They Live in You. Includes a special section of fantastic full-color photos from the Broadway production!

Acting Up


David Hare - 1999
    When his success at London's austere Royal Court theatre led to an invitation to appear in New York at a somewhat flashier Broadway venue, Hare was transformed from a shadowy playwright into an actor alone on the stage every night for ninety minutes.Hare's hilarious diary of his experience on both sides of the Atlantic tells of his difficulties in coming to terms with his frightening change of career, but also grapples with more serious questions about what the difference is between acting and performance, and whether anyone can learn to do either.

Collected Plays, Vol. 1


Mahesh Dattani - 1999
    Collected Plays: Volume Ii Showcases Dattani S Talent As A Writer And Director And His Wide Thematic And Stylistic Range. The Ten Plays In This Volume Include 30 Days In September, Performed Extensively In India And Abroad To Commercial Success And Critical Acclaim, The Radio Plays Aired On Bbc Radio And The Screen Plays Of Mango Soufflé (Winner Of The Best Motion Picture Award At The Barcelona Film Festival), Dance Like A Man (Winner Of The Best Picture In English Awarded By The National Panorama), And Morning Raga, Premiered At The Cairo Film Festival And Winner Of The Award For Best Artistic Contribution, That Established Dattani As The New Voice Of Contemporary Indian Cinema. With A General Introduction By Jeremy Mortimer Of Bbc Radio And Introductions To Individual Plays By Actors Like Lillete Dubey And Shabana Azmi, The Plays In This Collection Provide Fascinating Insights Into The Human Psyche And Reveal Just How Caught Up We Are In The Complications And Contradictions Of Our Values And Assumptions.

How to Get the Part...Without Falling Apart!: Featuring the Haber Phrase Technique for Actors


Margie Haber - 1999
    Includes script excerpts, celebrity pictures and personal testimonies from today's hottest stars.

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant & Blood on the Neck of the Cat


Rainer Werner Fassbinder - 1999
    

Howie the Rookie


Mark O'Rowe - 1999
    Yes! Yet another brilliant young Irish playwright makes his debut.

Three Days of Rain and Other Plays: Three Days of Rain; The American Plan; The Author's Voice; Hurrah at Last


Richard Greenberg - 1999
    He has been called "a major new playwright" who has "mastered the art of telling a simple story with such grace and skill that it becomes startlingly new" (Fintan O'Toole, New York Daily News). Greenberg's plays have developed a reputation for being "intelligent, whimsical, always powerful pieces of theatre that are profound without being pretentious and that speak about the very basic longing of human beings" (Amy Schaumberg, Drama-Logue). Collected in this volume are Greenberg's most important plays, including his latest, Hurrah at Last, which Laurie Winer in the Los Angeles Times called "funny, acerbic and delightfully straightforward about falsehoods and bargains of intimacy."

Reading Theatre


Anne Ubersfeld - 1999
    Reading Theatre is a long-awaited translation of the first volume.Clear and systematic in its approach, the book covers all the basic elements of theatrical text and performance. Ubersfeld begins by refuting the view of performance as the simple 'translation' of a dramatic text, and outlines a much more complex dynamic. In subsequent chapters she similarly begins with a brief critique of simplistic models and then teases out the complexities of action, character, space, time, and dialogue. A range of specific examples brings substance and clarity to her points.Ubersfeld shows how such formal analysis can enrich the work of theatre practitioners, offering a fruitful reading of the symbolic structures of stage space and time, and opening up multiple possibilities for interpreting a play's lines of action. Though firmly grounded in formalist and semiotic studies, the book exhibits a refreshing scepticism about scientific positivism, stressing the fundamental ambiguity of any dramatic text as well as the sociohistorical grounding of particular text and performance styles.A pioneering work, this contemporary classic continues to inform debates in theatre semiotics. Addressed as much to actors and directors as to students and scholars, it will be read widely in theatre circles throughout the English-speaking world.

Toward Mastery: An Acting Class with Nikos Psacharopulos


Jeanie Hackett - 1999
    In a dynamic series of classes at Yale and NYU, running the gamut from beginners' anguish to advanced actors' triumphs, Nikos tests his charges' talent, intellect, and courage. Again and again he shows why he was a great teacher, a pioneering artistic director at Williamstown, and an inspiration to hundreds of major careers in the American theater.With wit and vitriol, persuasion and bottomless energy, Nikos instills in his students the conviction that the authentic qualities behind great acting are as teachable as the most basic technical tools. Backed up by moving and perceptive comments from some of his closest associates, he proves that one can definitely aim for great acting, and, in some cases, achieve it.

Stories of Our Way: An Anthology of American Indian Plays (Native American Theatre Series Number 1) (Native American Theatre Series Number 1)


Jaye T. Darby - 1999
    Native American Studies. STORIES OF OUR WAY is the first anthology of its kind to span more than thirty years of American Indian theater, including the 1930s classic THE CHEROKEE NIGHT. This distinguished group of twelve plays draws ona rich range of tribal experiences -- Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Kiowa, Navajo, Oneida, Otoe-Missouria, Rappahonack, and urban. They treatthe diverse stories of Native people's ways with gritty integrity, uncompromising honesty, and deep respect, balanced with an awareness of the challenges and responsibilities to renew, and a commitment to an evolving American Indian theatrical aesthetic. These playwrights invite audiences to probe the often painful past, share the enduring values of family, community, and tribe, and celebrate humor and spirituality.

State of Play: Playwrights on Playwriting


David Edgar - 1999
    This first issue focuses on contemporary British theater, exploring issues that range from the direction of playwriting today to the challenge improvisational theater is making to text-based performance. In each succeeding issue, a selection of the best playwrights, both new and established, will speak about what it means to be a playwright now, discussing important topics that will resonate with playwrights and theatergoers of all perspectives and nationalities.State of Play is introduced and edited by David Edgar, a playwright and professor of theater who puts contemporary playwriting in the context of the history of the form. The text itself includes contributions from such playwrights as Mark Ravenhill, Winsome Pinnock, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Conor McPherson, Sebastian Barry, and Christopher Hampton. An Afterword by American playwright Phyllis Nagy traces a different line of playwriting antecedents, adding another viewpoint to a continuing conversation about theater.

The Art of Kabuki: Five Famous Plays (Second Revised Edition)


Samuel L. Leiter - 1999
    Commentaries by critics and actors precede each work. Details on staging, movement, wigs, costumes, music. Prefaces. Introduction. Glossary. New Selected Bibliography. Index. 99 halftones.

The East End Plays: Part 1


George F. Walker - 1999
    Yet, even in The Power Plays, Walker is still exploring the ironic and dramatic possibilities of the stereotypes (albeit, by this time, home-grown ones) that continue to provide the fertile ground of contemporary North American sensibilities.With his creation of the Governor General’s Award winning Criminals in Love (1984); the Chalmers Award winning Better Living (1986); and Escape from Happiness (1991), Walker embarked on a whole new direction in his evolution as a playwright. Much less of his comic irony now relied on the recognition of character, much more now relied on the creation of character. In a very real way, George Walker had freed himself to “come home.” Set in what is transparently a single neighbourhood, the East End of Toronto, these three interrelated plays were quickly collected in a volume called, naturally, The East End Plays, in 1988. From here, George Walker moved in two related directions: to a further exploration of the margins of contemporary urban life in the global village with the three plays now collected in The East End Plays Part 2 (1999); and to the continued exploration of linking plays around a single location with the wildly successful six-part Suburban Motel (1998). The original three East End Plays are here published in a completely new and revised Talonbooks edition now called The East End Plays Part 1.

The Virgin Encyclopedia of Stage Film Musicals


Colin Larkin - 1999
    Over 1600 entries provide facts, figures and critical opinion on all aspects of the field.

A Dictionary of Stage Directions in English Drama 1580-1642


Alan C. Dessen - 1999
    The authors draw on a database of over 22,000 stage directions drawn from around 500 plays. Each entry defines a term, gives examples of how it is used, cites additional instances, and gives cross-references to other relevant entries. This will be an indispensable work of reference for scholars, historians, directors and actors.

Costume Construction


Katherine Evans-Strand - 1999
    It is intended for painters, pattern makers, drapers, artists, sculptors, mil liners, seamsters, as well as those who enjoy handwork. Readers will learn not only the basic skills of sewing, drafting, draping, and millin ery, but also all the techniques necessary for a successful career in the exciting world of costume crafts. Among its outstanding features, Costume Construction includes: (1) more than 300 illustrations, charts, and diagrams; (2) a comprehensive section on costume maintenance and storage; and (3) practical exercises at the end of each chapter.

Connecting Flights


Robert Lepage - 1999
    Lepage is the actor, director, and creator behind some of the most imaginative theatre productions, including ethereal ruminations on Hiroshima in The Seven Streams of the River Ota, and on the destructive addictions behind Jean Cocteau and Miles Davis in Needles and Opium. His talents stretch from starring in one man shows to designing gigantic rock concerts for Peter Gabriel.Flights takes the readers through a wide spectrum of topics, including Lepage's concern with nationalism keeping a country's culture from traveling beyond its borders for all the world to see.

Dolly West's Kitchen


Frank McGuinness - 1999
    As the characters talk of love, sex, war, the English, de Valera, and the Yanks, "Dolly West's Kitchen" becomes a deeply moving evocation of the fantasy and the reality that was Ireland in the 1940s, filled with the richness of character and sense of place that have always marked Frank McGuinness's writing.

Portugál (Színház 1998/06 drámamelléklet)


Zoltán Egressy - 1999
    On his way to Portugal, his 'dream land', he stops off in a village in the back of beyond. He cannot/will not become part of the local community, which is made up of a bunch of vulnerable and poverty-stricken people. He seduces the innkeeper's daughter with his tales of his Promised Land and his alluring sadness. But when his wealthy wife tracks him down, he abandons the dusty village and its tragic heroes to return to his predictable and comfortable life in the capital.

The Early Plays: Ivanov / Platonov / The Wood Demon


Anton Chekhov - 1999
    Chekhov, whose passion for his two warring muses, comedy and tragedy, is nowhere more evident than in his first three-full length plays, Platanov, Ivanov, and The Wood Demon. These works are assembled in this third volume of the complete plays of Anton Chekhov, newly translated by Carol Rocamora and published in honor of Chekhov's centennial. Platonov, Chekhov's earliest, rarely translated play is adapted by Rocamora from its original, six-hour long, unfinished state into a playable comedy about a Russian Don Juan who copes with his boredom and ennui by victimizing every woman in the district. Ivanov, Chekhov's incarnation of the Russian Hamlet, is a marvel of a character study which has challenged actors from John Gielgud to Ralph Fiennes to Kevin Kline. And finally, The Wood Demon, Chekhov's earlier, comedic version of his masterpiece, Uncle Vanya. Actors, directors and lovers of Chekhov's plays will delight in discovering many of the settings, characters, and themes that later appear in his four major works. Theatres will find three exciting full-length plays infrequently performed in the United States which merit renewed attention.

Latina Performance: Traversing the Stage


Alicia Arrizon - 1999
    Alicia Arrizon looks at the cultural politics that flows from the intersection of gender, ethnicity, race, class, and sexuality.

Playwrights Of Color


Meg Swanson - 1999
    

Exposed By The Mask: Form And Language In Drama


Peter Hall - 1999
    The central argument is that form and structured language paradoxically give freedom to power of thought and feeling, much as the masks of early Greek drama enabled actors to express extreme emotion. The mask may take many forms – the precise language of Beckett and Pinter, the classical form of Mozart’s operas, or Shakespeare’s verse.Reprinted to form part of the Oberon Masters series, a brand new collection of attractive hardbacks on key themes within the arts written by leading lights in each subject.