That play, and the others that followed, have been produced all over the world. This anthology includes Kane's never-before-published Channel 4 screenplay, Skin. Complete Plays include Blasted, Phaedra's Love, Cleansed, Crave, 4.48 Psychosis, and Skin.

    The struggle of the self to remain intact has moved in her work from civil war, into the family, into the couple, into the individual, and finally into the theatre of phychosis: the mind itself. This play was written in 1999 shortly before the playwright took her own life at age 28. On the page, the piece looks like a poem. No characters are named, and even their number is unspecified. It could be a journey through one person's mind, or an interview between a doctor and his patient.

    She is arguably the most important teacher of acting in American history. Over her long career, both in New York and Hollywood, she offered her vast acting knowledge to generations of actors, including Marlon Brando, Warren Beatty, and Robert De Niro. The great voice finally ended in the early Nineties, but her decades of experience and teaching have been brilliantly caught and encapsulated by Howard Kissel in the twenty-two lessons in this book.

    It has been produced and taught all over the world. Its companion play, The Destiny of Me, is the stirring story of an AIDS activist forced to put his life in the hands of the very doctor he has been denouncing.

    . . . It isn’t ‘second nature,’ it is ‘first nature.’”—Declan Donnellan This immensely popular and ever-practical book on acting takes a scalpel to the heart of actors’ persistent fears, helping them to release their talent on stage. It is straightforward and unpretentious, with a spirit of artistic and personal freedom.

    His death has brought into her midst both her sister, Claire, who wants to take Catherine back to New York with her, and Hal, a former student of Catherine's father who hopes to find some hint of Robert's genius among his incoherent scribblings. The passion that Hal feels for math both moves and angers Catherine, who, in her exhaustion, is torn between missing her father and resenting the great sacrifices she made for him. For Catherine has inherited at least a part of her father's brilliance -- and perhaps some of his instability as well. As she and Hal become attracted to each other, they push at the edges of each other's knowledge, considering not only the unpredictability of genius but also the human instinct toward love and trust.

    But within four weeks they themselves had experienced the "impossible."In An Acrobat of the Heart, teacher-director-playwright Stephen Wangh reveals how Jerzy Grotowski's physical exercises can open a pathway to the actor's inner creativity. Drawing on Grotowski's insights and on the work of Stanislavski, Uta Hagen, and others, Wangh bridges the gap between rigorous physical training and practical scene and character technique. Wangh's students give candid descriptions of their struggles and breakthroughs, demonstrating how to transform these remarkable lessons into a personal journey of artistic growth. Courageous and compelling, An Acrobat of the Heart is an invaluable resource for actors, directors, and teachers alike.

    The complete book and lyrics with set and costume designs, production photos, essays, cast lists and credits, awards for major productions, selected discographies, and much more! Includes the shows A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum . A richly illustrated Sondheim treasury!

    Turn to the page that sounds the most interesting to you.Read a sentence or two.Repeat the process. Read this book as a creative act, and feel encouraged.'39 Microlectures: In Proximity of Performance is a collection of miniature stories, parables, musings and thinkpieces on the nature of reading, writing, art, collaboration, performance, life, death, the universe and everything. It is a unique and moving document for our times, full of curiosity and wonder, thoughtfulness and pain. Matthew Goulish, founder member of performance group Goat Island, meditates on these and other diverse themes, proving, along the way, that the boundaries between poetry and criticism, and between creativity and theory, are a lot less fixed than they may seem. The book is revelatory, solemn yet at times hilarious, and genuinely written to inspire - or perhaps provoke - creativity and thought.

    August Wilson's radical and provocative call to arms.

    Her characters suffer and survive against the enormous weight of the times with a dignity that inspires. Her work challenges the audience and reader to reexamine the conflicts and meaning of our everyday lives through her singular, poetic imagery and language.Includes: One Flea SpareIn the Heart of AmericaSlaughter CityThe War BoysThe Trestle at Pope's Creek

    While scholars with access to his works in Romanian are well-aware of their importance, his work has remained, up to now, little known in the English-speaking world. The book represents one of the first efforts to make Blaga's work accessible to an international audience.Zalmoxis is Blaga's first play and one of his most important literary works. It underlines much of his philosophy and also reflects his poetry. Blaga's attachment to Expressionist ideals is discernible in his treatment of the characters primarily as vehicles of ideas and his preference for primitive nature over the cultured metropolis.This book includes an introduction by Keith Hitchins of the University of Illinois, one of the leading historians of Romania in the United States and a scholar intimately acquainted with Blaga's life and work. In it, he discusses the life of Lucian Blaga, and the importance of his literary and philosophical work. The translation is by Doris Plantus-Runey from Wayne State University in the United States.

    446-386 b.c.), one of the world's greatest comic dramatists, has been admired since antiquity for his iridescent wit and beguiling fantasy, exuberant language, and brilliant satire of the social, intellectual, and political life of Athens at its height. In this third volume of a new Loeb Classical Library edition of Aristophanes' plays, Jeffrey Henderson presents a freshly edited Greek text facing a lively, unexpurgated translation with full explanatory notes. In Birds Aristophanes turns from the pointed political satire characteristic of earlier plays to a fantasy that soars literally into the air in search of a carefree world. Here the enterprising protagonists create a utopian counter-Athens, called Cloudcuckooland, ruled by birds. Lysistrata blends uninhibited comedy and an earnest call for peace. Lysistrata, our first comic heroine, organizes a panhellenic conjugal strike of young wives until their husbands end the war between Athens and Sparta. Athenian women again take center stage in Women at the Thesmophoria, this time to punish Euripides for portraying them as wicked. Parody of Euripides' plots enlivens this witty confrontation of the sexes.

    Their singular takes on their craft, their influences, their lives, the state of contemporary theater, and the tricks of the trade create an illuminating and unparalleled record of the life of the theater itself."At its best,  theater is an antidote to the whiff of barbarity in the millennial air. 'My feeling is that people in a group, en masse, watching something, react differently, and perhaps more profoundly, than they do when they're alone in their living rooms,' Arthur Miller says here. In the dark, facing the stage, surrounded by others, the paying customer can let himself go; he is emboldened. The theatrical encounter allows a member of the public to think against received opinions. He can submerge himself in the extraordinary, admit his darkest, most infantile wishes, feel the pulse of the contemporary, hear the sludge of street talk turned into poetry. This enterprise can be joyous and dangerous; when the theater's game is good and tense, it is both."--from the Introduction by John Lahr

    Presented here are 250 tips, including the way to set a laugh, the use of opposites, a clear definition of "actions", how to use a "breath score", and even how to react if you're fired.

    Of his latest play, The New York Times has written, "Uproarious ... wall-to-wall laughs ... Mr. Busch has swum straight into the mainstream and stays comfortably afloat there." Busch is the author of such plays as Vampire Lesbians of Sodom -- one of the longest-running plays in Off-Broadway history -- and Psycho Beach Party, a cross between Gidget and Spellbound. After a successful Off-Broadway run at New York City's Manhattan Theater Club, Busch moves to Broadway with The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, a hilarious comedy about a self-absorbed Upper West Side doctor's wife whose life is devoted to mornings at the Whitney, afternoons at the Museum of Modern Art, and evenings at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Her world is shaken and transformed when a childhood friend makes an unexpected visit.

    Continuing to travel the world giving workshops and inspiration to teachers, prisoners, actors and care-workers, Augusto Boal is a visionary as well as a product of his times - the Brazil of military dictatorship and artistic and social repression and was once imprisoned for his subversive activities. From his early days in Brazil's political theatre movement to his recent experiments with theatre as a democratic political process, Boal's story is a moving and memorable one. He has devised a unique way of using the stage to empower the disempowered, and taken his methods everywhere from the favelas of Rio to the rehearsal studios of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

    The writings include text from the infamous performances that brought her to the Supreme Court in Finley vs. NEA, a battle that became a mainstay of the culture wars and which has made Finley an icon in the struggle for freedom of speech. Included in this volume will be the never before published, Obie Award-winning The American Chestnut for which she received a Guggenheim; such works as We Keep Our Victims Ready, A Certain Level of Denial, The Return of the Chocolate Smeared Woman, and an excerpt from her forthcoming film Shut Up and Love Me. Also appearing will be previously unpublished short stories, photos, artwork, and an essay on censorship. In 1998 Finley was named Woman of the Year by MS. magazine; she posed for Playboy the following year. She has appeared in numerous films including Philadelphia, and will soon be directing her own first feature film, Shut Up and Love Me, produced by Forensic Films. She has recorded albums including a collaboration with Sinead O'Connor. Finley is a regular on Politically Incorrect and can be seen giving her opinions on Exhale, a new show hosted by Candace Bergen on Oxygen. She will be hosting The Naked Players, a "nude Candid Camera" as well as Shock Video, both on HBO. Finley has written four books: Shock Treatment, Enough Is Enough, Living It Up, and Pooh Unplugged. "We need Finley: she doesn't duck the bullets, she keeps her eyes peeled on the artillery aimed at women, and she continues to push against her own boundaries as an artist" -- MS. Magazine

    David Merrick is the most astonishing showman of our time, and perhaps of all time. No other producer, not even Florenz Ziegfeld nor the combined lights of the Shubert brothers, has equalled his percentage of hits or his demonic flair for publicity. In this first-ever biography, Howard Kissel from his decade-long investigation reveals the man, the mask, and the myth of David Merrick. The charismatic and reclusive mogul emerges as a Broadway version of Howard Hughes, with his own panoply of eccentricities, genius and neuroses. Merrick's much publicized and oftentimes staged battles and feuds are re-ignited here full force with such major personalities as Barbra Streisand, Jackie Gleason, Ethel Merman, Lena Horne, Woody Allen, Peter Ustinov, Andy Griffith, Anthony Newley, Peter Brook, and Carol Channing. Over a hundred interviews with the major players in Merrick's drama from his pre-Merrick St. Louis childhood as David Margoulies to his latest divorce has yielded the first serious interrogation of a life that until now has been the sole creation of Merrick's own invention and press wizardry.

    This anthology of G�mez-Pe�a's performance chronicles, diary entries, poems, essays, and texts, sheds an extraordinary light on the life and work of this migrant provocateur.

    Daniel Gerould's landmark work, Theatre/Theory/Theatre, collects history's most influential Eastern and Western dramatic theorists - poets, playwrights, directors and philosophers - whose ideas about theatre continue to shape its future. In complete texts and choice excerpts spanning centuries, we see an ongoing dialogue and exchange of ideas between actors and directors like Craig and Meyerhold, and writers such as Nietzsche and Yeats. Each of Gerould's introductory essays shows fascinating insight into both the life and the theory of the author. From Horace to Soyinka, Corneille to Brecht, this is an indispensable compendium of the greatest dramatic theory ever written.

    In this fascinating look at the modern stage, Stephen Bottoms draws on original archival material and sources including an exclusive interview with Edward Albee. The Introduction considers the text of the play itself; part one provides a survey of the major productions from 1962 to 1999, with special attention paid to the premiere and the 1966 film version. Part two examines shifting critical responses to the play, demonstrating how changing times and attitudes have altered audience perception of performances. The third and final part offers a detailed examination of five different performances, comparing and contrasting directorial, design and acting approaches to demonstrate how our understanding of the play alters considerably according to its interpretation on stage.

    This mesmerizing retelling of Shakespeare's comic tragedy Titus Andronicus is as visually stunning as it is theatrically charged. Filmed in Italy, with elaborate sets and the grand scale of real historical monuments from the Roman Empire and the Mussolini era, Julie Taymor's Titus is a work already being hailed as a cinematic masterpiece. The movie stars Academy Award®-winning actors Anthony Hopkins as the honorable but flawed Titus and Jessica Lange as Goth queen Tamora, as well as Alan Cumming, Colm Feore, James Frain, Laura Fraser, Harry Lennix, Angus Macfadyen, Matthew Rhys and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The creative production team includes five-time Academy Award®-nominated production designer Dante Ferretti (Kundun); two-time Oscar®-winning costume designer Milena Canonero (A Clockwork Orange); two-time Academy Award®-nominated composer Elliot Goldenthal (Interview with the Vampire); director of photography Luciano Tovoli (Reversal of Fortune); and Oscar®-winning editor Francoise Bonnot (Missing).

    This courageous and controversial choice indirectly expands the modern definition of literature to include the power of the spoken word."Volume One includes:We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!ElizabethArchangels Don't Play PinballAbout Face

    The greatest American stage designer of the 20th century is celebrated in the first fully documented book on his prolific, five-decade-plus career, spanning a staggering 260 plays, musicals, ballets, operas, and motion pictures.

    Celebrated songwriter Elton John and lyricist Tim Rice present their version of the classic tale of Aida -- the story of a love triangle in which the three main characters -- Radames, Aida, and Amneris -- are torn between love for each other and greater duties.This colorful book contains all the excitement of this lavish production, detailing all the action on the stage and behind the curtain. You'll find spectacular costume sketches, fabric samples, and set designs, as well as interviews with the actors, directors, producers, and composers. Best of all are brilliantly photographed scenes that convey the full breadth of the show's beauty and drama and offer readers the next-best thing to a front-row seat.

    Based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, Schiff tells the astounding story behind the most controversial movie of our time. 75 movie stills. "Like Nabokov's novel, it is an eloquent tragedy laced with wit and a serious, disturbing work of art..." - The New York Times

    All the farces of Russia's greatest dramatist are rendered here in the classic lively translations which audiences and scholars alike applaud on the stage and in the classroom. The blustering, stuttering eloquence of Chekhov's unlikely heroes has endured to shape the voice of contemporary theatre. This voume presents seven minor masterpieces: Harmfulness of Tobacco * Swan Song * The Brute * Marriage Proposal * Summer in the Country * A Wedding * The Celebration.

    Pace Creagan, seventeen, brimful of adventure, fearless and feared. To Dalton, she's irresistible. To Pace, he's a challenge.The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek is a beautiful and haunting play. A coming-of-age story with a wicked twist, it reaches into the depths of a nation and asks what lies beneath.The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek received its European premi�re at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in February 2001.

    In the colorful world of New York theater during La Belle �poque, she epitomized everything that was glamorous, sophisticated, and suggestive about turn-of-the-century Broadway. Overcoming an impoverished life as an orphan to become a music-hall star in Paris, Held rocketed to fame in America. From 1896 to 1910, she starred in hit after hit and quickly replaced Lillian Russell as the darling of the theatrical world. The first wife of legendary producer Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., Held was the brains and inspiration behind his Follies and shared his knack for publicity. Together, they brought the Paris scene to New York, complete with lavish costumes and sets and a chorus of stunningly beautiful women, dubbed ""The Anna Held Girls."" While Held was known for a champagne giggle as well as for her million-dollar bank account, there was a darker side to her life. She concealed her Jewish background and her daughter from a previous marriage. She suffered through her two husbands' gambling problems and Ziegfeld's blatant affairs with showgirls. With the outbreak of fighting in Europe, Held returned to France to support the war effort. She entertained troops and delivered medical supplies, and she was once briefly captured by the German army. Anna Held and the Birth of Ziegfeld's Broadway reveals one of the most remarkable women in the history of theatrical entertainment. With access to previously unseen family records and photographs, Eve Golden has uncovered the details of an extraordinary woman in the vibrant world of 1900s New York.

    To prevent this, a single "ghost light" is left burning at center stage after the audience and all of the actors and musicians have gone home. Frank Rich's eloquent and moving boyhood memoir reveals how theater itself became a ghost light and a beacon of security for a child finding his way in a tumultuous world. Rich grew up in the small-townish Washington, D.C., of the 1950s and early '60s, a place where conformity seemed the key to happiness for a young boy who always felt different. When Rich was seven years old, his parents separated--at a time when divorce was still tantamount to scandal--and thereafter he and his younger sister were labeled "children from a broken home." Bouncing from school to school and increasingly lonely, Rich became terrified of the dark and the uncertainty of his future. But there was one thing in his life that made him sublimely happy: the Broadway theater.Rich's parents were avid theatergoers, and in happier times they would listen to the brand-new recordings of South Pacific, Damn Yankees, and The Pajama Game over and over in their living room. When his mother's remarriage brought about turbulent changes, Rich took refuge in these same records, re-creating the shows in his imagination, scene by scene. He started collecting Playbills, studied fanatically the theater listings in The New York Times and Variety, and cut out ads to create his own miniature marquees. He never imagined that one day he would be the Times's chief theater critic.Eventually Rich found a second home at Wash-ington's National Theatre, where as a teenager he was a ticket-taker and was introduced not only to the backstage magic he had dreamed of for so long but to a real-life cast of charismatic and eccentric players who would become his mentors and friends. With humor and eloquence, Rich tells the triumphant story of how the aspirations of a stagestruck young boy became a lifeline, propelling him toward the itinerant family of theater, whose romantic denizens welcomed him into the colorful fringes of Broadway during its last glamorous era.Every once in a while, a grand spectacle comes along that introduces its audiences to characters and scenes that will resound in their memories long after the curtain has gone down. Ghost Light, Frank Rich's beautifully crafted childhood memoir, is just such an event.

    As the artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and the Old Vic, he has directed the greatest actors of our time in numerous seminal interpretations of Shakespeare and the Classics.In his latest work, Sir Peter Hall ranges over the extraordinary history of world drama to find the common experiences that are able to create the theatrical form. This series of 4 lectures were delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge as part of the famed Clark lectures which began in the nineteenth century.The argument of the lectures is that theatre is only created when emotions are contained by a form. That very form paradoxically gives freedom of expression. Thus the Greek mask enables the actor to express hysteria. The mask, whether it may be the actual physical mask on the face, or the form of the drama itself, makes expression possible. Shakespeare’s verse is his mask. Mozart’s sonata is his. And Beckett and Pinter (by the metaphors of their plays) have brought poetry back to the theatre. Without form there can be no freedom.Peter Hall is currently in Denver, Colorado, in rehearsals for the world premiere production of Tantalus, a 15 hour, 10 play cycle based on Greek tragedy to open at the Denver Center Theatre in October 2000.

    CLOUD'S. Homer Wells is born in St. Cloud's, Maine and is returned so many times by so many foster families that he becomes the "boy who belonged to St. Cloud's." His medical education begins when he finds out that Dr. Larch saves not only babies, but mothers, too by performing illegal abortions when necessary. Homer becomes Larch's brilliant medical apprentice, but the arrival of the handsome Wally Worthington and his beautiful girlfriend, Candy Kendall, sets Homer's mind and heart spinning and sends him out into the world to experience life for the first time.

    Your one-stop classical workshop! At last, over 175 of Shakespeare's finest and most performable monologues taken from all thirty-seven plays are here in two easy-to-use volumes (Men and Women). Selections travel the entire spectrum of the great dramatist's vision, from comedies, wit and romances, to tragedies, pathos and histories. Soliloquy! is an excellent and comprehensive collection of Shakespeare's speeches. Not only are the monologues wide-ranging and varied, but they are superbly annotated. Each volume is prefaced by an informative and reassuring introduction, which explains the signals and signposts by which Shakespeare helps the actor on his journey through the text. It includes a very good explanation of blank verse, with excellent examples of irregularities which are specifically related to character and acting intentions. These two books are a must for any actor in search of a 'classical' audition piece.' Elizabeth Smith, Voice Director, Juilliard

    Vial captures the vivid color, breathtaking special effects, and mesmerizing costume, set design, and troupe performances -- in and out of water (eau) -- that are the hallmark of Cirque's new Vegas venue at the Bellagio.Vial's unique capacity to distill the childlike mystery and awe of 'O', the most elaborate Cirque du Soleil production ever mounted, creates in effect a wonderfully transcending book for kids and adults alike, complete with fantasy narrative. Harry Potter would approve.

    The question of rehearsal is seldom confronted directly, though important textual moments - like revision - are often attributed to it. Furthermore, up until now, facts abouttheatrical rehearsal have been considered irrecoverable.In this groundbreaking new study, Tiffany Stern gathers together two centuries' worth of historical material which shows how actors received and responded to their parts, and how rehearsal affected the creation and revision of plays. This is the first history of the subject, from the sixteenthcentury to the eighteenth. It examines the nature and changing content of rehearsal, drawing on a mass of autobiographical, textual, and journalistic sources, and in so doing throws new light on textual revision and transforms accepted notions of Renaissance, Restoration, and eighteenth-centurytheatrical practice. Plotting theatrical change over time, this book will revolutionize the fields of textual and theatre history alike.

    Applicable to auditions for theaters, agents, casting directors, and training programs, this is an indispensable guide for any actor looking to master their audition approach.

    The ten million people who have cheered this landmark musical may now relive the glory of A Chorus Line from behind the scenes, as told by one hundred twenty five artists and professionals who made it happen - cast and management; costume, lighting and sound designers; musicians, carpenters, box office, and crew; advertising execs and press agents.

    Book annotation not available for this title.

    "Michael Pennington...is sharply intelligent, scrupulously careful, hugely knowledgeable and, above all, wonderfully readable." -The Shakespeare Institute

    It is written by director and acting teacher, Wesley Van Tassel, and is designed for professional actors in stage and film, theatre students, and anyone who enjoys acting, directing or reading Shakespeare. It seeks to create a bridge from realism to heightened text, enabling actors to conquer the challenges of Shakespeare through mastery of the language. Extensive exercises move beyond traditional voice work to teach the specific skills vital to effective delivery. Detailed explanations and easy-to-follow exercises cover the intricacies of breathing, scansion, phrasing, rhythm, antithesis, imagery, text analysis, acting objectives and more. There is a one-day brush-up section providing solutions for working actors' immediate concerns, and expanded skill practice sections for long-term learning.

    Stairs to the Roof is a rare and different Williams' work: a love story, a comedy, an experiment in meta-theater, with a touch of early science fiction. Tennessee Williams called Stairs to the Roof "a prayer for the wild of heart who are kept in cages" and dedicated it to "all the little wage earners of the world." It reflects the would-be poet's "season in hell" during the Depression when he had to quit college to type orders eight hours a day at the International Shoe Factory in St. Louis. Stairs is Williams' revenge, expressed through his alter ego, Benjamin Murphy, the clerk who stages a one-man rebellion against the clock, the monotony of his eight-to-five job, and all the dehumanizing forces of an increasingly mechanized and commercial society. Ben's swift-moving series of fantastic adventures culminate in an escape from the ordinary that is an endorsement of the American dream. In 1941 with the world at war and civilization in danger of collapse, Williams dared to imagine a utopian future as Ben leads us up his stairs towards the Millennium. Stairs to the Roof was produced only twice, once at the Playbox in Pasadena, California, in 1945, and subsequently at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1947. Now, in an edition meticulously prepared by noted Williams scholar Allean Hale, Williams fans can share this play of youthful optimism.

    In a hunting story to beat all hunting stories, ESCANABA IN DA MOONLIGHT spins a hilarious tale of humor, horror and heart as Reuben goes to any and all lengths to remove himself from the wrong end of the family record book.

    One of the ways the resulting prosperity manifested itself was in the fashions worn by English monarchs and the growing middle class. That clothing is documented in this new addition to Dover’s popular coloring book series on the history of fashion.Encompassing clothing dating from the late fifteenth century to the early 1600s, 45 plates of accurate, ready-to-color illustrations depict apparel worn by a broad spectrum of English society — from country workers in woolen tunics and leather boots and sailors in canvas breeches and shirts to officials in fur-trimmed robes and elegantly clad Tudor monarchs such as Henry VIII and his daughter, Elizabeth I. Also shown are numerous period hairstyles, headgear, shoes, gloves, jewelry, and other fashion accessories.Accompanied by a fact-filled Introduction and identifying captions, these handsome, carefully researched and meticulously rendered illustrations will delight costume historians, fashion designers, and coloring book fans of all ages.

    Placing the protagonists and their suffering in a modern context, Ehn produces what he calls "contemporary fairy tales for the stage." The subject matter, he explains in the Preface, is "exploded biography," or "the means by which the self is overmastered by acts of the imagination, by acts of faith." An important contribution to current explorations of the poetic and spiritual in the theater, these surprising dramas create their own language, interrogating the limits of empathy and faith. "The plays grow out of [Ehn's] deep Catholic faith which reveals a specifically Franciscan spiritual energy in its community-based ethos and hallowed desire to infuse contemporary life with a feeling for the divine... Ehn's saint plays partake of the century-long Judeo-Christian tradition of modern writers dramatizing the great themes of faith, evil, spiritual longing and soul states in plays that include saints, angels or biblical characters... His joyful drama sings the praises of the poetic voice and image in portraits of people crafted like beautiful holy cards."--Bonnie Marranca, Plays for the End of the Century

    Complete in one volume, Mel Gordon explores the actor training systems of Stanislavsky and his two most important disciples, Evgeni Vakhtangov and Michael Chekhov, tracing the major teachings and refinements over the first 50 years of use by actors. Gordon reconstructs the actual exercises taught at the Moscow Art Theatre and various Russian acting studios, and he clears away the myths and confusion about the practical use of Stanislavsky's System. This volume contains: The Stanislavsky System - First Studio Exercises 1912-1916; Vakhtangov as Rebel and Theoretician - Exercises 1919-1921; Michael Chekhov - Exercises 1919-1952; and Stanislavsky's Fourth Period - Theory of Physical Actions, 1934-1938.

    The latest generation of titles in the series also feature glossaries and visual elements that complement the classic, familiar format.Betrayal and manipulation lie at the heart of "Othello." Keep up with all the crosses and double-crosses of this tragic play with the "CliffsNotes" version of the play, which will help you form your own opinions about Iago's schemes, Othello's motives, and Desdemona's loyalty.Other features that help you study include Background information about the life and times of William Shakespeare to help you understand his influencesA character map that graphically illustrates the relationships among the charactersGlossaries to help you comprehend Shakespeare's languageCritical essays on the character pairs and major themes of the playA review section that tests your knowledgeClassic literature or modern modern-day treasure -- you'll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides.

    Pronko, author, Theatre East and West, Chair, Dept. of Theatre, Pomona College Includes: Aristophanes: Lysistrata, translated by Donald Sutherland; The Birds, translated by Walter Kerr; Menander: The Grouch, translated by Sheila D'Atri; Plautus: The Menaechmi, translated by Palmer Bovie; The Haunted House, translated by Palmer Bovie; Terence: The Self-Tormentor, translated by Palmer Bovie.

    It examines: * tribal rituals and shamanic practices in the Balkans and Chinese-Tibet * the gender-bending elements of Greek and early Christian religion * the homosexual appeal of the boy actor on the traditional stage of China, Japan and England * the origins of the dame comedian, the principal boy, the glamour drag artiste and the male impersonator * artists such as David Bowie, Boy George, Charles Ludlam, Dame Edna Everage, Lily Savage, Candy Darling, Julian Clary and the New York Dolls. Lavishly illustrated with unusual and rare pictures, this is the first ever cross-cultural study of theatrical transvestism. It is a must for anyone interested in cross-dressing, theatre, and gender.

    Puppets can be traced as far back as ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and are found today in cultures worldwide, across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. This work shows how puppets have been used to relay myths, poke fun at political figures, comment on cultural events of the period, express moral stories, and entertain adults and children alike. It gives a historical overview and looks at the wide variety of this traditional art form. From European and Asian puppets in modern and ancient times to the Puppet Modernism movements, this work explores the important innovators and innovations of puppetry. Brief biographies of key figures such as Tony Sarg (credited with creating the first over-life-size puppets used for parades), Paul McPharlin (creator of Punch's Circus), and Jim Henson (world-reknowned creator of many puppets, including the Muppets) help describe the evolution of puppetry.

    Tim Supple is Artistic Director of the Young Vic. He has already adapted Grimm and Rushdie, and worked with Hughes on Spring Awakening and Blood Wedding.

    This VERY tongue-in-cheek version of the legend pits spoon-wielding Merry Men against the Prince John and his evil sidekick the Sheriff of Nottingham in one silly situation after another. Prince John plans to prevent Robin's do-gooding by capturing Maid Marian and marrying her off to the Sheriff of Nottingham. Will Robin win the day? That depends on if he remembers his bowling shoes.

    Essay topics include: Re-Discovering Lost Voices - Thoughts on Theatre, Therapy, and the Art of Voice - Finding Our Lost Singing Voices - Voice Training, Where Have We Come From? - Vocal Coaching in Private Practice - more.

    Then, one day in autumn 1942, the theatre was converted overnight into a deportation centre for Dutch Jews, and Silvia and her fellow theatre workers found themselves helping to care for the thousands of Jews being shipped off to the concentration camps. Silvia later joined a Dutch Resistance group, only to be captured by the Nazis. She survived three concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Ravensbruck. This text tells her story.

    Stage Manager: the Professional Experience takes the reader through all aspects of the craft of stage management, from prompt books and laptops to relationships and people management. It offers an extensive discussion of what makes a good stage manager, and takes the reader through each phase of a production from getting hired, to auditions and rehearsals, to the run and closing of the show. Using interviews with other professional stage managers, the author provides a practical, experience-based guide for students and aspiring professionals alike. The stage manager's role in each phase of the production is covered in detail. Working relationships, organizational tools, plans, charts, lists and forms, running auditions, cueing, touring, and the stages of rehearsal are just some of the many topics covered. An overview of the stage manager's working week provides a clear view of the many details involved in the smooth running of a production. A comprehensive working vocabulary offers an excellent reference for anyone working or hoping to work in this field.

    Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

    A variety of contemporary voice qualities including Belting and Twang are explained, with excercises for each topic.

    This is doubly true of plays by African American authors, who, despite a few notable exceptions (August Wilson, George C. Wolfe), suffer under a commercial apartheid that keeps black plays off Broadway. Of necessity, African American theater artists have to create their own venues from the ground up. This wide-ranging anthology edited by the founder of the New Federal Theater celebrates the work of that company's black-owned, black-run peers by presenting work by 11 dramatists. Among the most interesting are Jeff Stetson's moving The Meeting, which imagines a meeting between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., and Shauneille Perry's fascinating updating of In Dahomey, the 1903 musical hit that was the first 'all-Black show' on Broadway." - Jack Helbig, Booklist

    In his examination of the ways in which theatre participates in the ongoing representations of and debates about the past, Freddie Rokem concentrates on the ways in which theatre after World War II has presented different aspects of the French Revolution and the Holocaust, showing us that by OC performing historyOCO actors bring the historical past and the theatrical present together."

    This richly illustrated book contains many rare photographs, film stills, sketches, theater programs, and movie advertisements from the different productions.Piecing together the Chicago and Broadway stage productions (1902-3) from contemporary reviews, surviving script pages, and published song lyrics, Swartz shows how Baum and his many collaborators worked to transform the book into a popular theatrical attraction -- often requiring significant alterations to the original story.

    Organized like a traditional travel guide, this book offers everything a tourist needs to know to see the sights in Elizabethan London. Take in the royal menagerie at the Tower of London, enjoy a ten-course banquet at a manor house, and attend a service at St. Paul's Cathedral (if you don't, you could be fined). Where to stay, how to dress, what to do for fun...Shakespeare's London is a guided tour that puts kids at the center of the action in a fascinating era.

    In Pochsy's Lips, she's in the hospital, convinced she's sick because she's got a squid where her heart should be. In Oh Baby, she's at the Last Resort, on holiday from her job packing mercury. And in Citizen Pochsy, our little minx is in the waiting room at an audit from hell. In The Pochsy Plays, Hines remodels and melds traditions like stand-up, absurdism, clowning and neo-cabaret to create some of the most original and cutting satire to hit the stage – and, now, the page. Walk a mile in her distressed calfskin boots as the dark and ditzy Pochsy garbles ad slogans, self-help mantras and desperate grabs at meaning into a postmodern pastiche that is hilarious and harrowing, sweet and bitter at the same time. With extensive photos and musical scores, and an introduction by Darren O'Donnell.

    Covered are topics relevant to every type of performance venue: stage, film, television, theme parks, circuses, parades, fireworks displays, and beyond. The author outlines safeguards against hazardous materials such a theatrical paints, certain makeup, pigments, and solvents, and recommends protective measures for woodworking, welding, using fog and other special effects. Safety checklists, agencies to contact for help, and other important tips are included.

    I don’t think there are any plays that you could call strictly Canadian … What does that phrase mean?”Now, thirty-three years after Canadian directors spoke their minds, or rather shrugged their shoulders at the seeming hopelessness of de-colonizing Canadian theatre, this fourth edition of the “classic” Modern Canadian Plays sets out for us an even broader range of plays than previous editions, outlining a Canadian drama-scene that is far from colonial, inert, middle-class, or middle-aged. Spanning the years from 1967 to 1997, this anthology will likely continue to be the standard anthology for Canadian drama—and not without good reason.Edited by Jerry Wasserman—professor at the University of British Columbia, theatre critic for CBC, and one of Vancouver’s most recurring (and memorable) faces on television— Volume I still contains plays such as George Ryga’s seminal and highly political The Ecstasy of Rita Joe (first performed in 1967, it was described as a “cicatrice” of Canadian society that “showed the bleeding flesh beneath”), as well as Michel Tremblay’s Les Belles-Soeurs (one of the most critically acclaimed plays in Canada, translated from the original, controversial, joual). But more to the point, this edition of Volume I carries with it an even more distinct flavour of adventurousness in its juxtaposition of plays that are strikingly, even wildly, various—plays that can only be said to cohere around the difficulty of amorphous notions such as social justice, cultural belonging, and the existence of a collective past.The plays in this fourth edition of Modern Canadian Plays: Volume I date from 1967 to 1986.

    "On My Plays" provides crucial insight into how the playwright assesses the motivation behind writing his own plays, and "Rules" offers a program for a kind of writing that liberates the mind and encourages faith in language that can abide in the struggles of any kind of writer.

    Includes: Jack Juggler (Anonymous) * Lucky Peter's Journey (August Strindberg) * Big Mary (Mark Medoff) * Escape to Freedom (Ossie Davis) * No Worries (David Holman) * Soul Gone Home (Langston Hughes) * and more!

    Baron Scarface—brought up by wolves and educated at Eton—has him suspended over three tons of rotating sharpened steel. Includes: Dick Barton Special Agent and Dick Barton and the Curse of the Pharoah's Tomb.

    Every year tens of thousands of aspiring actors pursue the Hollywood grail and chant the familiar strains of the Stanislavski "Method" in classrooms and studios across the nation. The initial liberating spirit of Stanislavski's experiments has long ago withered into rigid patterns of inhibitions and emotional introspection. According to Richard Hornby, the Method now "shackles American acting." With his iconoclastic new work, The End of Acting, Richard Hornby dismantles, tenet by tenet, the American Method as promulgated by Lee Strasberg and other pretenders to the Stanislavski dynasty. Hornby separates the myth from the Method in his exploration of Stanislavski's original initiatives and the proprietary feud over his theories which continues even today.

    Theater was a ceremony bound up with fundamental activities in ancient Athenian life and Wiles explores those elements that created the theater of the time. Actors rather than writers are the book's main concern and Wiles examines how the actor used the resources of story-telling, dance, mask, song and visual action to create a large-scale event that would shape the life of the citizen community.

    Here is the vital mixture of Shakespearean heritage, Irish magic, and American vitality that resulted in a 100-year dramatic flowering. 150+ photos. NPR features.