Best of
Theatre

2004

The Intent to Live: Achieving Your True Potential as an Actor


Larry Moss - 2004
    There is a two-year waiting list for his advanced acting classes. But now everyone–professionals and amateurs alike–can discover Moss’s passionate, in-depth teaching.Inviting you to join him in the classroom and onstage, Moss shares the techniques he has developed over thirty years to help actors set their emotions, imagination, and behavior on fire, showing how the hard work of preparation pays off in performances that are spontaneous, fresh, and authentic. From the foundations of script analysis to the nuances of physicalization and sensory work, here are the case studies, exercises, and insights that enable you to connect personally with a script, develop your character from the inside out, overcome fear and inhibition, and master the technical skills required for success in the theater, television, and movies.Far more than a handbook, The Intent to Live is the personal credo of a master teacher. Moss’s respect for actors and love of the actor’s craft enliven every page, together with examples from a wealth of plays and films, both current and classic, and vivid appreciations of great performances. Whether you act for a living or simply want a deeper understanding of acting greatness, The Intent to Live will move, instruct, and inspire you.From the Hardcover edition.

Improvise.: Scene from the Inside Out


Mick Napier - 2004
    His experience as founder of the acclaimed Annoyance Theatre/Annoyance Productions, as well as Resident Director and Artistic Consultant for The Second City, has led him to continually question why and how scenes work or don't work and what one must do in order for a scene to be successful.In this book, Napier takes an irreverent, but constructive look at the art and practice of improvised scenes. He covers such topics as: two-person scenes group scenes entering scenes techniques to achieve richer, more layered scenes auditioning solo exercises for practice at home. Napier also challenges the conventional wisdom of the "rules" of improvisation, examining what's behind them and how they came to be in the first place.Get helpful, tangible guidelines for bringing strength and direction to your scenes. Just "Improvise."

The Viewpoints Book: A Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition


Anne Bogart - 2004
    It was first articulated by choreographer Mary Overlie, who broke down the two dominant issues performers deal with—space and time—into six categories. Since that time, directors Anne Bogart and Tina Landau have expanded her notions and adapted them for actors to function together spontaneously and intuitively and to generate bold, theatrical work.The Viewpoints are a set of names given to certain principles of movement through time and space—they constitute a language for talking about what happens on stage. Coupling this with Composition, which is the practice of selecting and arranging the separate components of theatrical language into a cohesive work of art, provides theatre artists with an important new tool for creating and understanding their art form.Primarily intended for the many theatre artists who, in the last several years, have become intrigued with Viewpoints yet have had no single source to refer to in their investigations. It can also be used by anyone with a general interest in collaboration and the creative process, whether in art, business or daily life.Anne Bogart is Artistic Director of the SITI Company, which she founded with Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki in 1992. She is the recipient of two OBIE Awards and a Bessie Award, and is an associate professor at Columbia University. Her recent works include Alice’s Adventures; Bobrauschenbergamerica; Small Lives, Big Dreams; Marathon Dancing; and The Baltimore Waltz.Tina Landau, noted director and playwright, whose original work includes Space (Time magazine 10 Best), Dream True (with composer Ricky Ian Gordon) and Floyd Collins (with composer Adam Guettel), which received the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, an OBIE Award and seven Drama Desk nominations. She has been an ensemble member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company since 1997.

Broadway: The American Musical


Laurence Maslon - 2004
    A companion to the six-part PBS documentary series, BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL is the first comprehensive history of the musical, from its roots at the turn of the 20th century through the smashing successes of the new millennium. The compelling, in-depth text is lavishly illustrated with a treasure trove of photographs, sheet-music covers, posters, scenic renderings, production stills, rehearsal shots, and caricatures, many previously unpublished. Complementing the narrative are lively sidebars that highlight the stars, the shows, and the songs--the key ingredients that make the musical great. Each chapter also included essays written by some of Broadway's most fascinating luminaries, past and present. An entertaining amalgam of unpublished material, candid and production photographs, and a trunkful of anecdotes and Broadway lore, BROADWAY will appeal to eighth-graders in their first high school musical as well as to connoisseurs of the art form.

Broadway Musicals: The 101 Greatest Shows of All Time


Frank Vlastnik - 2004
    Each listing includes expert commentary that sets the play in historical and cultural context, plus features on the creators and performers, plot synopses, cast and song lists, production details, backstage anecdotes, and more. Four or five beautifully reproduced photographs from each show--the majority never before published--accompany the text and make the shows leap off the page. Appendices and special features include cast albums, poster artists, revivals, guilty pleasures, Off-Broadway musicals, notable flops, and much more.

Caroline, or Change


Tony Kushner - 2004
    You’ve never seen anything quite like Caroline, or Change and likely won’t again anytime soon. There’s never a moment that the part-pop, part-opera, part-musical-theater score Jeanine Tesori has conjured up doesn’t ideally match Tony Kushner’s meticulously chosen words with clarion precision.” –Matthew Murray, talkinbroadway.com“A monumental achievement in American musical theater. Joyful, wholly successful, immensely moving, told with abundant wit and generosity of heart.” –John Helipern, New York ObserverLouisiana, 1963: A nation reeling from the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement and the Kennedy assassination. Caroline, a black maid, and Noah, the son of the Jewish family she works for, struggle to find an identity for their friendship after Noah's stepmother, unable to give Caroline a raise, tells Caroline that she may keep the money Noah leaves in his pockets. Through their intimate story, this beautiful musical portrays the changing rhythms of a nation. Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori have created a story that addresses contemporary questions of culture, community, race and class through the lens and musical pulse of the 1960s.Tony Kushner’s plays include Angels in America; Hydriotaphia, or the Death of Dr. Brown; The Illusion, adapted from the play by Pierre Cornelle; Slavs!; A Bright Room Called Day; Homebody/Kabul; Caroline, or Change, a musical with composer Jeanine Tesori; and The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols’s film of Angels in America and for Steven Spielberg’s Munich and Lincoln. His books include The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present; Brundibar, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; and Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon.Among many honors, Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, two Evening Standard Awards, an Olivier Award, an Emmy Award, two Oscar nominations, and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.Jeanine Tesori composed the scores for Tony Award-winning musicals Thoroughly Modern Millie and Shrek the Musical as well as Violet and Caroline, or Change. She is the recipient of multiple Drama Desk and Obie Awards, and her film composition credits include Nights in Rodanthe, Winds of Change, Show Business, and Wrestling With Angels.

Making It on Broadway: Actors' Tales of Climbing to the Top


David Wienir - 2004
    With an introduction by Jason Alexander and candid interviews with today's most celebrated Broadway stars, this book offers stories to entertain and astonish theater lovers, as well as serve as a sobering reality check for those considering careers on the stage. This book shares firsthand accounts of professional actors' difficult yet fulfilling journeys to Broadway: moving to New York, finding survival jobs, auditioning, landing roles, avoiding pitfalls, forging a family life, and much more.Interviews Include These Award-Winning Actors:• Jason Alexander• Daisy Eagan• Heather Headley• Wilson Heredia• Randy Graff• Donna McKechnie• Donna Murphy• John Rubinstein• Lea Salonga• Scott Wise• Chita Rivera

Tick, Tick ... Boom!


Jonathan Larson - 2004
    An acclaimed three-person musical, tick, tick ... BOOM! is an autobiographical piece from the late Jonathan Larson, the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer of Rent . Our songbook features 12 tunes from the production: Come to Your Senses * Green Green Dress * Johnny Can't Decide * Louder Than Words * No More * Real Life * See Her Smile * Sugar * Sunday * Therapy * 30/90 * Why.

Avenue Q - The Musical


Robert Lopez - 2004
    2004 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical ! Playbill.com describes Avenue Q, a decidedly adult puppet/human show, as a meeting of Sesame Street and South Park . Our deluxe songbook features all 20 songs in standard piano/vocal format (melody in the piano part), more than 20 fabulous full-color photos from the production, and a bio of the writing team of Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, who've scored big with their first Broadway show! Tunes include: The Avenue Q Theme * Fantasies Come True * I Wish I Could Go Back to College * I'm Not Wearing Underwear Today * If You Were Gay * The Internet Is for Porn * It Sucks to Be Me * Mix Tape * The Money Song * Purpose * There Is Life Outside Your Apartment * What Do You Do with a B.A. in English * and more. PARENTAL ADVISORY: EXPLICIT LYRICS

The Steamie


Tony Roper - 2004
    Set in 1950, the play takes place on Hogmanay in a Glasgow public wash house or 'Steamie'. As the washing is done, four women sing, laugh and cry their way through the last working day of that year, with a little help from the increasingly not so handy Andy.Portraying a way of life in the midst of change, The Steamie fast became a firm favourite with people of all ages up and down the land and, to this day, its popularity shows no signs of waning. Half a century on, the way we work may have changed but, whenever the play is staged, it can still strike a chord of recognition in members of the audience and have them rolling in the aisles with laughter one moment and wiping away a tear the next.The novel The Steamie delves further into the lives of Doreen, Magrit, Mrs Culfeather and Dolly. It also brings some of the lively characters that only get a passing mention in the play more to the forefront. As the women get on with their washing, we eavesdrop on Magrit's man who has her 'up to high doh' most of the time as he will 'neither work nor want'. We come to understand why the bad behaviour of her two laddies will be the death of her. And we also meet her daughter who, happily for Magrit, is a lovely wee lassie and provides welcome relief from the troubles the males in her family are always bringing her. We are introduced to Mrs Culfeather's husband, Harry. Over the years, life hasn't treated Harry very kindly but he reminds us that there can be laughter in spite of the struggle that was life in those days. Then there's Doreen's other half, John, and, last but certainly not least, Dolly's family also make an appearance.The Steamie is a hilarious yet, at times, also deeply moving cameo of Glasgow's social history. The washing was always easier to do when joys and sorrows were shared and, of course, time passed much more quickly when the supply of scandalous gossip was as endless as the pile of dirty clothes!

The Long Christmas Ride Home


Paula Vogel - 2004
    . . even more ambitious than Vogel's "How I Learned to Drive" . . . it covers more ground and is bolder in its storytelling. Vogel's language is at its most poetic, eloquent and elegiac. In fact, its vivid imagery rivals the prose style of any great American short story writer. The play sounds like it might have been adapted from a beautiful, undiscovered novella."-"New Haven Register""One of the most absorbing evenings of theatre to come along in some time."-"Variety"Past and present collide on a snowy Christmas Eve for a troubled family of five. Humorous and heart-wrenching, this beautifully written play proves that magic can be found in the simplest breaths of life. Combining the elements of No theatre and Bunraku with contemporary Western sensibilities, Vogel's "Ride" is a mesmerizing homage to the works of Thornton Wilder, including "Our Town." A moving and memorable study of the American family careening near the edge of oblivion.Paula Vogel's plays include "The Baltimore Waltz," "Mineola Twins," "Hot 'n' Throbbing," "Desdemona," "And Baby Makes Seven," among others. Ms. Vogel will be the resident playwright during the Signature Theatre's 2004?05 season dedicated to her works. She has taught at Brown University in the MFA playwriting program since 1985.

Festen


David Eldridge - 2004
    Missing from the roster of invitees is Christian's twin sister, Linda, who recently committed suicide. The reason for her action and the repercussions from it, form the basis of the shocking and painful events that transpire during a twenty-four hour period. In the midst of dinner, Christian makes a startling accusation and, even as the disbelieving guests are choosing sides, the play slowly unwraps the truth.David Eldridge powerful new play is adapted from Thomas Vinterborg's screenplay of the very successful film, Dogme.Published to tie in with Almeida Theatre production in March 2004 directed by Rufus Norris

200 More Neo-Futurist Plays: from Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (30 Plays in 60 Minutes)


The Neo-Futurists - 2004
    (100 Neo-Futurist Plays, Chicago Plays, 1991 and Neo-Solo: 131 Neo-Futurist Solo Plays, Hope and Nonthings, 2002.)"Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind," created by Greg Allen, debuted in Chicago in December, 1988, and has been playing to sold out houses ever since. The show presents 30 plays in 60 minutes, 50 weeks a year, to a devoted following. The ensemble of writer-performers generates between 2 and 12 new plays each week, as dictated by a roll of the dice, creating a constantly changing menu of plays. The material runs the gamut of style, tone, and topic: musical, confession, agit-prop, poetic gesture, physical comedy, puppet theater, audience interrogation, folk song, sex joke, and many more. The plays are funny, moving, challenging, powerful, and occasionally just plain weird, but all within The Neo-Futurists' trademark non-illusory aesthetic. There is no "fourth wall" in "Too Much Light" — the show embraces the ideal that theater is created in the connection between audience and performer, in the two-way exchange of ideas, emotions, and energy, and in an honest exploration of everyday life. Randomness, dynamism, speed, brevity, and planned obsolescence are celebrated and exploited to engage and refresh participants on both sides of the theatrical equation.The 200 plays in this volume reflect the diversity of 27 ensemble members and the multiplicity of viewpoints and voices they bring to the stage. The plays stand as an entertaining document of some of the show's output from 1993 to 2002 history as well as ideal material for actor scene study, auditions, and competition presentations.

Kazuo Ohno's World: From Without & Within


Kazuo Ohno - 2004
    Now for the first time, Ohno's words and insights are available in English. This book brings together two distinct but related works: the first, Food for the Soul, is an interview with Yoshito Ohno about his father and his father's dances. With the help of some 100 photographs, he reveals a compelling and complex figure. The second, Workshop Words, is a collection of talks given by Kazuo Ohno to his students during workshops, complemented by photographs of Ohno in intimate settings. Lavishly illustrated and beautifully designed, this book is a finely nuanced portrait of one of the most distinctive contemporary performers to emerge from Japan in the 20th century. It is an indispensable manual for the aspiring performer in any field.

Cirque Du Soleil: 20 Years Under the Sun - An Authorized History


Tony Babinski - 2004
    25,000 first printin

Humoring the Body: Emotions and the Shakespearean Stage


Gail Kern Paster - 2004
    In Humoring the Body, Gail Kern Paster proposes a new way to read the emotions of the early modern stage so that contemporary readers may recover some of the historical particularity in early modern expressions of emotional self-experience.Using notions drawn from humoral medical theory to untangle passages from important moral treatises, medical texts, natural histories, and major plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, Paster identifies a historical phenomenology in the language of affect by reconciling the significance of the four humors as the language of embodied emotion. She urges modern readers to resist the influence of post-Cartesian abstraction and the disembodiment of human psychology lest they miss the body-mind connection that still existed for Shakespeare and his contemporaries and constrained them to think differently about how their emotions were embodied in a premodern world.

I Am My Own Wife


Doug Wright - 2004
    A transvestite and celebrated antiques dealer who successfully navigated the two most oppressive regimes of the past century-the Nazis and the Communists--while openly gay and defiantly in drag, von Mahlsdorf was both hailed as a cultural hero and accused of colluding with the Stasi. In an attempt to discern the truth about Charlotte, Doug Wright has written "at once a vivid portrait of Germany in the second half of the twentieth century, a morally complex tale about what it can take to be a survivor, and an intriguing meditation on everything from the obsession with collecting to the passage of time" (Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times).

The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone


Seamus Heaney - 2004
    During the War of the Seven Against Thebes, Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus, learns that her brothers have killed each other, having been forced onto opposing sides of the battle. When Creon, king of Thebes, grants burial of one but not the "treacherous" other, Antigone defies his order, believing it her duty to bury all of her close kin. Enraged, Creon condemns her to death, and his soldiers wall her up in a tomb. While Creon eventually agrees to Antigone's release, it is too late: She takes her own life, initiating a tragic repetition of events in her family's history.In this outstanding new translation, commissioned by Ireland's renowned Abbey Theatre to commemorate its centenary, Seamus Heaney exposes the darkness and the humanity in Sophocles' masterpiece, and inks it with his own modern and masterly touch.

Michael Chekhov: On Theatre and the Art of Acting


Michael Chekhov - 2004
    The highlights include: The Art of Characterization; Short Cuts to Role Preparation; How to Awaken Artistic Feelings and Emotions; Avoiding Monotony in Performance; Overcoming Inhibitions and Building Self-Confidence; Psycho-Physical Exercises; and Development of the Ensemble Spirit.

A Theater of Our Own: A History and a Memoir of 1,001 Nights in Chicago


Richard Christiansen - 2004
    Who produced the first stage adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz" in 1902-nearly forty years before the movie classic? What entertainment juggernaut began in a converted Chinese laundry on Wells Street in 1959? Where did Louis (Studs) Terkel make his stage debut? When did the original production of "Grease" open at Kingston Mines Theater? Richard Christiansen, former chief critic for the Chicago Tribune, answers these and many more questions about the rich role of the theater in Chicago, from its earliest days in 1837 to its present state as a diverse community of artists with international stature. In A Theater of Our Own, he draws upon his exclusive interviews, insights, and memories gathered over a period of more than forty years of reviewing the arts. This history and memoir traces the evolution of the Chicago theater scene from small theaters to major institutions such as the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, the Goodman Theater, and The Second City. Along the way, Richard Christiansen relates his behind-the-scenes conversations with some of Chicago's most acclaimed writers, directors, and actors--David Mamet, Frank Galati, Mary Zimmerman, John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf, Harold Ramis, Gary Sinise, and Joe Mantegna--all a part of Chicago's theater renaissance from the 1970s onward. To this day, Chicago remains a city known for its imaginative, innovative, and influential theaters and artists. A Theater of Our Own, a valuable contribution to the history of theater, is a book written for anyone who enjoys the theater and its people as well as the story of Chicago.

God of Vengeance


Donald Margulies - 2004
    For his daughter Rivkele, however, Jack aspires for something more—respectability through her marriage to a religious scholar. But Rivkele’s tender love affair with Manke, one of Jack’s prostitutes, threatens to destroy the upcoming marriage, and with it, Jack’s dream of redemption. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Donald Margulies transforms Sholom Asch’s classic mortality tale into a work of spellbinding power.Donald Margulies received the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Dinner with Friends. The play received numerous awards, including the American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, the Dramatists Guild/Hull-Warriner Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award and a Drama Desk nomination, and has been produced all over the United States and around the world. In addition to his adaptation of God of Vengeance, his many plays include Collected Stories, The Country House, Sight Unseen, The Model Apartment, The Loman Family Picnic, What’s Wrong with This Picture? and Time Stands Still. Mr. Margulies currently lives with his wife and their son in New Haven, Connecticut, where he teaches playwriting at Yale University.

How to Make Dances in an Epidemic: Tracking Choreography in the Age of AIDS


David Gere - 2004
    The time he writes about is one of extremes. A life-threatening medical syndrome is spreading, its transmission linked to sex. Blame is settling on gay men. What is possible in such a highly charged moment, when art and politics coincide?    Gere expands the definition of choreography to analyze not only theatrical dances but also the protests conceived by ACT-UP and the NAMES Project AIDS quilt. These exist on a continuum in which dance, protest, and wrenching emotional expression have become essentially indistinguishable. Gere offers a portrait of gay male choreographers struggling to cope with AIDS and its meanings.

The Mrożek Reader


Sławomir Mrożek - 2004
    A sharp critic of all oppressive systems during the Cold War, he began his career as a young enthusiast for the new Communist regime in the early 1950s. It didn’t take long, however, until he was deemed such a threat that his work was banned not only in his native Poland, but also in all Eastern bloc countries. After the fall of Communism, he returned home from self imposed exile in the West and was recognized as a major literary figure. This reissue of fourteen plays and ten short stories, along with a sampling of his capricious cartoons, affirms Mrozek’s mastery of a wide spectrum of styles, and illustrates the development of his talent over the decades. From the vantage point of the twenty-first century, Mro¿ek’s questioning of authority, his razor-sharp sense of the comic, and his spirit of contradiction seem as fresh, and as relevant, as ever.

Pirandello: Six Characters in Search of an Author


Jennifer Lorch - 2004
    Pirandello's challenge to stage representation was taken up by leading directors and changed theater's perception of itself. Jennifer Lorch examines the play's impact through close analysis of individual productions in the context of theater history and practice. Her book includes a chronology of the most important productions, a bibliography and illustrations from major productions.

Performance: Live Art Since the '60s


Roselee Goldberg - 2004
    Its anarchic experiments have put it at the forefront of the twentieth-century avant-garde. In the four decades since the 1960s there has been an astonishing increase in the number of its practitioners worldwide, and it has radically influenced and altered not only all the other arts, from theater to music to photography, but is also all-pervasive in popular culture, politics, and social attitudes. Juxtaposing startling images and texts, this book presents for the first time the broadest panorama of this multifaceted and elusive art form. From Yves Klein and Piero Manzoni to Joseph Beuys and Robert Wilson, Meredith Monk, Laurie Anderson, Pina Bausch, Matthew Barney, Bill T. Jones, Gilbert George, Mona Hatoum, and many others, with scores of works from Europe, the Americas, Japan, and Australia, this landmark publication is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in visual culture. 332 illustrations, 123 in color.

Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement


Stephen J. Bottoms - 2004
    Playing Underground is an insightful, illuminating, and honest appraisal of this important period in American theater."-Rosalyn Drexler, author of Art Does (Not!) Exist and Occupational Hazard"An epic movie of an epic movement, Playing Underground is a book the world has waited for without knowing it. How precisely it captures the evolution of our revolution! I am amazed by the book's scope and scale, and I bless its author especially for giving two greats, Paul Foster and H. M. Koutoukas, their proper, polar places, and for memorializing such unjustly forgotten masterpieces as Irene Fornes's Molly's Dream and Jeff Weiss's A Funny Walk Home. Stephen Bottoms's vivid evocation of the grand adventure of Off-Off Broadway has woken and broken my heart. It is difficult to believe that he was not there alongside me to breathe the caffeine-nicotine-alkaloid-steeped air."-Robert Patrick, author of Kennedy's Children and Temple SlaveFew books address the legendary age of 1960s off-off Broadway theater. Fortunately, Stephen Bottoms fills that gap with Playing Underground---the first comprehensive history of the roots of off-off Broadway. This is a theater whose legacy is still felt today: it was the launching pad for many leading contemporary theater artists, including Sam Shepard, Maria Irene Fornes, and others, and it was a pivotal influence on improv comedy and shows like Saturday Night Live.Off-off Broadway groups such as the Living Theatre, La Mama, and Caffe Cino captured the spirit of nontraditional theater with their edgy, unscripted, boundary-crossing subjects. Yet, as Bottoms discovers, there is no one set of truths about off-off Broadway to uncover; the entire scene was always more a matter of competing perceptions than a singular, concrete reality.No other author has managed to illuminate this shifting tableau as Bottoms does. Through interviews with dozens of the era's leading playwrights, performers, directors, and critics, he unearths a countercultural theater movement that was both influential and transforming-yet ephemeral and quintessentially of its moment.Playing Underground will be a definitive work on the subject, offering a complete picture of an important but little-studied period in American theater.

Rehearsing with Gods: Photographs and Essays on the Bread & Puppet Theater


Ronald T. Simon - 2004
    Since the early sixties Schumann and his puppeteers have been pouring out work after work on every scale: political works, mysterious works, grand works, modest works, works on the street and works in fields, works to be played in every size theater on four continents, books, prints, posters, and banners which live as show-and-tell in so many homes.Now Ron Simon and Marc Estrin, a remarkable photographer, and a long-time puppeteer, who have each in his own way contributed to the shows, recorded events, and reflected on them. Out of their experiences they have created Rehearsing with Gods: Photographs and Essays on the Bread & Puppet Theater.Far more than history or documentation, they identify eight archetypes engaged repeatedly by Peter Schumann and his crew. Their book consists of parallel meditations--the texts not commenting on the photos, the photos not illustrating the texts--unified and intertwined by the chapter themes of Death, Fiend, Beast, Human, World, Gift, Bread, and Hope.Altogether, it's a collaboration that reflects their sixty-odd man-years of personal experience in, hidden narratives of, and speculative reflections on Peter Schumann's projects, ever-more relevant to our times. This is a book that will engage both fans and newcomers--an inside-view of Peter Schumann's political-artistic world.

1000 Clowns: More or Less


H. Thomas Steele - 2004
    Bulbous noses, orange hair, red mouths, sad eyes--Taschen captures it all in an hilarious and frightening collection of bad clown art

Chavez Ravine (L.A. Theatre Works Audio Theatre Collection) [UNABRIDGED]


Culture Clash - 2004
    The controversial history of Chavez Ravine, the immigrant community that once existed on the site that is now Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, is explored with humor, brutal honesty, and pulse-racing music by the nation's premier Chicano/Latino theatre troupe, Culture Clash.

A Must See!: Brilliant Broadway Artwork


Steven Suskin - 2004
    For this compendium of graphic design excellence, theatre historian Steven Suskin combed through rare archives to bring us more than fifty years of plays and 175 compelling pieces of Broadway art. Dazzling shows and their glittering stars spill off the pages in artwork from top illustrators of the day, such as Al Hirshfeld, William Steig, Peter Arno, Alberto Vargas, and even Norman Rockwell. Covering every genre, A Must See! includes great hits (Oklahoma!, A Streetcar Named Desire), ignominious flops (Kelly, Carrie), and assorted delights in between. Throughout, Suskin peppers the text with insider information and juicy asides. Much of this material hasn't been seen since the shows closed eons ago, making A Must See! a bonanza of a browsebook -- shining with well-loved classics and surprising oddities from the beloved world of Broadway.

Another Opening, Another Show: An Introduction to the Theatre


Tom Markus - 2004
    Its survey of the theatre landscape is enlivened by behind-the-scenes stories from the two authors--one an actor/director and the other a costume designer. Exercises at the ends of chapters (unique to this text) prompt students to reflect on their own experiences with theatre.

William Shakespeare, Hamlet


Ann Thompson - 2004
    Now the most extensively annotated version of Hamlet to date makes the play completely accessible to readers in the twenty-first century. It has been carefully assembled with students, teachers, and the general reader in mind.Eminent linguist and translator Burton Raffel offers generous help with vocabulary and usage of Elizabethan English, pronunciation, prosody, and alternative readings of phrases and lines. His on-page annotations provide readers with all the tools they need to comprehend the play and begin to explore its many possible interpretations. This version of Hamlet is unparalleled for its thoroughness and adherence to sound historical linguistics. In his introduction, Raffel offers important background on the origins and previous versions of the Hamlet story, along with an analysis of the characters Hamlet and Ophelia. And in a concluding essay, Harold Bl

Plays 2: Sallinger / Night Just Before the Forests / Quay West / In the Solitude of Cotton Fields


Bernard-Marie Koltès - 2004
    Second collection of plays by the legendary French playwright.

Inventing van Gogh


Steven Dietz - 2004
    Patrick Stone, a contemporary painter, is hired to forge this final masterpiece and finds himself squaring off, across the years, with van Gogh himself. The result is a compelling mystery about the obsession to create and the fine line that separates truth from myth.

We Will Rock You: The Musical By Queen And Ben Elton: The Official Book Including Script And Full Lyrics To All Songs: Original London Production


Ben Elton - 2004
    Containing the full script plus the lyrics to all the Queen songs from We Will Rock You, as well as hundreds of striking photographs and behind the scenes insight, this fully official book captures the magic of a unique West End experience - and the extraordinary genius of Queen.

Reading the Early Modern Passions: Essays in the Cultural History of Emotion


Gail Kern Paster - 2004
    In speaking to the question of the historicity and variability of emotions within individuals, several of these essays investigate specific emotions, such as sadness, courage, and fear. Other essays turn to emotions spread throughout society by contemporary events, such as a ruler's death, the outbreak of war, or religious schism, and discuss how such emotions have widespread consequences in both social practice and theory.Addressing anxieties about the power of emotions; their relation to the public good; their centrality in promoting or disturbing an individual's relation to God, to monarch, and to fellow human beings, the authors also look at the ways emotion serves as a marker or determinant of gender, ethnicity, and humanity. Contributors to the volume include Zirka Filipczak, Victoria Kahn, Michael Schoenfeldt, Bruce Smith, Richard Strier, and Gary Tomlinson.

Wada Trilogy


Mahesh Elkunchwar - 2004
    From "Old Stone Mansion", to "The Pool", to "Apocalypse", we follow the fortunes and struggles of the Deshpandes of Dharangon. This new edition supplements the text with a new introduction and an interview with the playwright.

Funny, It Doesn't Sound Jewish: How Yiddish Songs and Synagogue Melodies Influenced Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood [With CD] (SUNY Series in Modern Jewish Literature and Culture)


Jack Gottlieb - 2004
    Documents the influence of Jewish music on American popular song.

Ondine: Diary of a Ballet


Hans Werner Henze - 2004
    During the creation of the work Henze kept a diary of its progress and of his thoughts on the choreography and the music. Here translated into English for the first time, this book gives a major insight into the workings of the creators' minds during the composition of one of the twentieth century's major works of art.

Journey to the West


Mary Zimmerman - 2004
    Yu’s translation, takes as its point of departure the true story of a seventh-century monk and his fabled pilgrimage from China to India in search of sacred texts. Mixing whimsy with spiritual weight, Zimmerman’s script combines comedy, adventure, and satire in a moving allegory of human perseverance.

Bright Ideas


Eric Coble - 2004
    Their three-year-old son, Mac, is next on the waiting list to get into the Bright Ideas Early Childhood Development Academy—and everyone knows once you're in there, your life will unfold with glorious ease. Josh and Gen have had to scramble all their lives to get this far...and now they are one fatal dinner party away from the ultimate success as parents: The Right Pre-School. You may never look at pre-school—or pesto—the same way again...

Polish Joke and Other Plays


David Ives - 2004
    Nine-year-old Midwesterner Jan Bogdan Sadlowski, nicknamed, Jasiu, is told by his uncle that Poles are thought to be" backward, stupid, inept, and gloomy." The only way out is for Jaisu "to impersonate someone not Polish."Don Juan In Chicago, called in which a Renaissance innocent makes a deal with the devil only to become a reluctant Latin lover.Ancient History, this comedy-drama about the holy war that breaks out when two people from two very different cultures fall in love.The Red Address, the searing portrait of a man with a secret who is forced by tragedy into self-revelation.

A Hymn to Him: The Lyrics of Alan Jay Lerner


Alan Jay Lerner - 2004
    In the course of a career which produced sixteen musicals, most of them written in collaboration with his long-standing partner Fritz Loewe, Alan Jay Lerner won a place among the greatest lyricists of the century. Songs like "On a Clear Day," "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face," "I Remember It Well," "On the Street Where You Live," and many others have transcended the musicals for which they were written and passed into common currency. This collection of Lerner's lyrics includes not only the much-loved songs from his musicals but also the less familiar work. Hardcover.

Not Even a Game Anymore: The Theatre of Forced Entertainment


Judith Helmer - 2004
    

The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics


Erika Fischer-Lichte - 2004
    In setting performance art on an equal footing with the traditional art object, she heralds a new aesthetics.The peculiar mode of experience that a performance provokes - blurring distinctions between artist and audience, body and mind, art and life - is here framed as the breeding ground for a new way of understanding performing arts, and through them even wider social and cultural processes.With an introduction by Marvin Carlson, this translation of the original Asthetik des Performativen addresses key issues in performance art, experimental theatre and cultural performances to lay the ground for a new appreciation of the artistic event.

Maude Adams: Idol of American Theater, 1872-1953


Armond Fields - 2004
    She first appeared on stage as an infant in her actress mother's arms, and then moved to a succession of children's parts. Her New York debut came in 1888, supported by E. H. Southern and then Charles Frohman, a demanding mentor. In 1905, she played her most famous role: the star of James M. Barrie's Peter Pan. Beautiful, kind, and very private, this early American actress is chronicled in a biography covering both her life experiences and innovations on the stage.

Espresso


Lucia Frangione - 2004
    One of Lucia Frangione’s blasphemy plays,’ it inverts the Catholic stereotypes of feminine sexuality to boldly examine their corresponding masculine sexual emblems of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. In an erotic world where men are traditionally cast as either fathers to be looked up to or sons to be looked after, where, for women, is the possibility of a flesh-and-blood lover, challenging her to open her heart without trespassing her will—a lover as he appears in the Song of Solomon: passionate, earthy, creative, vulnerable and beautiful— the avatar of the holy spirit? There has been a horrible car crash, and Vito, the patriarch of an immigrant family, has had his body smashed and his heart lacerated, his life hanging by threads of tubes and wires in an intensive care ward. His family has rushed in from all over the country for an anxious vigil of hope, prayer and memory by his bedside. In this crucible of anxiety, a single actress alternately narrates and enacts her own and her family’s history along with an uninvited narrator/actor, Amante (“lover” in Italian). As Amante engages all the women of the clan Rosa plays in a swirl of sharply portrayed characters—Vito’s mother, Nonna, forced into marriage at 13 but only now, at 67, experiencing the first intimations of her body’s desire; the pit-bull martyrdom of Vito’s second wife, Vincenza; and Rosa herself in her own thin, urbane skin stretched tight to hold in the red, passionate blood that boils just below the surface—we are never sure whether Rosa has created Amante or he has created her.Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.

The Left Hand Singing


Barbara Lebow - 2004
    As the parents of Honey, Linda, and Wes cope with their loss, they become inescapably linked the heirs of their lost children s dreams. Throughout the next three decades, the connections among these people with very disparate backgrounds are tested against the fire of the country s social and political turbulence. The structure of the play mixes naturalism with a surprising time curve that evokes the whirl of events surrounding the parents interwoven journeys.

Canadian Theatre History: Selected Readings


Don Rubin - 2004
    A collection of original documents and publications by Canadian theatre professions and cultural commentators.

The East/West Quartet


Ping Chong - 2004
    His work more than any other artist has explored the ways Asian cultures have intersected with contemporary American society and throughout history.This volume collects four of his masterworks created over the past decade, including:Deshima (1990), a documentary collage of the history of the West and Japan;Chinoiserie (1995), spans centuries, continents and cultures, where the mysterious East meets the mysterious West;After Sorrow (1997), explores the legacy of war in Vietnam;Pojagi (1999), a poetic documentary on Korea from the sixteenth century to today.The Washington Post has said these works are "like poems in their simplicity and power to evoke . . . -carefully wrought and beautifully designed.Artfully and elegantly conceived, rich in metaphor, political yet deeply personal, the four works in The East-West Quartet tell us much about the pitfalls and ironies of history, the various contradictions, collisions and collusions within the East and the West, and the search for national and personal identity. A true citizen of the world, Ping Chong refuses to be pigeonholed and goes his own way, as much at home on the streets of Beijing and Paris as he is on the Canal Street in New York. He continues to make work that bristles with intelligence, that is filled with empathy for the human condition, that is angry yet beautiful - work that matters. It is all here in this book." - Jessica Hagedorn, from her preface"As an artist , I’m an outsider in American society. As an experimental artist, I’m an outsider in the art world. As a person of color, I’m an outsider; as an immigrant, I’m an outsider; as a gay man, I’m an outsider. It’s the position that fate has allotted me, but it’s a valuable postion to be in, because I think every society should have a mirror held to it by the outsider."—Ping Chong, 1999Ping Chong was born in 1946 and raised in the Chinatown section of New York City. He began his theatrical career with Meredith Monk and later founded his own company in 1975, which later became Ping Chong and Company. It was created to explore the meaning of contemporary theatre and art on a national and international level. He has created over fifty major works for the stage, including Humboldt’s Current, Nosferatu, Kind Ness, and Undesirable Elements. His works have received numerous Obie and Bessie Awards and are performed throughout the world.