Beverly is organizing the perfect dinner, but everything seems doomed to go awry--the silverware is all wrong, the radio is on the fritz, and the rest of the family can't be bothered to lift a hand to help. And yet, what appears at first to be a standard family dramedy takes a sharp, sly turn into a startling examination of deep-seated paradigms about race in America.

    On September 11, 2001, 38 planes and 6,579 passengers were forced to land in the provincial town of Gander, Newfoundland. The local residents opened their arms to the displaced visitors, offering food, shelter, and friendship. In the days that followed, cultures clashed and nerves ran high, but uneasiness turned into trust, music soared into the night, and gratitude grew into enduring friendships. Come From Away: Welcome to the Rock is the ultimate companion piece to Irene Sankoff and David Hein's smash-hit musical based on that extraordinary experience. Featuring the complete book and lyrics for the first time in print, a foreword by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and exclusive photos of the company and physical production, this essential companion also includes original interviews with passengers, Gander residents, and the actors who portray them. The narrative by theater historian Laurence Maslon details the events of that memorable and challenging week and also traces the musical's development from the ten-year reunion of residents and airline passengers in Gander, where the idea for the musical was born , to the global phenomenon it is today. Come From Away: Welcome to the Rock gives an unprecedented look behind the curtain and demonstrates why the story has touched so many so deeply: Because we come from everywhere, we all come from away.

    Now, with this inspiring, highly practical book, you too can learn from these acclaimed Masterclasses.Playwriting reveals the various invisible frameworks and mechanisms that are at the heart of each and every successful play. Drawing on a huge range of sources, it deconstructs playwriting into its constituent parts, and offers illuminating insights into:Structure an in-depth exploration of the fundamental elements of drama, enabling you to choose instinctively the most effective structure for your playCharacter advice on how to generate and write credible characters by exploring their three essential dimensions: story, breadth and depthHow to Write techniques for writing great dialogue, dynamic scenes and compelling subtext, including how to improve your writing by approaching it from unfamiliar directionsWhat to Write how to adopt different approaches to finding your material, how to explore the fundamental 'Nine Stories', and how to evaluate the potential of your ideasWritten by a true master of the craft, this authoritative guide will provide playwrights at every level of experience with a rich array of tools to apply to their own work.This edition, edited by Maeve McKeown, includes a Foreword by April De Angelis.

    Wanting her to share in the joke. But she didn't. She just stared. I knew then, in that moment - that she had taken it literally...Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Richard Gadd has a chilling story to tell about obsession, delusion and the terrifying ramifications of a fleeting mistake.This powerful and engaging monologue play portrays a man brought to the edge by the actions of a chance encounter which takes a toll on all aspects of his life. In doing so it asks important questions about victims, the justice system and how one decision has the ability to change your life.

    Some forty years later, in the Hip Hop Generation, Nicole reunites with her ex-boyfriend on a basketball court, wondering where he’s been, when a police officer stops them.In this striking debut, Amanda Parris turns the spotlight on the Black women who organize communities, support their incarcerated loved ones, and battle institutions, living each day by a ride-or-die philosophy, strengthening their voices and demanding to be heard.

    

    Covers every facet of the business, including: -        Capturing the perfect headshot -        Starting (and maintaining) your network -        Picking an agent -        Audition do’s and don’ts -        Joining the union(s): SAG-AFTRA and Actors Equity Association (AEA) -        On stage vs on screen -        Paying the bills -        Self-promotion -        Late bloomers -        When to get out  David Dean Bottrell has worn many different hats during his decades in showbiz: television actor with appearances on Boston Legal, Modern Family, The Blacklist, Mad Men, True Blood, NCIS, and Days of Our Lives; screenwriter for Paramount and Disney; respected acting teacher at UCLA and AADA; and regular expert columnist for esteemed acting site Backstage. In Working Actor, Bottrell offers a how-to manual jammed with practical information and insider advice, essential reading for any artist (aspiring or established) in need of insight or inspiration. Mixing prescriptive advice ("Getting Started," "Learning Your Craft," "Finding an Agent") with wisdom drawn from Bottrell's own professional highs and lows and those of his acting compatriots, this book's humorous, tell-it-like-it-is tone is a must-have guide for anyone hoping to successfully navigate show business.

    But all is not as blissful as it seems. Diana has a stinking hangover, a fox is destroying the garden, and secrets are being dug up all over the place. As the day draws on, what starts as gentle ribbing and the familiar rhythms of marital sparring quickly turns to blood-sport.A witty and devastating new play.Hansard premiered at the National Theatre, London, in August 2019.

    Sophie, a young working-class girl, falls madly in love with and marries a stable-hand named Jonny. After two difficult childbirths, doctors tell Sophie she shouldn't have any more children, but don't tell her how to prevent it. When Sophie inevitably becomes pregnant again, she faces a grim dilemma. In an unflinching look at love, sex, and fertility, and inspired by real stories of mothers during the Canadian birth-control movement of the early twentieth century, one of Canada's most celebrated playwrights vividly recreates a couple's struggles with reproduction.

    Chicago is a bona fide theater town, bursting with an explosive, innovative vitality that's fed every sector of the entertainment industry--from Hollywood to Broadway to Studio 8H--for as long as it's delighted adoring local fans.Ensemble is an in-depth, first-of-its-kind history of Chicago's internationally celebrated theater scene, spanning 65 years and told through first-person accounts from the people who made it happen.Among many other topics, this book explores the early days of the fabled Compass Players and the legendary Second City in the '50s and '60s; the rise of internationally acclaimed ensembles like Steppenwolf in the '70s; the explosion of storefront and neighborhood companies that began in earnest in the '80s; and the enduring global influence of the city as the center of improv training and performance.Drawing from more than 300 interviews, author Mark Larson has woven a narrative that expresses the spirit of Chicago's ensemble ethos: the voices of celebrities such as Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Asner, George Wendt, Michael Shannon, and Tracy Letts comingle with stories from designers, composers, and others who have played a crucial role in making Chicago theater so powerful, influential, and unique.

    It protects James, a young slave, while he reads newspapers about the imminent possibility of freedom, as the battle rages on. When a brooding stranger arrives, James and his makeshift family take the man in. Soon, an unexpected bond leads to a striking romance, and everyone is in uncharted territory. But is love powerful enough to set your true self free?

    The father, James, is a recovering alcoholic seeking redemption, and the two daughters are struggling to overcome their differences—Sophie is an ardent born-again Christian, while Hiro lives a single’s life in New York City. John, an old high school classmate of Hiro’s who is now a single dad, worries about leaving a legacy for his son. Wry and bittersweet, God Said This vividly captures the complexities of a familial reconciliation in the throes of crisis and looks deeply at the meaning of family—Japanese, Southern, and otherwise.   This is the first Yale Drama Series winner chosen by Pulitzer prize–winning playwright Ayad Akhtar, who describes the play as conveying “a deeply felt sense of the universal—of the perfection of our parents’ flawed love for each other and for us; for the ways in which the approach of death can order the meaning of a human life.”

    But Mary’s mother appears from the vaults of memory, and adamantly questions the motives of Mary’s cousin Jane and her half-sister Bess, despite Mary’s affection for them both. As the kingdom splits along Roman Catholic and Protestant lines, Mary walks a gauntlet of squabbling ethics and politics, and is forced to make some tough decisions. Should she execute her opponents before it’s too late, the way her father did? Should she scramble to find a husband who can give her a rightful heir? And can she trust her mother, her sister, or even herself?

    Poet and playwright Alfian Sa'at calls for greater support for the arts in our city-state.

    Experiential stories based on extensive experience with world-renowned artists exemplify the practices and provide frameworks for self-reflection, synthesis, and engagement with theory-guided practice. This book empowers stage managers to include the 'How You' with 'How To' by flexing collaborative muscles and engaging tools to guide any collaborative project to fruition with creativity, curiosity, and the drive to build connections.Exploring topics such as group dynamics, ethics, culture, conflict resolution, and strategic communication, Stage Management Theory as a Guide to Practice: Cultivating a Creative Approach is an essential tool for advanced stage management students, educators, and professionals.

    Tragedy, according to risk theatre, puts us face to face with the unexpected implications of our actions by simulating the profound impact of highly improbable events.In this book, classicist Edwin Wong shows how tragedy imitates reality: heroes, by taking inordinate risks, trigger devastating low-probability, high-consequence outcomes. Such a theatre forces audiences to ask themselves a most timely question---what happens when the perfect bet goes wrong?Not only does Wong reinterpret classic tragedies from Aeschylus to O'Neill through the risk theatre lens, he also invites dramatists to create tomorrow's theatre. As the world becomes increasingly unpredictable, the most compelling dramas will be high-stakes tragedies that dramatize the unintended consequences of today's risk takers who are taking us past the point of no return....

    Allegedly the first Chinese woman to set foot on U.S. soil, she has been put on display for the American public as "The Chinese Lady." For the next half-century, she performs for curious white people, showing them how she eats, what she wears, and the highlight of the event: how she walks with bound feet. As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity. Inspired by the true story of Afong Moy's life, The Chinese Lady is a dark, poetic, yet whimsical portrait of America through the eyes of a young Chinese woman.

    Five radical performances. One landmark publication.None of Us is Yet a Robot charts artist and performer Emma Frankland’s gender transition against a shifting social and political landscape, while grappling with the systematic erasure of trans history.Featuring introductions from foremost theatre practitioners, including Maddy Costa and Travis Alabanza, this collection of work is an evocative exploration of a trans experience in twenty-first century Britain.

    After 72 rejections in a row she finally landed a role in Broadway’s long-running smash hit Wicked and later became “Glinda the Good.” Now she wants to share her advice for starting and nurturing a career in the theater. Waiting in the Wings is the essential guide for anyone who wants to have a theatrical career, whether they’re complete newbies or already have some professional credits. Based on everything she learned on her journey to New York, including 10 years on Broadway, Tiffany shares the information that you need to succeed in theater. Everyone’s path is a little bit different, but the principles for success are always the same. With advice on auditions, how to become the performer they want to hire, developing relationships with cast mates, finding a reputable agent, the importance of reputation, and the best way to shape and build your career, Tiffany covers every aspect of the business. You’ll learn what it takes to be successful and where to best spend your time and effort as you navigate the “great mystery” of pursuing musical theater. In an industry that is famed for its insider secrets, Tiffany draws back the curtain, giving readers the knowledge and tools they need to follow their dreams. If you’re one of those people Waiting in the Wings for a big Broadway career, Tiffany Haas’s book is the one resource you need to land a big role, stand in front of those footlights and let it go!

    While each is at a different stage of “growing up,” one of the friends has disappeared and has been presumed dead. Yet, at the beginning of the play, he returns and completely upends the balance established in his absence. This witty, foul mouthed, and razor-sharp play asks: “What does growing up mean . . . and is it even desired in this day and age?” Sender is one of seven plays in Holter’s Rightlynd Saga, all to be published by Northwestern University Press. Holter’s plays are set in Chicago’s fictional fifty-first ward. The other plays in the cycle are Exit Strategy, Lottery Day, Prowess, Red Rex, Rightlynd, and The Wolf at the End of the Block.

    It exists to tell the stories of women with experience of the criminal justice system and to transform women's lives through theatre.Over 40 years, Clean Break has commissioned some of the most progressive and brilliant women writers to write ground-breaking plays, alongside developing the writing skills of the women they work with in its London studios and in prisons. This is a collection of monologues from this canon.Rebel Voices: Monologues for Women by Women celebrates the opportunities inherent when women represent themselves. Offering female performers a diverse set of monologues reflecting a range of characters in age, ethnicity and lived experience, the material is drawn from a mix of published and unpublished works. This book is for any performer who does not see themselves represented in mainstream plays, for lovers of radical women's theatre and for rebels everywhere who believe that the act of speaking and being heard can create change.

    Now in her final year at Miss Cackle's Academy, accident prone Mildred and her fellow pupils are about to embark on their biggest adventure yet...When Mildred and her friends decide to put on a play about their experiences as witches in training, mayhem inevitably ensues. Jealous Ethel Hallow is always out to spoil Mildred's fun. Stern Miss Hardbroom is opposed to all fun in general. Worst of all, an old enemy returns with a plan for revenge that could threaten not just the Academy, but the whole world.

    She's moved back in with her mother, Karen, and is drinking beer for breakfast. So when Tim, a white playwright, shows up at her door to casually inform her that his play inspired by her experience is being adapted into a movie, Lila's trauma is dragged out for speculation once again. The star of the film, his body guard, and Karen are dragged into the fight, leading to an epic metatheatrical standoff in a living room play about a living room play about gun violence, police, art, and appropriation.This dark, fast-paced comedy by the author of Punch Up and Mustard traces the responsibility we have as artists in storytelling and the impact of what it means to be inspired by true events.

    Topics include analyzing a script to develop ideas; discussing your work with a director; telling the emotional story; working with music; how to record, create, process, and abstract sound; key aspects of acoustics and vocal intelligibility; the politics of radio mics and vocal foldback; designing a sound system; and what to do when things go wrong.

    

    

    In Beyond Broadway, author Stacy Wolf considers the widespread presence and persistence ofmusical theatre in U.S. culture, and examines it as a live, pleasurable, participatory experience of creating, watching, and listening. Why does local musical theatre flourish in America? Why do so many Americans passionately engage in a century-old artistic practice that requires intense, person-to-person collaboration? Why do audiences flock to see musicals in their hometowns? How do corporations like Disney and Music Theatre International enable musical theatre's energetic movement through American culture? Touring from Maine to California, Wolf visits elementary schools, a middleschool performance festival, afterschool programs, high schools, summer camps, state park outdoor theatres, community theatres, and dinner theatres, and conducts over 200 interviews with practitioners and spectators, licensors and Disney creatives. In Beyond Broadway, Wolf tells the story of musicaltheatre's abundance and longevity in the U.S. as a thriving, joyful activity that touches millions of lives.

    love creates something that was not there before.' - HedwigJohn Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask's Hedwig and the Angry Inch opened on Valentine's Day,1998, in New York City, and ever since, it and its genderqueer heroine have captivated audiences around the world. As the first musical to feature a genderqueer protagonist as its lead, the show has had an extraordinary life on film, Broadway and in the music field. A glam rock musical with a complex relationship to issues related to art, eroticism and matters of identity formation, Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a darkly exuberant fairy tale about a child that discovers she is one of a kind, but also potentially among her own kind, if she dares travel past borders that confine and try to stabilise her being and identity.Caridad Svich examines this exhilarating work through the lenses of visual and vocal rock 'n' roll performance, the history of the American musical, and its positioning within LGBTIQ+ theatre.

    A farmhouse window smashes, and rebellious Fianna Devlin crashes back into the life of her pious sister Alannah. Together for the first time in years, when they're forced to confront their tyrannical father’s hideous legacy, all hell breaks loose.Fuelled by Taytos, gin, 80s tunes and a chainsaw, Meghan Tyler’s surreal Crocodile Fever is a grotesque black comedy celebrating sisterhood whilst reminding us that the pressure cooker of The Troubles is closer than we imagine.

    The Workers' Art Guild was a left-leaning political force and influential cultural movement of the 1930s and 1940s in Perth. Police and intelligence arms kept close tabs on the Guild and its members, jailing some and intimidating many others prior to and during the period of the banning of the Communist Party in Australia. The book covers the personal and professional lives of key figures such as writer Katharine Susannah Prichard and theatre maverick Keith George, while charting the influence of the Communist Party on Western Australian artists.

    As generally mid-career professionals, they are informed by both their hard-earned expertise and their forward-looking energy. They offer astute observations about the current state of the art form, as well as inspiring visions of what theatre can accomplish in the decades to come.

    

    Banished into an indifferent world, Frankenstein's creature desperately seeks out his true identity, but the agony of rejection and a broken promise push him into darkness. Dangerous and vengeful, the creature threatens to obliterate Frankenstein and everyone he loves, in a ferocious and bloodthirsty hunt for his maker.Rona Munro's brilliant adaptation of Mary Shelley's Gothic masterpiece places the writer herself amongst the action as she wrestles with her creation and with the stark realities facing revolutionary young women, then and now.

    These plays, which are selected from writers across the continent, give a rich portrait of identity, politics, culture and society in contemporary Africa from some of today's finest writers.The playwrights and plays included are:Sara Shaarawi - Niqabi Ninja (Cairo) is set in Cairo during the chaotic time of the Egyptian uprising. Sophia Kwachuh Mempuh - Bonganyi (Cameroon) depicts the effects of slavery through the story of a slave girl, who is a singer and dancer, and wants to win a competition and so free her family from slavery.JC Niala – Unsettled (Kenya) deals with gender violence, land issues and relationships between Kenyans living in and out of the countryAdong Judith – Silent Voices (Uganda) is a one-act play based on interviews with the LRA Rebel Victims of Northern Uganda. Thembelihle Moyo - I Want To Fly (Zimbabwe) tells the story of an African girl who wants to be a pilot. It looks at how patriarchal society shapes the thinking of men regarding lobola (bride price) and how women endure abusive men and the role society at large plays in these issues.Koleka Putuma – Mbuzemi (South Africa) A story of four girl orphans (aged eight to twelve), their sisterhood, and their fixation with death and burials. It explores the unseen force that governs and dictates the laws that the villagers live by.Tosin Jobi-Tume - Not That Woman (Nigeria) addresses issues of violence against women in Nigeria, and its attendant conspiracy of silence. The play advocates zero-tolerance for violence against women, and urges women to bury shame and speak out rather than die in silence.Each play also includes biographies of each playwright and the writers' own artistic statements; a production history of each play; and a critical contextualisation of the theatre from which each woman is writing.