Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art


Stephen Nachmanovitch - 1990
    It is about where art in the widest sense comes from. It is about why we create and what we learn when we do. It is about the flow of unhindered creative energy: the joy of making art in all its varied forms. Free Play is directed toward people in any field who want to contact, honor, and strengthen their own creative powers. It integrates material from a wide variety of sources among the arts, sciences, and spiritual traditions of humanity. Filled with unusual quotes, amusing and illuminating anecdotes, and original metaphors, it reveals how inspiration arises within us, how that inspiration may be blocked, derailed or obscured by certain unavoidable facts of life, and how finally it can be liberated - how we can be liberated - to speak or sing, write or paint, dance or play, with our own authentic voice. The whole enterprise of improvisation in life and art, of recovering free play and awakening creativity, is about being true to ourselves and our visions. It brings us into direct, active contact with boundless creative energies that we may not even know we had.

Plays 1: 'Art' / Life x 3 / The Unexpected Man / Conversations After a Burial


Yasmina Reza - 2005
    In this sly critique of contemporary relationships, Reza skillfully picks apart the friendship of three men via a bowl of olives and a white-on-white painting. Now translated into more than 30 languages, Art continues to be performed worldwide, even as Reza's other plays have garnered similar acclaim. Life x 3, Reza's most recent offering, again highlights her satirical wit as two couples face off in three different versions of the dinner from hell. Praised as "compact, cool and clever" by Christopher Isherwood of Variety, Reza uses the acidic exchanges of her characters to illuminate their inner desire for love and acceptance. Also included in this edition are two earlier plays, The Unexpected Man and Conversations After a Burial. Each elucidates the startling difference between public and private life, be it in the confines of a train compartment or a country estate in the aftermath of a loved one's passing.

The Clarke Brothers #1-3


Lilian Monroe - 2018
    That’s all it’s supposed to be.One wild, unforgettable night.And then we'd go our separate ways.... I was wrong. Get the complete Clarke Brothers series, featuring brooding mountain heroes with hearts of gold, and the heroines that make them hot.  Absolutely Kindle-melting!

A Sting in the Tale: A Collection of Short Stories


Matt Shaw - 2015
    Stories included: A Mother's Love Plane Crazy The Last Will & Testament of Norman Fielding Lost Love Road Rage

A MURDER IN MUSSOORIE AND OTHER TALES


Ruskin Bond - 2019
    The sleepy little hill-town of Mussoorie—British in its garb and Indian in its soul—is jolted out of its reverie by a mysterious murder. A woman is found dead in her bed, her body laid out perfectly, and the door locked from inside. Sundry suspects and sensational speculations about black magic and crystal-gazing abound, but no one has been able to identify the murderer. Outgrowing the small town, the story travels to all the way to faraway London, and catches the fancy of the master of mysteries, Arthur Conan Doyle…Interwoven with clever wit and lively humour, A Murder in Mussoorie and Other Tales will transport you to a world of wonder and adrenaline-pumping adventure.

The Color Purple: A Memory Book of the Broadway Musical


Lise Funderberg - 2006
    A musical that evokes a unique emotional response, it tracks the story of its heroine, Celie, from sexual abuse by her stepfather to physical abuse by her husband to "a roof-raising story of triumph." This gorgeously producedcompanion volume revisits what is so powerful about the show. The Color Purple: A Memory Book has the look and feel of a beautiful antique scrapbook, a keepsake for those who have experienced the musical and want to be able to experience its soaring emotions at any time, or who want to share Celie's journey with their loved ones. But it will also be a memory book of the road The Color Purple took — from Alice Walker's memories right through to the sketches for the costumes and sets, from the cast's own struggles to the entire libretto, all of which have given Celie's against-the-odds triumph new life. Revealing, poignant, and stunning, The Color Purple: A Memory Book is a must-have book for anyone moved by Celie's story.

On the Road


John Escott - 2009
    [Penguin Readers Level 5]

Deadly Webs Omnibus


James Hunt - 2017
    Abduction cases are taken very seriously by all of the parties involved. None more so than by Chase Grant, a detective in Seattle’s eighteenth precinct. The clock starts the moment he gets the call from a parent, and the first twelve hours are crucial. Every move counts, and every choice matters. If he missteps, then a child might not come home. But today was different. He got a call about a missing child. And then another, and another, and another…

The First Face of Janus: Secret Society of Nostradamus


Phil Valentine - 2017
    A sci-fi writer finds a set of quatrains that foretell a horrible catastrophe, a mass murder that will change the course of history. He races against time to decipher the quatrains and stop the slaughter. The next prophecy has begun, and there’s only one man who can stop The First Face of Janus.

Midsummer Meeting


Elvi Rhodes - 2000
    She was lonely and unsettled - her parents had been killed in a car accident, her boyfriend had decided to go back to his wife, and as a painter she led a solitary life in her North Yorkshire home town. But she felt immediately at home in the gracious stone house that had been bequeathed to her, and was made welcome by the local residents - in particular, by the members of the Mindon Amateur Dramatic Society (somewhat appropriately known as MADS) presided over by the formidable Ursula. Ursula liked to run things her way, and brooked no opposition when the ambitious decision was made (largely by herself) to put on A Midsummer Night's Dream as their next production. Petra , to her surprise and pleasure, was put in charge of the wardrobe. Rivalries, squabbles, love affairs and seething resentments threatened to scupper the production, and all Ursula's managerial skills were needed to prevent disaster. But Petra had more pressing things on her mind than the costumes for the cast. A mystery from her past began to haunt her - and the answer to that mystery might solve the puzzle of why she had been left such a beautiful house by a total stranger.

Love and Money


Dennis Kelly - 2007
    A series of scenes that gradually tell the story of how the financial collapse affects a British couple and how fiscal worry, stress, and fear can strain mankind's greatest emotion.

The Great Acting Teachers and Their Methods (Career Development Series) (Career Development Book)


Richard Brestoff - 1995
    Beginning with Quintilian and Delsarre he guides us to the present with an inside look at what is currently being taught in the major acting schools and private acting studios; The Actor's Studio, Yale University, NYU, Juillard and many more are visited. Great Acting Teachers and Their Methods will help you understand the most important ideas about acting, where they originated and how they are used in training programs today. Some of the teachers focused on are Stella Adler, Stanford Meisner, Lee Strasberg, Brecht, Stanislavsky, and Suzuki.

Tea at Five


Matthew Lombardo - 2003
    The independent, intelligent, feisty Hepburn comes alive when Mulgrew slips deftly into the voice and being of the famous actress. The two-act play opens in 1938 when the actress is 31 years old and in the middle of a career slump. She is awaiting a call to see if she has won the part of Scarlet in a film called GONE WITH THE WIND. The story moved to 1983 when Parkinson's disease has left her voice shaking, her hand clutching a cane, but her eyes still shining with intelligence and wit. TEA AT FIVE is an unforgettable trip down Broadway, Hollywood Blvd, and memory lane.

Elia Kazan: A Life


Elia Kazan - 1976
    He reveals his working relationships with his many collaborators, including Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg, Clifford Odets, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, James Dean, John Steinbeck and Darryl Zanuck, and describes his directing "style" as he sees it, in terms of position, movement, pace, rhythm and his own limitations. Kazan also retraces his own decision to inform for the House Un-American Activities Committee, illuminating much of what may be obscured in McCarthy literature.

Romance


David Mamet - 2005
    He listens to the testimony of a Jewish chiropractor, who’s a liar, according to his anti-Semitic defense attorney. The prosecutor, a homosexual, is having a domestic squabble with his lover, who shows up in court in a leopard-print thong. And all the while, a Middle East peace conference is taking place. Masterfully wielding the argot of the courtroom, David Mamet creates a world in microcosm in which shameless fawning, petty prejudices, and sheer caprice hold sway, and the noble apparatus of law and order degenerates into riotous profanity.