As relevant as when it was first published in 1968, groundbreaking director and cofounder of the Royal Shakespeare Company Peter Brook draws on a life in love with the stage to explore the issues facing a theatrical performance—of any scale. He describes important developments in theatre from the last century, as well as smaller scale events, from productions by Stanislavsky to the rise of Method Acting, from Brecht’s revolutionary alienation technique to the free form happenings of the 1960s, and from the different styles of such great Shakespearean actors as John Gielgud and Paul Scofield to a joyous impromptu performance in the burnt-out shell of the Hamburg Opera just after the war. Passionate, unconventional, and fascinating, this book shows how theatre defies rules, builds and shatters illusions, and creates lasting memories for its audiences.

    Stanislavski's simple exercises fire the imagination, and help readers not only discover their own conception of reality but how to reproduce it as well.

    The director begins by explicating Shakespeare’s verse and prose, speeches and soliloquies, and naturalistic and heightened language to discover the essence of his characters. In the second section, Barton and the actors explore nuance in Shakespearean theater, from evoking irony and ambiguity and striking the delicate balance of passion and profound intellectual thought, to finding new approaches to playing Shakespeare’s most controversial creation, Shylock, from The Merchant of Venice. A practical and essential guide, Playing Shakespeare will stand for years as the authoritative favorite among actors, scholars, teachers, and students.

    Macy and director Gregory Mosher. It is written for any actor who has ever experienced the frustrations of acting classes that lacked clarity and objectivity, and that failed to provide a dependable set of tools. An actor's job, the authors state, is to "find a way to live truthfully under the imaginary circumstances of the play'.' The ways in which an actor can attain that truth form the substance of this eloquent book.

    Honest, witty and direct, The Golden Rules of Acting is every actor’s best friend – in handy paperback form.‘When auditioning, rehearsing or in a performance, take a risk – the worst that can happen is that you get embarrassed. You won’t die.’Easy to dip into, fully illustrated throughout, and designed to be both instructive and empowering, The Golden Rules of Acting won’t tell you how to act – but it will tell you how to be an actor.‘Always remember, the people auditioning you want you to be brilliant. They want you to solve their casting problem.'If you’re a working actor, drama-school student, someone who wants to become an actor, or simply someone who has a dream and wants to make it a reality, this book is for you.‘NEVER harmonise when singing ‘Happy Birthday’ – this has nothing to do with work, it’s just all actors do it & it’s bloody annoying.’Andy Nyman learnt the golden rules of acting the hard way, through twenty-five years of working in theatre, film and television. On stage, he co-wrote, co-directed and starred in the West End hit Ghost Stories, and won an Olivier Award for Best Entertainment for co-writing and directing Something Wicked This Way Comes with his regular collaborator Derren Brown. His many film appearances include Severance and Frank Oz’s Death at a Funeral.

    The text is full of tools for students and practitioners to use as they investigate plot, character, theme, exposition, imagery, motivation/obstacle/conflict, theatricality, and the other crucial parts of the superstructure of a play. He includes guides for discovering what the playwright considers the play’s most important elements, thus permitting interpretation based on the foundation of the play rather than its details.Using Hamlet as illustration, Ball assures a familiar base for illustrating script-reading techniques as well as examples of the kinds of misinterpretation readers can fall prey to by ignoring the craft of the playwright. Of immense utility to those who want to put plays on the stage (actors, directors, designers, production specialists) Backwards and Forwards is also a fine playwriting manual because the structures it describes are the primary tools of the playwright.

    Features his compelling adaptation of Clytemnestra--finding an astonishing parallel between ancient Greek and modern Japanese society, Suzuki melds traditional and avant-garde techinques to shed new light on this primal tale.

    In True and False David Mamet overturns conventional opinion and tells aspiring actors what they really need to know. He leaves no aspect of acting untouched: how to judge the role, approach the part, work with the playwright; the right way to undertake auditions and the proper approach to agents and the business in general. True and False slaughters a wide range of sacred cows and yet offers an invaluable guide to the acting profession

    Berry's book will insure that the speaker and the text gets heard - accurately and with true emotional range. Never again will one be accused of simply "reading a prepared statement." Berry's exercises to develop relaxation, breathing and muscular control will literally help everyone breathe easier when confronting the printed page.

    Throughout these pages Meisner is delight--always empathizing with his students and urging them onward, provoking emotion, laughter, and growing technical mastery from his charges. With an introduction by Sydney Pollack, director of "Out of Africa" and "Tootsie," who worked with Meisner for five years."This book should be read by anyone who wants to act or even appreciate what acting involves. Like Meisner's way of teaching, it is the straight goods."--Arthur Miller"If there is a key to good acting, this one is it, above all others. Actors, young and not so young, will find inspiration and excitement in this book."--Gregory Peck

    Babies and toddlers live there almost constantly. Great performers work in this state. Great athletes win in it. Great teachers teach in it. Every great communicator speaks from this place. It is when fully present that we do our best work and make our deepest impression on others.In her years as an acting coach, Patsy Rodenburg has discovered the secrets to that elusive quality actors call 'it'. There are three basic ways human energy moves between people and you can be in any one of the 'three circles' in any situation. In the first, your focus is purely inward, in the third, all your energy is moving outward. In the second you are focused, you give energy out and you receive it. You communicate spontaneously and listen well, you are generous and people are generous in return.And by working on your breath, posture, voice, language, listening skills, focus, courage and trust you can access the second circle on a daily basis. Your work, relationships, spirituality and passions will all benefit.

    It is at once the voicing of her exacting standards for herself and those she teaches, and an explanation of the means to the end. For those unable to avail themselves of her personal tutelage, her book is the best substitute." --Publishers Weekly "Uta Hagen's Respect for Acting is not only pitched on a high artistic level but it is full of homely, practical information by a superb craftswoman. crafts-woman. An illuminating discussion of the standards and techniques of enlightened stage acting." --Brooks Atkinson"Hagen adds to the large corpus of titles on acting with vivid dicta drawn from experience, skill, and a sense of personal and professional worth. Her principal asset in this treatment is her truly significant imagination. Her 'object exercises' display a wealth of detail with which to stimulate the student preparing a scene for presentation." --Library Journal"Respect for Acting is a simple, lucid and sympathetic statement of actors' problems in the theatre and basic tenets for their training wrought from the personal experience of a fine actress and teacher of acting." --Harold Clurman"Uta Hagen's Respect for Acting...is a relatively small book. But within it Miss Hagen tells the young actor about as much as can be conveyed in print of his craft." --Los Angeles Times"Uta Hagen is our greatest living actor; she is, moreover, interested and mystified by the presence of talent and its workings; her third gift is a passion to communicate the mysteries of the craft to which she has given her life. There are almost no American actors uninfluenced by her." --Fritz Weaver"This is a textbook for aspiring actors, but working thespians can profit much by it. Anyone with just a casual interest in the theater should also enjoy its behind-the-scenes flavor. Respect for Acting is certainly a special book, perhaps for a limited readership, but of its "How-To" kind I'd give it four curtain calls, and two hollers of "Author, Author --King Features Syndicate

    Twice exiled, Boal is 'at home' now wherever he finds himself to be. He makes a skeptical, comic, inquisitive and finally optimistic theatre involving spectators and performers in the search for community and integrity. This is a good book to be used even more than to be read." - Richard Schechner"Augusto Boal's achievement is so remarkable, so original and so groundbreaking that I have no hesitation in describing the book as the most important theoretical work in the theatre in modern times - a statement I make with having suffered any memory lapse with respect to Stanislavsky, Artaud or Grotowski." - Goerge E. WellwarthOriginally basing himself at the Arena Stage in Sao Paolo, Brazil, Augusto Boal developed a series of imaginative theatre exercises which promote awareness of one's social situation and its limitations, individual attitudes, and even how our bodies are bound by tradition. Boal is continued his explorations in Paris, where he directed Le CEDITADE (Centre d'Etude et de Diffusion des Techniques Actives d'Expression - Methode Boal), in addition to traveling and lecturing extensively in other countries. On May 2, 2009, Boal died at age 78 in Rio de Janeiro.

     His legendary course on auditioning has launched hundreds of successful careers. Now in this book he tells the all-important HOW for all aspiring actors, from the beginning student of acting to the proven talent trying out for that chance-in-a-million role!

    This new revised and expanded edition features great photos throughout, with chapters on: Preparation, In Front of the Camera - Before You Shoot, The Take, Characters, Directors, On Being a Star, and much more. "Remarkable material ... A treasure ... I'm not going to be looking at performances quite the same way ... FASCINATING!" - Gene Siskel