Through historical and modern examples, the book analyzes the basic elements of dramatic structure, action, plot, character, dialogue, and genre.

    How can he carry on without the woman he's loved since they were children themselves?Pearl's comfortable life was turned upside down with the death of her beloved husband. She has three children depending on her and cannot afford the mortgage. Her best friend Mattie shows her the listing in the newspaper: "Looking for a Spinster or Widow of good character who can cook and keep house and be a good mother to the children. Your children would be welcome, too." Have her prayers been answered?

    Weil comes the first three books in the Slaver Wars series. Over 400,000 copies sold.The Hocklyns were a cruel and callous race. World after world fell to the onslaught of their powerful warfleets. Populations were ruthlessly reduced with the remainder becoming slaves working for the benefit of the Hocklyn Slave Empire. For thousands of years this had been the way of life for the Hocklyns, but now they had encountered an adversary who refused to bow down to their powerful fleets. The Human Federation of Worlds would not become slaves.It was up to Fleet Admiral Hedon Streth to stop the advance of the Hocklyns. If he failed, then the Human Federation of Worlds would be no more, and the entire galaxy would fall to the conquering Hocklyn war machine.

    From the air we breathe to the everchanging weather, the Sun is a source of life for all of us.Young children will learn about basic concepts of astronomy, how the sun got its start in space, and how it’s the glue that holds the solar system together. I Am the Sun is a great beginning science book for kids. Images are big and bright for kids ages 3-8. The concepts are basic and geared for preschool through second-grade learners.

    Second chances don’t come along every day, so when an old friend offered him one, he grabbed on with both hands. The next thing Dan knew, he was on the moon, piloting humanity's first starship while fighting his way through one peril after another. Little did Dan know that simple offer was anything but, and would lead him to the stars far beyond our own. The risks are great. But if life knocked you down, what would you gamble to have one more shot at your dreams? Stellar Legacy A wild jump into uncharted space saves the starship Satori and her crew from their near brush with death. With a badly damaged ship and injured crew, the planet with breathable air they find on the far side of their jump seems like a stroke of luck. But they quickly learn that they’ve only gone from one danger into another far greater threat. Deep Waters Home again, they lick their wounds, repair the badly damaged starship, and try to make sense of all the things they saw during their first mission beyond our star system. But they’ve brought danger back with them. Charline and Beth undertake a mission home to Earth which will prove more perilous than they could possibly guess. Home should be a safe place, a place to rest and recover. A place to heal. Instead, each of the crew finds themselves in the middle of more trouble, each of them in over their heads in Deep Waters.

    In "Strippers, Showgirls and Sharks", the popular syndicated theatre critic Peter Filichia chronicles the history of the American musical by looking at those shows that did not win the Tony Award for Best Musical. It happens every spring: The American Theatre Wing bestows its annual awards. Only those shows that have reached Broadway are nominated and while all Tony Awards are created equal in height, width and depth, the universally acknowledged biggest prize is the Best Musical Tony. The envelope is opened. The winner is announced and, then, the screeching begins. "Oh no! They gave it to that?" Did the best musical always win the Best Musical prize? Were there other factors that kept a more deserving show from copping the prize? Peter Filichia answers all these questions and more in "Strippers, Showgirls and Sharks" as he looks at many of the 153 previous Best Musical Nominees that didn't win the big prize. What were the biggest omissions? "Gypsy" had the distinct displeasure of not being either the first or second choice of the committee. In 1959 when Ethel Merman and a variety of strippers took the stage, the Tony for Best Musical was a tie between "The Sound of Music" and "Fiorello". In 1971, Stephen Sondheim's "Follies" and its ghostly showgirls lost to a "groovy" re-tuning of "Two Gentlemen of Verona" that hasn't passed the test of time. And, in 1957, "West Side Story", its Jets and Sharks, were bested by the fine people of River City Iowa singing their Americana hearts out in "The Music Man". If you love Broadway, scratch your head on Tony Award night and still can't figure out how a show you loathed won the Tony for Best Musical, you will love riding through the years with Peter Filichia, one of America's most respected and popular theatre critics.

    [MacIvor is a writer with an angular sense of humour and an uncommon knack for probing basic elements and truths of human behaviour." ?Vit Wagner, Toronto StarThis Is a Play is a hilarious postmodern romp through the interior lives of actors in a bad play."Ingenious, whimsical, a lyrical lunacy in the writing, This Is A Play is a theatre experience comedy you might associate with Tom Stoppard." ?Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

    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.

    Angelica Cartwright decides to take a walk when she noticed a figure in the snow. Little Lanie Turner has fallen in the snow and is rescued by Angelica. Lanie is sure Angelica is the angel she's been praying for, but her father Adam still has to realize he needs an angel too.

    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.

    This book features a developmental history of the production through beautiful artwork, photos, and behind-the-scenes details of the challenges the director and actors faced and the making of the elaborate sets, costumes, and masks.

    During the past ten years Harold Pinter has written a new play, three film scripts, sheaves of poems, several sketches and created, with composer James Clarke, a pioneering work for radio, Voices. He has acted on stage, screen and radio, he has appeared on countless political platforms, and his work has been extensively celebrated in festivals at Dublin's Gate Theatre and New York's Lincoln Center. In 2005 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and in 2006, the European Theatre Prize. As if this were not enough, he has in the last five years twice come close to death. But he has faced hospitalisation with stoic resilience and his spirit remains as fiercely combative as ever. As he wrote in 2005 to Professor Avraham Oz, one of Israel's leading internal opponents of authoritarianism: "Let's keep fighting."

    The crew and family aboard the Centauri Bliss has grown and is made up of those on both sides of the conflict, and have developed worlds of their own in need of protecting. With plans to finally withdraw themselves from the conflict, they have one last chance to try to set things right.

    In The Open Door the visionary director and theorist offers a lucid, comprehensive exposition of the philosophy that underlies his work. It is a philosophy of paradoxes: We come to the theatre to find life, but that life must be different from the life we find outside. Actors have to prepare painstakingly yet be willing to sacrifice the results of their preparation. The director’s most reliable tool may be his capacity to be bored. Brook illustrates these principles with anecdotes that span his entire career and that demonstrate his familiarity with Shakespeare, Chekhov, and the indigenous theatres of India and Iran. The result is an unparalleled look at what happens both onstage and behind the scenes, fresh in its insights and elegant in its prose.

    The volume includes A New Kind of Drama, To a Young Stage Designer and six other of Jones's reflections.