Reference Books

Now in its 67th year, Theatre World is the most comprehensive record of the theatrical season-Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway, including listings for over 60 regional companies. Detailing more than 2,000 productions, each entry includes photos, a complete cast listing, producers, directors, authors, composers, opening and closing dates, song titles, and plot synopses. Theatre World also features the year's obituaries, a listing of all nominees and winners of the major theatrical awa...

Generously illustrated with the work of award-winning photographer Simon Annand, this book takes you behind the scenes, describing how Tom Morris, director at the National Theatre, interacted with the Handspring Puppet Company in developing ideas for the staging of the piece. It also gives a clear account of how the puppets were designed and constructed.

British South Asian theater has been one of the most significant features of diasporic artistic activity throughout the world in the last thirty years, yet its remarkable achievements have been largely ignored by mainstream media and scholars. With British South Asian Theatres, Graham Ley and Sarah Dadswell aim to reverse such neglect. Drawing on unpublished archives and an extensive series of interviews on the history of British theater, these essays document the presence of South Asians on th...

In 1979, Scarecrow Press published J. P. Wearing’s American and British Theatrical Biography: A Directory, which enabled users to quickly locate biographical information about figures—both major and minor—who are or were connected with British and American theatre. In American and British Theatrical Biographies: An Index, Wearing has revised and extensively expanded the previous work. This edition draws upon more than 130 sources and 500 volumes that have been surveyed and indexed, prov...

How does class get 'cast' and made performative? What modes are there for people to wrestle-back their forms of representation? And how should we understand this intense manipulation of feeling? This bookexamines why class politics matter against much political and academic rhetoric which refract inequality through other means.

Artful Stories tells the story of four arts practitioners from Trinidad and Tobago—a lighting designer, a dancer, a jazz musician and a choreographer—who have made a name for themselves internationally. The work also centers on their role as educators in their fields. Their unique and individual journeys exemplify the classic role artists have (always) played as teachers. Artful Stories is a timely and profound work that captures the teacher-student dynamic. It fills a void in terms of recogniz...

With Stage Directing: A Director's Itinerary, the student of theatrical directing now has a step-by-step guide to directing a production, from choosing a play to opening night. Unlike other directing textbooks, this practical guidebook provides instruction on how to organize the work of the director through the practical challenges of the directorial process (e.g., organizing a budget spreadsheet, writing casting notices, setting up an audition space, etc.). In Stage Directing, the process of d...

In The Avant-Garde, Mike Sell rejects the common idea that the avant-garde is only about art and insists that it is much more than a European phenomenon. In doing so, he redefines the historical, geographical, ideological, disciplinary, and theoretical boundaries of avant-garde studies and raises a number of difficult questions about the avant-garde— How have avant-gardes been shaped by racism and contributed to racist power and imperialism? How have the claims made by avant-garde political and...

Words for Lori Laitman’s opera, The Scarlet Letter Based on the story by Nathaniel Hawthorne Award-winning poet and librettist David Mason, author of Ludlow and other books, has given new life in verse to Hawthorne’s classic novel. By distilling the book’s narrative line and adding a charged lyricism of his own, Mason has created another magnificent work in his ongoing poetic portrait of America. In old Boston, a young woman, Hester Prynne, has been charged with adultery and forced to ...

The Actor as Storyteller is intended for serious beginning actors. It opens with an overview, explaining the differences between theater and its hybrid mediums, the part an actor plays in each of those mediums. It moves on to the acting craft itself, with a special emphasis on analysis and choice-making, introducing the concept of the actor as storyteller, then presents the specific tools an actor works with. Next, it details the process an actor can use to prepare for scene work and rehearsals,...

During the past twenty years or so, Othello has become the Shakespearean tragedy that speaks most powerfully to our contemporary concerns. Focusing on race and gender (and on class, ethnicity, sexuality, and nationality), the play talks about what audiences want to talk about. Yet at the same time, as refracted through Iago, it forces us to hear what we do not want to hear; like the characters in the play, we become trapped in our own prejudicial malice and guilt.

This introduction to theatre design explains the theories, strategies, and tools of practical design work for the undergraduate student. Through its numerous illustrated case studies and analysis of key terms, students will build an understanding of the design process and be able to:

The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville provides a unique record of what was once America's preeminent form of popular entertainment from the late 1800s through the early 1930s. It includes entries not only on the entertainers themselves, but also on those who worked behind the scenes, the theatres, genres, and historical terms. Entries on individual vaudevillians include biographical information, samplings of routines and, often, commentary by the performers. Many former vaudevillians were interviewed ...

William Travilla is one of the best costume designers of all time and Marilyn Monroe his most famous client. Dressing Marilyn: How a Hollywood Icon Was Styled by William Travilla focuses on the striking dresses that Travilla designed for Marilyn, from his early work on the thriller Don't Bother to Knock and the gorgeous pink dress in which Marilyn sang "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" to the legendary white dress from The Seven Year Itch, which arguably contributed to the collapse of Marilyn...

Offering essential guidance to studentsthroughout their undergraduate studies, this companionexplores the development of a discipline that is still in flux, offers practical advice about how to study it and where this study might lead, and provides auseful reference source on key practitioners, debates, performances and terms.

This Integrated Media Edition of the pioneering textbook is accompanied by an all-new companion website curated by a dedicated media editor, with the following resources for instructors and students: Interactive glossary Multiple choice questions Powerpoint Slides. Videos Website links for further study

Pigeon Theatre—comprised of Anna Fenemore, Gillian Knox, and Amanda Griffkin—specializes in experimental works that incorporate non-traditional spaces, unconventional social arrangements, and shared intimacies between performer and audience. A trilogy of site-specific performance texts, The Rehearsal raises questions about theinterplay in contemporary theater between the process of rehearsal and the theatrical metaphors that shape our everyday dealings with trauma, including death. Accompanied ...

This book gives a picture of a year's activities at the Theatre des Varietes. It includes an account of the financial side of the Theatre and impressions of the principal actors and actresses, as well as a month-by-month overview of what was actually performed.

"This book has strong appeal to movement teachers and students in a variety of theater departments" James Bundy, Dean, Yale School of Drama, US The RADA Guide to Movement for Actors illustrates a broad spectrum of approaches and encourages the development of multiple skills. This must-have resource for actors consists of a practical masterclass on movement from the Head of Movement at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, complete with video examples on a DVD. The book provides a complete curricul...

Can the inadvertent clashes between collaborators produce more powerful effects than their concordances? For Thomas Middleton and William Rowley, the playwriting team best known for their tragedy The Changeling, disagreements and friction proved quite beneficial for their work. This first full-length study of Middleton and Rowley uses their plays to propose a new model for the study of collaborative authorship in early modern English drama. David Nicol highlights the diverse forms of collabo...

Embodied Acting is a crucial, pragmatic intervention in the study of how neuroscience can be applied to theatre studies. Examining the nature of the acting process from the perspective of cognitive science, author Rick Kemp re-examines familiar questions of how an actor develops a character, and what is actually involved - physically, mentally - in training, rehearsing and performing. The result is an elegant blend of theory, practice and cutting-edge science, making a compelling case for disca...

The Off-Broadway hit musical Godspell became a worldwide cultural phenomenon in 1972 when, just over a year after its award-winning emergence on stages around the world and with the Top Twenty Billboard hit "Day by Day," Columbia Pictures decided to film and release it on the silver screen across the globe. In the process, it created cinematic history for its use of locations around New York City (including the then-unfinished World Trade Center) and, at the same time, accomplished the nearly-i...

In February 1999, Steven Sater conceived the radical notion of creating a rock musical from Frank Wedekind's notorious Symbolist drama, Fruhlings Erwachen, and he enlisted his friend and writing partner Duncan Sheik in the enterprise. That night, Sater came home and began writing the first lyric of Spring Awakening: "Mama Who Bore Me" - a lyric which still stands, verbatim, just as he first wrote it. Ten years later, in the wake of the enormous international success of this groundbreaking, mult...

This volume, examining the ways in which Shakespeare’s plays are designed for hearers as well as spectators, has been prompted by recent explorations of the auditory dimension of early modern drama by scholars such as Andrew Gurr, Bruce Smith, and James Hirsh. To look at the acoustic world of the plays involves a real paradigm shift that changes how we understand virtually everything about Shakespeare’s plays: from the architecture of the buildings, to playing spaces, to blocking, and to larger ...

Di Benedetto considers theatrical practice through the lens of contemporary neuroscientific discoveries in this provoking study, which lays the foundation for considering the physiological basis of the power of theatre practice to affect human behavior. He presents a basic summary of the ways that the senses function in relation to cognitive science and physiology, offering an overview of dominant trends of discussion on the realm of the senses in performance. Also presented are examples of how ...

Focuses on the ways African theatre and performance relate to various kinds of media. Several of the articles deal with popular video, with an emphasis on video drama and soaps from Eastern and Southern Africa, though the Nigerian 'Nollywood' phenomenon is not completely neglected. One article addresses the interface between live performance and video (or still photography) and the way popular live or recorded music in South Africa creates layers of theatrical and ideological expression and link...

This critical introduction to Performance Studies provides undergraduates with an accessible way into terminology and context. Using an innovative tripartite structure that combines the voices of artists, critics and teachers, it addresses a variety of practices moving through body, space, time, technology, interactivity and organization.

This book is a guide to introducing the craft of playwriting into the secondary English curriculum at key stage 3, using the TEEP (Teacher Effectiveness Enhancement Programme) framework. The authors also provide a particular focus on applying this versatile scheme of work to other areas of the curriculum, including Citizenship and PSHE. Playwriting Across the Curriculum also contains schemes of work for: • pupils with special educational needs (SEN) • pupils with English as an additiona...

Far too often young theater and film artists, as well as educators, make the jump from film to theater without being fully aware of the ways in which the qualities of each medium affect content and artistic expression. Starting with a history of the relationship between theater and film, the collection includes essays from a variety of writers, directors, and theorists by examining the differences between working in, and creating for, drama and film. The playwright Bernard Shaw looks at the ways...

Through a collection of original essays and case studies, this book introduces ideas and raises questions about building dynamic, theoretically minded production work. Artists and scholars grapple with the shifting value and function of theory in theatre, exploring the multi-faceted and complex relationship between theory and theatre practice.

The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary British Playwrights is an authoritative guide to the work of twenty-five playwrights who have risen to prominence since the 1980s. Written by an international team of scholars , it provides an illuminating survey and analysis of each writer's plays and will be invaluable to anyone interested in, studying or teaching contemporary drama. Among the many playwrights whose work is examined are Sarah Daniels, Terry Johnson, Martin Crimp, Sarah Kane, Anthony Nei...

Now in its Third Edition, Scenic Art for the Theatre: History, Tools and Techniques continues to be the most trusted source for both student and professional scenic artists. With new information on scenic design using Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and other digital imaging softwares this test expands to offer the developing artist more step-by-step instuction and more practical techniques for work in the field. It goes beyond detailing job functions and discussing techniques to serve as a trouble-sh...

..Matos's important book provides a well-researched, well-written ,and fascinating discussion of the notion of contagion from Ibsen and into Pineo and Jones. Professor Gregory Tague, St Francis College, editor of Origins of English Literary Modernism,1870-1914 The Independent Theatre's production of Ghosts at the Royalty Theatre, London in 1891 precipitated one of the most famous theatrical quarrels in European theater history. Although many have commented on the extremity of the response from t...

Embodying Difference: Scripting Social Images of the Female Body in US Latina Theatre explores contemporary theatrical productions by Latina dramatists in the United States and focuses on the effects that neoliberal politics, global market strategies, gender formation, and racial and ethnical marginalization have had on Latinas. Through the analysis of select plays by dramatists Nao Bustamante, Coco Fusco, Anne García-Romero, Josefina López, Cherríe Moraga, Linda Nieves-Powell, Dolores Prida, an...

Modern international studies of world theatre and drama have begun to acknowledge the Arab world only after the contributions of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Within the Arab world, the contributions of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco to modern drama and to post-colonial expression remain especially neglected, a problem that this book addresses.

Performance Affects, now in paperback and with a new preface, explores performance projects in disaster and war zones to argue that joy, beauty and celebration should be the inspiration for the politics of community-based or participatory performance practice. Applied Theatre has traditionally concentrated on effects - impacts, themes communicated or 'truths' revealed. Performance Affects challenges this orientation by suggesting that an affective realm needs to be the focus for a renewed aesthe...

This book examines the intersection of religion and theatrical performance in modernity/postmodernity. Religion, no longer sequestered in the "private sphere," has become an explicitly public force. It stimulates and complicates public actions; it is a crucial component of performance. The writings here suggest that performance studies and religious studies can inform one another, leading to innovative and deepened understandings within and between the disciplines. Religion must receive its ...

Maria Irene Fornes provides an enlightening introduction to a pivotal figure in both Hispanic-American and experimental theater. From her theatrical origins in 1960s Cuba to her precedent plays for the US stage, this book presents an important guide of work to this politically-charged playwright.

Drama at the Heart of the Secondary School provides a rationale for the curricular centrality of drama together with rich and detailed examples of cross-phase thematic projects which are drama-led, but which promote learning across a wide range of curriculum areas, from the humanities and other arts, to English and literacy, science and PSHE. Each unit explores relevant and stimulating themes and topics that will engage the students, promote empathy, pose questions, and produce creative respo...

New Playwriting Strategies has become a canonical text in the study and teaching of playwriting, offering a fresh and dynamic insight into the subject. This thoroughly revised and expanded second edition explores and highlights the wide spread of new techniques that form contemporary theatre writing, as well as their influence on other dramatic forms. Paul Castagno builds on the innovative plays of Len Jenkin, Mac Wellman, and the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin to investigate groundbreaking new ...

An all-encompassing reference guide to the theatre arts.

A short, clear, critical study of David Hare's work for theatre, film and television, concentrating on questions of staging, performance and narrative and dramatic form.

Does a particular song take you back to a certain time and place? More than 100 celebrities were asked what songs bring back special memories. * Film star Joan Collins The Way You Look Tonight reminds her of the first dance at her wedding to Percy Gibson. * TV presenter Richard Madeley remembers playing guitar at the local folk club when he hears American Pie by Don McLean. * Pavarotti's rendition of Nessun Dorma sets off memories of the 1990 World Cup for Gary Lineker * Joanna Lumley thinks of ...

This is the indispensable career guide for anyone interested in the theatre: the complete A to Z culled from industry expert Jim Volz's experience and interviews with many voices in the theatre community. This guide is your first port of call from how to get your foot in the door to where, when and how to advance your career. In addition to advice, inspiration and strategies for all working practitioners, not just actors, it also features extensive listings and directories for regional companie...

A revised edition of one of the most influential plays of our time, published with a new forward by the author, and debuting in celebration of Signature Theatre Company’s Tony Kushner season.

Generously illustrated with the work of award-winning photographer Simon Annand, this book takes you behind the scenes, describing how Tom Morris, director at the National Theatre, interacted with the Handspring Puppet Company in developing ideas for the staging of the piece. It also gives a clear account of how the puppets were designed and constructed.

In the summer of 1978, Grease was the word. On Friday, June 16, 1978, the movie musical made a major comeback when a big-screen version of the long-running rock-and-roll stage musical, Grease, opened in theaters around the country. With a talented cast led by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John and a memorable score featuring a mixture of oldies-style rock and contemporary pop, Grease captured the look and the feel of an old-fashioned Hollywood musical while taking audiences on a nostalgic trip...

This reference work is a show-by-show chronicle of the series, arranged by broadcast season, and showing network affiliation, host, announcer, director, musical director, and adaptation writer. Show listings include title, date first broadcast, cast, cast of the Lux commercials, plot synopsis, and film versions of the story. Also provided are the intermission guests-D.W. Griffith, Theda Bara, King Vidor, Sid Grauman among others-interviewed between acts of the broadcasts.

We easily accept that size matters in other areas of human endeavor, but what about works of the imagination? Why do some dramatic creations extend to five hours or more, and how does their great length help them accomplish extraordinarily ambitious aims? In Great Lengths, theater critic and scholar Jonathan Kalbexamines internationally prominent, marathon-length theater productions, including Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Robert Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach, the Royal Shakespeare Company’...