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Charmed Lives
by Michael KordaA Rolls Royce Silver Cloud drove him to airports; the British film industry kowtowed to his power; the great Hollywood studios fawned at his feet.Sir Alexander Korda, one of the world's most flamboyant movie tycoons, rose from obscurity in rural Hungary to become a legendary filmmaker. With him were his brothers, Zoltan and Vincent, all living charmed lives in circles that included H. G. Wells, Sir Lawrence Olivier, Marlena Dietrich, Vivien Leigh, and Merle Oberon, who was soon to be Alex's wife. But along with Alex's flair for success was an equally powerful impulse for destruction. Now, Vincent's son, Michael Korda, in the first book of his memoirs, recalls the enchanted figures of his childhood...the glory days of the Korda brothers' great films...and then their heartbreaking, tragic end.
Charmed Lives: A Family Romance
by Michael KordaA Rolls Royce Silver Cloud drove him to airports; the British film industry kowtowed to his power; the great Hollywood studios fawned at his feet. Sir Alexander Korda, one of the world's most flamboyant movie tycoons, rose from obscurity in rural Hungary to become a legendary filmmaker. With him were his brothers, Zoltan and Vincent, all living charmed lives in circles that included H. G. Wells, Sir Lawrence Olivier, Marlena Dietrich, Vivien Leigh, and Merle Oberon, who was soon to be Alex's wife. But along with Alex's flair for success was an equally powerful impulse for destruction. Now, Vincent's son, Michael Korda, in the first book of his memoirs, recalls the enchanted figures of his childhood...the glory days of the Korda brothers' great films...and then their heartbreaking, tragic end.
Check, Please!: Dating, Mating, & Extricating
by Janice DickinsonSupermodel Janice Dickinson’s over-the-top quest for Mr. Right is a hilarious rollercoaster of famous names, outrageous stories, and vicarious thrills.The inimitable, outrageous Janice Dickinson—America’s first supermodel and the bestselling author of No Lifeguard on Duty and Everything About Me Is Fake... And I’m Perfect—now serves up her most scintillating kiss and tell-all yet in Check, Please! Loaded with uncensored dish on her dating sagas and her stranger-than-fiction bedroom adventures, Check, Please! shows Dickinson as a real life Samantha Jones, and three decades at the top of the fast-track, glamorous world of modeling have given her a wealth of juicy stories. Dickinson dissects nearly 100 dates over a 25-year span—each one more jaw-droppingly outrageous than anything Jackie Collins could dream up. (There’s the Big Pharma billionaire, for example, who blurts out his fantasy of having Swarovski crystals shoved in every orifice before they’ve finished the first course of their first date—a declaration that forces Dickinson to quickly abandon the fantasy of “free botox forever” that he’d inspired in her.) Dickinson’s dates also reflect the changing times and the evolution of what she’s looking for in a man. From the unfettered hedonism of the 80s, a decade spent in white-hot one night stands and steamy affairs, to her heightened desire to find Mr. Right during the 90s, to her current state of play, Check, Please! is a fun, over-the-top vicarious thrill ride—with a core that’s highly relatable.
Chimera
by Wendy LillThis compelling drama explores the ethical controversy and public policy surrounding reproductive technologies. Wendy Lill has lived almost all the roles the play dramatizes: NDP critic for both culture and persons with disabilities, she came to politics after a career in community health care and as a reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Cast of 2 women and 5 men.
City Stages
by Michael MckinnieIn every major city, there exists a complex exchange between urban space and the institution of the theatre. City Stages is an interdisciplinary and materialist analysis of this relationship as it has existed in Toronto since 1967. Locating theatre companies ? their sites and practices ? in Toronto?s urban environment, Michael McKinnie focuses on the ways in which the theatre has adapted to changes in civic ideology, environment, and economy. Over the past four decades, theatre in Toronto has been increasingly implicated in the civic self-fashioning of the city and preoccupied with the consequences of the changing urban political economy. City Stages investigates a number of key questions that relate to this pattern. How has theatre been used to justify certain forms of urban development in Toronto? How have local real estate markets influenced the ways in which theatre companies acquire and use performance space? How does the analysis of theatre as an urban phenomenon complicate Canadian theatre historiography? McKinnie uses the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts and the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts as case studies and considers theatrical companies such as Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto Workshop Productions, Buddies in Bad Times, and Necessary Angel in his analysis. City Stages combines primary archival research with the scholarly literature emerging from both the humanities and social sciences. The result is a comprehensive and empirical examination of the relationship between the theatrical arts and the urban spaces that house them.
City/Stage/Globe: Performance and Space in Shakespeare's London (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory)
by D.J. HopkinsThis interdisciplinary study theorizes the interaction of individual performance and social space. Examining three categories of space – the urban, the theatrical, and the cartographic – this volume considers the role of performance in the production and operation of these spaces during a period in London’s history defined roughly by the life of Shakespeare. City/Stage/Globe not only organizes a selection of plays, pageants, maps, and masques in the historical and cultural contexts in which they emerged, but also uses performance theory to locate the ways in which these seemingly ephemeral events contributed to lasting change in the spatial concepts and physical topograpy of early modern London.
Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama)
by J. Caitlin Finlayson Amrita SenCivic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London brings together a group of essays from across multiple fields of study that examine the socio-cultural, political, economic, and aesthetic dimensions of pageantry in sixteenth and seventeenth-century London. This collection engages with modern interest in the spectacle and historical performances of pageantry and entertainments, including royal entries, progresses, coronation ceremonies, Lord Mayor’s Shows, and processions. Through a discussion of the extant texts, visual records, archival material, and emerging projects in the digital humanities, the chapters elucidate the forms in which the period itself recorded its public rituals, pageantry, and ephemeral entertainments. The diversity of approaches contained in these chapters reflects the collaborative nature of pageantry and civic entertainments, as well as the broad socio-cultural resonances of this form of drama, and in doing so offers a study that is multi-faceted and wide-ranging, much like civic performance itself. Ideal for scholars of Early Modern global politics, economics, and culture; literary and performance studies; print culture; and the digital humanities, Civic Performance casts a new lens on street pageantry and entertainments in the historically and culturally significant locus of Early Modern London.
Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air (Shakespeare's Personalities #2)
by Harold BloomFrom Harold Bloom, one of the greatest Shakespeare scholars of our time, comes an intimate, wise, deeply compelling portrait of Cleopatra—one of the Bard’s most riveting and memorable female characters.Cleopatra is one of the most famous women in history—and thanks to Shakespeare, one of the most intriguing personalities in literature. She is lover of Marc Antony, defender of Egypt, and, perhaps most enduringly, a champion of life. Cleopatra is supremely vexing, tragic, and complex. She has fascinated readers and audiences for centuries and has been played by the greatest actresses of their time, from Elizabeth Taylor to Vivien Leigh to Janet Suzman to Judi Dench. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Cleopatra with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character: Just as we encounter one Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are in high school and college and another when we are adults, Bloom explains his shifting understanding of Cleopatra over the course of his own lifetime. The book becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our own humanity. Bloom is mesmerizing in the classroom, wrestling with the often tragic choices Shakespeare’s characters make. With Cleopatra, he delivers exhilarating clarity and invites us to look at this character as a flawed human who might be living in our world. The result is an invaluable resource from our greatest literary critic.
CliffsNotes on Ibsen's Plays I: A Doll's House & Hedda Gabler
by Marianne SturmanThe original CliffsNotes study guides offer a look into critical elements and ideas within classic works of literature.CliffsNotes on A Doll's House & Hedda Gabler takes you into Henrick Ibsen's dramatic plays, controversial theater productions that inflamed audience reactions in the nineteenth century.A Doll's House follows the story of a housewife who emerges from the confinement of her married life to confront the conditions of the outside world. Typical of Ibsen's dramas, Hedda Gabler portrays a depraved world in which women in particular submit to unsatisfying socially imposed roles. Summaries and expert commentaries cover each act within both plays; other features that help you figure out these important works includeLife and background of the playwrightSummary of Ibsen's most famous playsAnalysis of the plays' structure, themes, and charactersA complete list of Ibsen's dramaSample exam questions and essay topicsClassic literature or modern-day treasure — you'll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides.
CliffsNotes on Shakespeare's As You Like It
by Tom SmithAs You Like It tracks the travails of young lovers and despotic rulers as they chase one another from the palace of Duke Frederick to the Forest of Arden. Shakespeare's classic work weaves together greedy inheritors, despotic rulers, a cross-dressing princess, and some magic before drawing to a dramatic close.
Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance
by Ayanna ThompsonThe systematic practice of non-traditional or "colorblind" casting began with Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival in the 1950s. Although colorblind casting has been practiced for half a century now, it still inspires vehement controversy and debate.This collection of fourteen original essays explores both the production history of colorblind casting in cultural terms and the theoretical implications of this practice for reading Shakespeare in a contemporary context.
Community Performance: An Introduction
by Petra KuppersCommunity Performance: An Introduction is a comprehensive and accessible practice-based primer for students and practitioners of community arts, dance and theatre. It is both a classroom-friendly textbook and a handbook for the practitioner, perfectly answering the needs of a field where teaching is orientated around practice. Offering a toolkit for students interested in running community arts groups, this book includes: international case-studies and first person stories by practitioners and participants sample exercises, both practical and reflective study questions excerpts of illustrative material from theorists and practitioners. This book can be used as a standalone text or together with its companion volume, The Community Performance Reader, to provide an excellent introduction to the field of community arts practice. Petra Kuppers has drawn on her vast personal experience and a wealth of inspiring case studies to create a book that will engage and help to develop the reflective community arts practitioner.
Contemporary African American Women Playwrights: A Casebook (Casebooks on Modern Dramatists)
by Philip C. Kolin'The impressive array of scholars gathered in this collection, all experts in the field, read the plays with nuance and situate them deftly within their cultural and historical contexts. Scholars of contemporary theater and drama and of African American literature will find value in this engaging collection.' – Choice 'For students and scholars of American theatre and drama generally and African American theatre and drama most particularly, this is an extremely valuable critical source.' – Harry Elam, Stanford University, USA In the last fifty years, American and World theatre has been challenged and enriched by the rise to prominence of numerous female African American dramatists. Contemporary African American Women Playwrights is the first critical volume to explore the contexts and influences of these writers, and their exploration of black history and identity through a wealth of diverse, courageous and visionary dramas. Kolin compiles a wealth of new essays, comprising: Yale scholar David Krasner on the dramatic legacy of Lorraine Hansberry, Zora Neale Hurston, Marita Bonner and Georgia Douglas Johnson individual chapters devoted to: Alice Childress, Sonia Sanchez, Adrienne Kennedy, Ntozake Shange, Pearl Cleage, Aishah Rahman, Glenda Dickerson, Anna Deavere Smith and Suzan Lori-Parks an essay and accompanying interview with Lynn Nottage comprehensive discussion of attendant theatrical forms, from choreopoems and surrealistic plays, to documentary theatre and civil rights dramas, and their use in challenging racial and gender hierarchies. Contributors: Brandi Wilkins Catanese, Soyica Diggs, James Fisher, Freda Scott Giles, Joan Wylie Hall, Philip C. Kolin, David Krasner, Sandra G. Shannon, Debby Thompson, Beth Turner and Jacqueline Wood.
Dear Brutus
by J. M. BarrieAn odd assortment of guests are warned against going into the woods for it is Midsummer Eve (there is no woods in the neighborhood, but legend says that it sometimes appears). A philanderer, his young wife and the current object of his affections; an artist who has lost faith in himself and his wife who despises him; indolent lady and a delightful old couple venture into the forest that appears outside the windows and find dreams and desires answered. When they return, they gradually revert to their former state, but not without a memory of the wood.
Defiance
by John Patrick Shanley"Defiance is a necessary step in the life of an individual and in the life of a nation."--John Patrick Shanley"As thoughtful and probing as its predecessor, Defiance [is] filled with the provocative questions and bristling dialogue for which Mr. Shanley is known . . . as it wonders about its big, knotty subjects."--Ben Brantley, The New York Times Defiance is the "very rich and satisfying" (The Village Voice) second work in John Patrick Shanley's trilogy that began with Doubt. The play is set in 1971 at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where Lt. Col. Morgan Littlefield and his reluctant protégé Capt. Lee King--a young African American officer--clash over issues of race and authority within the Marine Corps, even as the civil rights movement and Vietnam War divide the world outside. In this high-stakes struggle at the top of the ranks, witnessed by the base's inquisitive Chaplain White and Littlefield's irreproachable wife Margaret, Shanley has crafted another timely play exploring issues of power and morality within a hallowed institution. John Patrick Shanley's Doubt won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play, and was chosen as best play of the year by over ten news-papers and magazines. His other plays include Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Four Dogs and a Bone, Psychopathia Sexualis, and Savage Limbo. He has written extensively for TV and film, including Moonstruck, for which he won an Academy Award for best screenplay.
Den of Thieves (Cat Royal #3)
by Julia GoldingDisguised as a ballerina, Cat joins the French Revolution, only to find that it is up to her to save her friends after they are captured as traitors. The action-packed series continues with disguises, danger, drama, and the irrepressible Cat Royal.
Detroit on Stage: The Players Club, 1910-2005 (Great Lakes Books Series)
by Marijean LeveringFounded in 1910, Detroit’s Players Club is an all-male club devoted to the production of theater by members for other members’ enjoyment. Called simply "The Players," members of the club design, direct, and act in the shows, including playing the female roles. In Detroit on Stage, Marijean Levering takes readers behind the scenes of the club’s private "frolics" to explore the unique history of The Players, discover what traditions they still hold dear, and examine why they have survived relatively unscathed through changes that have shuttered older and more venerable institutions. The Players developed during a nationwide vogue for community and art theater and also as Detroit’s auto elites were in the midst of forming new private clubs to add to their own sense of prestige. By the 1920s, The Players had built their own playhouse and established most of their significant traditions, including the monthly frolics, at which the members perform for each other. At the frolics, members in the audience would wear tuxedos and drink beer out of personalized mugs, customs that remain to this day. Prominent Detroiters have always been among the ranks of the Players, and several well-known auto industry figures were members from the beginning, including banker Henry B. Joy, Oldsmobile sales manager Roy D. Chapin, and Ford executives James Couzens and Edsel Ford. Over the decades that followed the club’s founding, its membership and traditions have remained strong despite major world events that shook Detroit such as Prohibition, the Great Depression, and World War II. In looking at The Players of today, Levering explores the camaraderie and sense of history that has kept the club together and relatively unchanged throughout the years. She also examines the club’s notable members and its unique place in Detroit history. Detroit on Stage places The Players club in the broader contexts of social clubs, explaining how these organizations originate and function. Readers interested in Detroit cultural history and theater studies will enjoy this rare glimpse inside a long-standing Detroit cultural institution.
Dialogue Activities
by Nick BilbroughUsing dialogues in different contexts, this book provides over 100 practical activities for teachers to adapt for their classrooms. These activities encourage learners to look at the English language through dialogues and spoken interaction from coursebooks, literature and media, as well as authentic conversation extracts. The book explores using dialogue to communicate personal meaning effectively. It covers dialogue as both 'product' and 'process' in language teaching and will encourage learners to look beyond conventional communicative strategies and practise spoken language in a fresh contextualised way.
Dirty Story and Other Plays
by John Patrick Shanley"In the appallingly entertaining Dirty Story . . . Mr. Shanley has expanded his focus from the intimate to the international to create one of the liveliest, boldest and--against the odds--funniest studies ever of a subject that even hard-core satirists tend to approach on tiptoe."--Ben Brantley, The New York TimesThree new works by Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Patrick Shanley, one of our country's most politically current and theatrically elastic playwrights. In Dirty Story a couple of sadomasochistic writers fight over rights to their New York City loft, in this sexy satire of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is "astonishing," says Tony Kushner, "The analysis of the Middle East in this play is dead on, exactly perfectly pitched." In his dark comedy Where's My Money? Shanley takes on marriage, infidelity and divorce lawyers in a play that is "so harsh, it's funny--terrifying, but funny," (The New York Times). And in his Sailor's Song, love becomes an act of courage, in this seaside romance about the certainty of death, the brevity of youth, and the importance of now.John Patrick Shanley's Doubt won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play, and was chosen as best play of the year by over 10 newspapers and magazines. His other plays include Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Four Dogs and a Bone, Psychopathia Sexualis and Savage Limbo. He has written extensively for TV and film, including Moonstruck, for which he won an Academy Award for best screenplay.
Dix Tableaux
by Mark DunnComedy / 3f and m/f ensemble or flexible number / Interior / The story of friendship between two women in their sixties is played out over the course of ten years, each year representing another reunion for Beverly Duggins and Addie Spools, two participants in a series of annual "tableaux" sponsored by the Museum of Dix, in a small city in the South. Within human diorama settings as simple as a frontier cabin porch or the cow stall of a local dairy barn, and as elaborate as the "Spit and Curl" beauty salon (circa 1930) and the front seat of Thelma and Louise's plummeting convertible, Beverly, the lonely urban professional, and Addie, the down-home pharmacist's assistant, chart the course of each other's lives, while fending off incursions from the officiously bothersome fellow-poser Maureen. Through the ten scenes which comprise the play, the two women are forced to endure the constant in terruptions of the museum "promenaders" who "ooh" and "ah" at the lifelike presentations, offering up their comical comments, both kind and cruel. Though they see one another only one weekend a year, and in spite of their very different backgrounds, Beverly and Addie nurture a growing and abiding friendship. In the end, it becomes the strongest and most sustaining friendship of their lives.
Don't Say Goodbye, I'm Not Leaving
by Roger KarshnerComedy / 2m, 2f / Simple Sets / Herb has just been admitted to the hospital with a non-specific illness where his wife, Edna, confronts him regarding a will, his options, and insists he see her brother, Bruce, a high-powered attorney. Herb is reluctant, but agrees to see Bruce who, during the confrontational visit, passes out and lapses into a coma. Bruce is now hospitalized and Herb appoints himself as his watch-dog to assure the medical "idiots" don't pull the plug. Herb and Edna invite Bruce's wife, Blanche, to move in with them during Bruce¹s confinement, all agreeing to take round-the-clock shifts with Bruce. After a month, Bruce's condition remains static and the situation becomes stressful, leading to humorous conflict. A human lesson regarding mortality and the inability to change.
Drawing and Rendering for Theatre: A Practical Course for Scenic, Costume, and Lighting Designers
by Clare P. RoweDrawing and Rendering for Theatre, A Practical Course for Scenic, Costume, and Lighting Designers is designed for those of you who are theatrical designers and want to improve your drawing and rendering skills.This gorgeous full-color book includes many examples of student drawings, analyzed and critiqued for areas that need improvement. It also includes numerous examples of design renderings by professional theatrical designers. In addition to the general sections on drawing and painting, it includes separate chapters on costume, scenic, and lighting rendering that include information specific to these design areas.
Ella Bella Ballerina and the Sleeping Beauty (Ella Bella Ballerina #1)
by James MayhewElla Bella longs to be a beautiful ballerina, and so each week she goes to Madame Rosa's ballet class at the old theatre. As we all know, theatres are magical places where anything can happen, and sure enough, as soon as Ella Bella opens Madame Rosa's magical musical box on the empty stage, she's whisked off in a beautiful lilac light to Sleeping Beauty's palace. But will she be able to help the Lilac Fairy save Sleeping Beauty from the bad fairy's wicked spell?
Encyclopedia of Erotic Literature
by John Phillips GaThe Encyclopedia of Erotic Literature is a two-volume work that contains some 540 entries on erotic literature on an international scale. The Encyclopedia has an unprecedented scope, the first scholarly reference resource to bring the field together in all its fascinating variety. The entries examine the history of the literature in different countries and languages from classical antiquity to the present day, individual writers from around the world (not all of them necessarily known as specialist writers of erotic literature), significant works, genres and critical approaches, and general themes pertinent to erotic literature (nudity, prostitution, etc.). The definition of erotic literature is broad, encompassing all the material recognized in the study of the field: not just fiction in all genres (novels, poetry, short stories, drama), but also essays, autobiographies, treatises and sex manuals from different cultures. This Encyclopedia deals with sexually explicit texts characterized by sexual representations and suggestions. All types of sexuality are included. For more information about the title and the editors, go to: http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/news/latest-news/erotic-encyclopedia-edited-by-london-met-professor.cfm/
Essential Self-Defense: A Play
by Adam RappThe next work for the stage from the Pulitzer finalist Adam Rapp, Essential Self-Defense.In Essential Self-Defense, disgruntled misfit Yul Carroll takes a job as an attack dummy in a women's self-defense class and finds himself mysteriously drawn to Sadie, the repressed bookworm mercilessly honing her skills on him. Meanwhile, all's not well on the unassuming Midwestern streets of Bloggs: with local children vanishing at an alarming rate, our hero, his lady friend, and a motley assortment of poets, butchers, and punk librarians prepare to battle the darkness on the edge of town.