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Implications of Literature, Trailblazer Level: An Integrated Literature/Language Arts Program for High School Students (Student Edition)
by TextWord Press StaffThis publication of the Trailblazer Level of the Implications of Literature Anthology Series marks the completion of the TextWord Press four-year literature series for high-school students. This fourth volume in the series surveys approximately 1500 years of English Literature. In this text you will come to understand how the English that we speak so comfortably today developed from Old English--a language that today is incomprehensible to almost everyone but scholars.
Impolite Comedy
by Joseph HayesComedy / 3m, 3f / At a fashionable country home a dinner party comically goes to pieces. A publisher and his wife have invited a young novelist. The publisher's purpose is to get the novelist's new book as his firm badly needs a best seller. But everything goes wrong. The publisher's mother, an amusing but difficult woman, has arrived unexpectedly. Enter, also uninvited, a sophisticated mystery writer who may have had an affair with the publisher's wife. The novelist proves more difficult than reputed and has in tow the girl he's currently living with and with whom he's been fighting all day. No food and much booze makes for a hilarious brew and an evening turned to shambles with cross currents of revelations and accusations.
Impro for Storytellers: Theatresports And The Art Of Making Things Happen
by Keith JohnstoneImpro for Storytellers is the follow-up to Keith Johnstone's classic Impro, one of the best-selling books ever published on improvisation. Impro for Storytellers aims to take jealous and self-obsessed beginners and teach them to play games with good nature and to fail gracefully.
Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre (Bloomsbury Revelations Ser.)
by Keith JohnstoneKeith Johnstone's involvement with the theatre began when George Devine and Tony Richardson, artistic directors of the Royal Court Theatre, commissioned a play from him. This was in 1956. A few years later he was himself Associate Artistic Director, working as a play-reader and director, in particular helping to run the Writers' Group. The improvisatory techniques and exercises evolved there to foster spontaneity and narrative skills were developed further in the actors' studio then in demonstrations to schools and colleges and ultimately in the founding of a company of performers, called The Theatre Machine. Divided into four sections, 'Status', 'Spontaneity', 'Narrative Skills', and 'Masks and Trance', arranged more or less in the order a group might approach them, the book sets out the specific techniques and exercises which Johnstone has himself found most useful and most stimulating. The result is both an ideas book and a fascinating exploration of the nature of spontaneous creativity.
Improv Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up
by Patricia Ryan MadsonIn an irresistible invitation to lighten up, look around, and live an unscripted life, a master of the art of improvisation explains how to adopt the attitudes and techniques used by generations of musicians and actors. Let’s face it: Life is something we all make up as we go along. No matter how carefully we formulate a “script,” it is bound to change when we interact with people with scripts of their own. Improv Wisdomshows how to apply the maxims of improvisational theater to real-life challenges—whether it’s dealing with a demanding boss, a tired child, or one of life’s never-ending surprises. Patricia Madson distills thirty years of experience into thirteen simple strategies, including “Say Yes,” “Start Anywhere,” “Face the Facts,” and “Make Mistakes, Please,” helping readers to loosen up, think on their feet, and take on everything life has to offer with skill, chutzpah, and a sense of humor.
Improvisation For The Theater: A Handbook of Teaching and Directing Techniques
by Paul Sills Viola SpolinViola Spolin's improvisational techniques changed the very nature and practice of modern theater. The first two editions of Improvisation for the Theater sold more than one hundred thousand copies and inspired actors, directors, teachers, and writers in theater, television, and film. These techniques have also influenced the fields of education, mental health, social work, and psychology.
Improvisation Hypermedia and the Arts since 1945 (Performing Arts Studies #Vol. 4)
by Hazel Smith Roger DeanFirst Published in 1997. The authors’ purpose in this book is to dissect developments in improvisation in the arts since 1945, with a particular emphasis on process and technique. The approach is analytical and theoretical but is also relevant to practitioners and their audience. Their key argument is that improvisation has been of great importance and value in the contemporary arts, particularly because of its potential to develop new forms (often by breaking definitions).
Improvisation and Social Aesthetics
by Will Straw Georgina Born Eric LewisAddressing a wide range of improvised art and music forms—from jazz and cinema to dance and literature—this volume's contributors locate improvisation as a key site of mediation between the social and the aesthetic. As a catalyst for social experiment and political practice, improvisation aids in the creation, contestation, and codification of social realities and identities. Among other topics, the contributors discuss the social aesthetics of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the Feminist Improvising Group, and contemporary Malian music, as well as the virtual sociality of interactive computer music, the significance of "uncreative" improvisation, responses to French New Wave cinema, and the work of figures ranging from bell hooks and Billy Strayhorn to Kenneth Goldsmith. Across its diverse chapters, Improvisation and Social Aesthetics argues that ensemble improvisation is not inherently egalitarian or emancipatory, but offers a potential site for the cultivation of new forms of social relations. It sets out a new conceptualization of the aesthetic as immanently social and political, proposing a new paradigm of improvisation studies that will have reverberations throughout the humanities.Contributors. Lisa Barg, Georgina Born, David Brackett, Nicholas Cook, Marion Froger, Susan Kozel, Eric Lewis, George E. Lewis, Ingrid Monson, Tracey Nicholls, Winfried Siemerling, Will Straw, Zoë Svendsen, Darren Wershler
Improvisation the Michael Chekhov Way: Active Exploration of Acting Techniques
by Wil KilroyImprovisation the Michael Chekhov Way: Active Exploration of Acting Techniques provides readers with dozens of improvisational exercises based on the acting techniques of Michael Chekhov. The book features key exercises that will help the actor explore improvisation and expand their imagination through the technique. Exercises that have been successfully taught for decades via the intensive trainings from the National Michael Chekhov Association are now clearly laid out in this book, along with information on how these performance-based techniques can be applied to a script and even provide life benefits. Guidance on how to use the exercises both in a group setting and as an individual is provided, as well as tools for lesson plans for up to a year of actor training. These step-by-step exercises will allow readers to expand their range of expression, discover the joy of creating unique characters, improve stage presence and presentation skills, and find new, creative ways to look at life. Improvisation the Michael Chekhov Way is written to be used by individual actors and practitioners and in group settings such as acting or improvisation courses, and to benefit anyone wishing to enhance their creativity and imagination.
Improvise: Scene from the Inside Out
by Mick NapierFor more than 20 years of directing, teaching, and participating in improvisation, Mick Napier has watched thousands of scenes. His experience as founder of the acclaimed Annoyance Theatre/Annoyance Productions, as well as Resident Director and Artistic Consultant for The Second City, has led him to continually question why and how scenes work or don't work and what one must do in order for a scene to be successful. In this book, Napier takes an irreverent, but constructive look at the art and practice of improvised scenes. He covers such topics as: two-person scenes group scenes entering scenes techniques to achieve richer, more layered scenes auditioning solo exercises for practice at home. Napier also challenges the conventional wisdom of the rules of improvisation, examining what's behind them and how they came to be in the first place. Get helpful, tangible guidelines for bringing strength and direction to your scenes. JustImprovise.
In Absentia
by Morris PanychFour seasons after her husband Tom's disappearance, Colette remains emotionally paralyzed, isolated in a country cottage. She waits in anguish, not knowing whether he is dead or alive, but clinging to hope. <P><P>A young stranger in a jean jacket waves to her from the frozen lake - a sign? She emerges to give him her husband's parka - strangely, the boy has a likeness to Tom.What is the stranger's connection to her geologist husband, kidnapped more than a year before by leftist guerrillas in Colombia? How does this slyly seductive young stranger happen to show up at her home in rural Ontario, thousands of miles away? He seems to know more about Colette than he should, and as he slowly insinuates himself into her life, Colette's attentive sister, Evelyn, and her helpful neighbor Bill become increasingly alarmed.Part mystery, part moving story of vanished love, In Absentia explores the notion of disappearance, articulated in very personal terms. Through the tough, time-shifting action of the play, Colette reflects on her marriage and past love, offering rich associative memories while also uncovering the hidden and inaccessible - that which is made to disappear from view.Guilt and grief, infidelity and infertility, loss and longing are the deeper subjects Panych explores here. At the same time, the play examines the desire to make connections in life - thoughts to deeds, intentions to outcomes - in scenes often enlivened by the playwright's trademark humor.Cast of 3 men and 2 women.
In Between Subjects: A Critical Genealogy of Queer Performance
by Amelia JonesThis volume is a study of the connected ideas of "queer" and "gender performance" or "performativity" over the past several decades, providing an ambitious history and crucial examination of these concepts while questioning their very bases. Addressing cultural forms from 1960s–70s sociology, performance art, and drag queen balls to more recent queer voguing performances by Pasifika and Māori people from New Zealand and pop culture television shows such as RuPaul’s Drag Race, the book traces how and why "queer" and "performativity" seem to belong together in so many discussions around identity, popular modes of gender display, and performance art. Drawing on art history and performance studies but also on feminist, queer, and sexuality studies, and postcolonial, indigenous, and critical race theoretical frameworks, it seeks to denaturalize these assumptions by questioning the US-centrism and white-dominance of discourses around queer performance or performativity. The book’s narrative is deliberately recursive, itself articulated in order performatively to demonstrate the specific valence and social context of each concept as it emerged, but also the overlap and interrelation among the terms as they have come to co-constitute one another in popular culture and in performance and visual arts theory, history, and practice. Written from a hybrid art historical and performance studies point of view, this will be essential reading for all those interested in art, performance, and gender, as well as in queer and feminist theory.
In Concert: Performing Musical Persona
by Philip AuslanderThe conventional way of understanding what musicians do as performers is to treat them as producers of sound; some even argue that it is unnecessary to see musicians in performance as long as one can hear them. But musical performance, counters Philip Auslander, is also a social interaction between musicians and their audiences, appealing as much to the eye as to the ear. In Concert: Performing Musical Persona he addresses not only the visual means by which musicians engage their audiences through costume and physical gesture, but also spectacular aspects of performance such as light shows. Although musicians do not usually enact fictional characters on stage, they nevertheless present themselves to audiences in ways specific to the performance situation. Auslander’s term to denote the musician’s presence before the audience is musical persona. While presence of a musical persona may be most obvious within rock and pop music, the book’s analysis extends to classical music, jazz, blues, country, electronic music, laptop performance, and music made with experimental digital interfaces. The eclectic group of performers discussed include the Beatles, Miles Davis, Keith Urban, Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Frank Zappa, B. B. King, Jefferson Airplane, Virgil Fox, Keith Jarrett, Glenn Gould, and Laurie Anderson.
In Defence of Theatre: Aesthetic Practices and Social Interventions
by Kathleen Gallagher Barry FreemanWhy theatre now? Reflecting on the mix of challenges and opportunities that face theatre in communities that are necessarily becoming global in scope and technologically driven, In Defence of Theatre offers a range of passionate reflections on this important question.Kathleen Gallagher and Barry Freeman bring together nineteen playwrights, actors, directors, scholars, and educators who discuss the role that theatre can - and must - play in professional, community, and educational venues. Stepping back from their daily work, they offer scholarly research, artists' reflections, interviews, and creative texts that argue for theatre as a response to the political and cultural challenges emerging in the twenty-first century. Contributors address theatre's contribution to local and global politics of place, its power as an antidote to various modern social ailments, and its pursuit of equality. Of equal concern are the systematic and practical challenges that confront those involved in realizing theatre's full potential.
In Experiments With Rats
by Antonio Morcillo Lopez L. FinchPol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein and Stalin are a group of lab rats imprisoned in a glass cage. They are veterans of scientific experimentation. They've seen it all. For them, with the passing of time, electric shocks have become a kind of incognizable deity. They don't know how to interpret them, nor do they know what so much pain means. One day, an especially intense session of shocks finishes them off. They die. This allows them to pass to the other side and visit the scientist who has been experimenting with them all this time. They have a few questions. And they want a lot of answers. Winner of the Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE) Theater Prize 2007.
In Love With A Fool
by Ana Roma“Did it ever cross your mind to fall in love for the same person you swore to join with someone else?” That is exactly what happened to Ana Clara, the main character of this story. Ana Clara is in the same class as a boy she doesn’t dare to talk to after finding out she is completely, madly in love with him. The worst of all is that, even knowing he might be her prince charming, Ana Clara had already decided to find another princess to fill his heart. After learning that her talent to “find” and “match” soul mates wasn’t real, she decided to destroy the relationship and try to win the heart of the idiot with whom she fell in love with.
In Order Of Appearance
by Gardner MckayDrama / 7 m., 2 f. or 5 m., 2 f. / Interior / Tom Vickery has a secret. Or did. Twenty years ago he wrote a play that his agent, Morris Bonecream, told him was too personally embarrassing to produce. Tom set fire to him. Bonecream sued Tom for arson. Tom disappeared. He is presumed dead, but in reality is living in the Maine woods bottling cranberry brandy and married to Gemma Jones, a woman who knows nothing of his past. Suddenly, Bonecream appears; Tom's play is a huge hit in London under an Englishman's name, Dunlop Sablehand. Bonecream needs Tom's script as evidence to get his commission from the plagiarist. Gemma reads the play and leaves Tom. A character from the play, Shelley Vickery, turns up. She straightens Tom out. The hired man falls in love with her. Gemma comes back to Tom. Bonecream finds God, or someone like him.
In Other Los Angeleses: Multicentric Performance Art
by Meiling ChengThis is a study of contemporary Los Angeles through the lens of performance art, an intermedia visual art that incorporates theatrical elements in presentation. The book proposes to examine the significant roles that performance art has played in shaping, transforming, and delineating the multicultural ecology of Los Angeles.
In Piazza San Domenico
by Steve GalluccioSteve Galluccio's newest stage triumph, In Piazza San Domenico, is a comedy of errors that takes place in a bustling neighbourhood of 1952 Naples.This two-act play recounts the story of how one broken engagement ripples throughout friends and family, affecting all of their respective love lives in different ways. The young and beautifully earthy Carmelina faints in the arms of the town philanderer, Tonino, setting off a wave of malicious gossip that seems to infect everyone in town with second thoughts about their current partners-and inexplicable desires for new ones-as often as not consummated on that shadowed spot of carpet behind the statue of San Francesco in the church on the town square. Finally, as if the very gods are angry with these salacious goings-on, an earthquake hits the town, sending the characters into the piazza and keeping them there for the night with a series of ominous aftershocks. As the sun rises, misunderstandings are resolved, the truth is revealed, and hardened hearts yield to the eternally verdant desires for life.In a world and a time hovering between the "traditional" values and the emancipated new thinking, Italian theatrical archetypes with their roots in Roman comedies and the Commedia dell'arte evolve into the recognizable stereotypes of mid-twentieth-century society that were to become hallmarks of the whimsical Sophia Loren/Marcello Mastroianni films of the early 1960s.Of this play, Galluccio has said: "Humour is a powerful tool that can get us through anything ... the human spirit and its sense of survival is bigger than whatever society can throw at us."
In Rehearsal: In the World, in the Room, and On Your Own
by Gary SloanIn Rehearsal is a clear and accessible how-to approach to the rehearsal process. Author Gary Sloan brings more than thirty years' worth of acting experience to bear on the question of how to rehearse both as an individual actor and as part of the team of professionals that underpins any successful production. Interviews with acclaimed actors, directors, playwrights, and designers share a wealth of knowledge on dynamic collaboration. The book is divided in to three main stages, helping the reader to refine their craft in as straightforward and accessible manner as possible: In the world: A flexible rehearsal program that can be employed daily, as well as over a typical four week production rehearsal. In the room: Advice on working independently and productively with other members of a company, such as directors, playwrights, designers and technical crew; how your personal creative process varies depending on the role, be it Shakespeare, musicals, film, television or understudying. On your own: Creating your own rehearsal process, exploring original and famous rehearsal techniques, breaking through actor's block and how to practice every day. In Rehearsal breaks down the rehearsal process from the actor’s perspective and equips its reader with the tools to become a generous and resourceful performer both inside and outside the studio. Its independent, creative and daily rehearsal techniques are essential for any modern actor.
In Search of Stanislavsky’s Creative State on the Stage: With a Practice as Research Case Study
by Gabriela CurpanThis book rediscovers a spiritual way of preparing the actor towards experiencing that ineffable artistic creativity defined by Konstantin Stanislavski as the creative state. Filtered through the lens of his unaddressed Christian Orthodox background, as well as his yogic or Hindu interest, the practical work followed the odyssey of the artist, from being oneself towards becoming the character, being structured in three major horizontal stages and developed on another three vertical, interconnected levels. Throughout the book, Gabriela Curpan aims to question both the cartesian approach to acting and the realist-psychological line, generally viewed as the only features of Stanislavski’s work. This book will be of great interest to theatre and performance academics as well as practitioners in the fields of acting and directing.
In Spirit
by Tara BeaganTwelve-year-old Molly was riding her new bicycle on a deserted road when a man in a truck pulled up next to her, saying he was lost. He asked if she could get in and help him back to the highway, and said he could bring her back to her bike after. Molly declined, out of interest for her own safety. The next things Molly remembers are dirt, branches, trees, pain, and darkness. Molly is now a spirit. Mustering up some courage, she pieces together her short life for herself and her family while she reassembles her bicycle—the same one that was found thrown into the trees on the side of the road. Juxtaposed with flashes of news, sounds, and videos, Molly’s chilling tale becomes more and more vivid, challenging humanity not to forget her presence and importance.
In The Heights: Finding Home **The must-have gift for all Lin-Manuel Miranda fans**
by Lin-Manuel Miranda Jeremy McCarter Quiara Alegria HudesThe eagerly awaited follow-up to the #1 New York Times bestseller Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda's new book gives readers an extraordinary inside look at In the Heights, his breakout Broadway debut, written with Quiara Alegría Hudes, soon to be a Hollywood blockbuster.In 2008, In the Heights, a new musical from up-and-coming young artists, electrified Broadway. The show's vibrant mix of Latin music and hip-hop captured life in Washington Heights, the Latino neighborhood in upper Manhattan. It won four Tony Awards and became an international hit, delighting audiences around the world. For the film version, director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) brought the story home, filming its spectacular dance numbers on location in Washington Heights. That's where Usnavi, Nina, and their neighbors chase their dreams and ask a universal question: Where do I belong?In the Heights: Finding Home reunites Miranda with Jeremy McCarter, co-author of Hamilton: The Revolution, and Quiara Alegría Hudes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist of the Broadway musical and screenwriter of the film. They do more than trace the making of an unlikely Broadway smash and a major motion picture: They give readers an intimate look at the decades-long creative life of In the Heights.Like Hamilton: The Revolution, the book offers untold stories, perceptive essays, and the lyrics to Miranda's songs-complete with his funny, heartfelt annotations. It also features newly commissioned portraits and never-before-seen photos from backstage, the movie set, and productions around the world.This is the story of characters who search for a home-and the artists who created one.(P)2021 Penguin Audio
In The Heights: Finding Home **The origin story behind the feelgood film of the summer**
by Lin-Manuel Miranda Jeremy McCarter Quiara Alegria HudesLin-Manuel Miranda's new book gives readers an extraordinary inside look at In the Heights, his breakout Broadway debut, written with Quiara Alegría Hudes, now a Hollywood blockbuster.WHAT FANS ARE SAYING... "This book is so beautiful I want to cry." ~ "I genuinely think I've needed this for years." ~ "Reading this book made my love for both the musical and movie versions of In the Heights grow even more."In 2008, In the Heights, a new musical from up-and-coming young artists, electrified Broadway. The show's vibrant mix of Latin music and hip-hop captured life in Washington Heights, the Latino neighborhood in upper Manhattan. It won four Tony Awards and became an international hit, delighting audiences around the world. For the film version, director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) brought the story home, filming its spectacular dance numbers on location in Washington Heights. That's where Usnavi, Nina, and their neighbors chase their dreams and ask a universal question: Where do I belong?In the Heights: Finding Home reunites Miranda with Jeremy McCarter, co-author of Hamilton: The Revolution, and Quiara Alegría Hudes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist of the Broadway musical and screenwriter of the film. They do more than trace the making of an unlikely Broadway smash and a major motion picture: They give readers an intimate look at the decades-long creative life of In the Heights.Like Hamilton: The Revolution, the book offers untold stories, perceptive essays, and the lyrics to Miranda's songs-complete with his funny, heartfelt annotations. It also features newly commissioned portraits and never-before-seen photos from backstage, the movie set, and productions around the world.This is the story of characters who search for a home-and the artists who created one.
In The Heights: The Complete Book And Lyrics Of The Broadway Musical
by Lin-Manuel Miranda Quiara Hudes(Applause Libretto Library). Music and Lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Book by Quiara Alegria Hudes, Conceived by Lin-Manuel Miranda In the Heights is an exciting musical about life in Washington Heights, a tight-knit community where the coffee from the corner bodega is light and sweet, the windows are always open, and the breeze carries the rhythm of three generations of music. During its acclaimed Off-Broadway and Broadway runs, In the Heights became an audience phenomenon and a critical success. It's easy to see why: with an amazing cast, a gripping story, and incredible dancing, In the Heights is an authentic and exhilarating journey into one of Manhattan's most vibrant communities. And with its universal themes of family, community, and self-discovery, In the Heights can be enjoyed by people of all ages and backgrounds. Among the musical's many accolades are two Drama Desk Awards, a Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album, and a nomination for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Find out what it takes to make a living, what it costs to have a dream, and what it means to be home... In the Heights .