- Table View
- List View
Much Ado About Nothing: A Comedy (Dover Thrift Editions: Plays)
by William ShakespeareMuch Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare's most imaginative and exuberant comedies, contrasting two pairs of lovers in a witty and suspenseful battle of the sexes. Attracted to each other, the maddeningly skeptical Beatrice and Benedick are dead-locked in a lively war of words until their friends hatch a plot to unite them. The mutually devoted Hero and Claudio, on the other hand, all too quickly fall victim to a malicious plot to part them. Near-fatal complications ensue, but with the help of the hilarious Constable Dogberry and his confederates, the lovers are ultimately united.First presented in 1598, Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare's last comedies. Its darker undercurrents foreshadow the playwright's growing concern with the frailties of human character that would dominate his late tragedies. But in its clever turns of plot, vivacious displays of wit, jovial conversations, and charming songs, this merry comedy is among Shakespeare's most artistic creations.
Much Ado About Nothing: A Comedy
by William ShakespeareThe Signet Classics edition of William Shakespeare's grand romantic comedy.Much Ado About Nothing casts the lovers Benedick and Beatrice in a witty war of words while the young Claudio is tricked into believing his love Hero has been unfaithful in this play that combines robust humor with explorations on honor and shame. This revised Signet Classics edition includes unique features such as: • An overview of Shakespeare's life, world, and theater • A special introduction to the play by the editor, David L. Stevenson• A note on the sources from which Shakespeare derived Much Ado About Nothing • Dramatic criticism from Charles Gildon, Lewis Carroll, George Bernard Shaw, and others • A comprehensive stage and screen history of notable actors, directors, and productions • Text, notes, and commentaries printed in the clearest, most readable text • And more...
Much Ado About Nothing
by William Shakespeare'We go to Shakespeare to find out about ourselves' Jeanette WintersonBeatrice and Benedick both claim they are determined never to marry. But when their friends trick them into believing that each harbours secret feelings for the other, the pair begin to question whether their witty banter and verbal sparring conceal something deeper. Schemes abound, dangerous misunderstandings proliferate and matches are eventually made in this dazzling, dark-edged comedy of mature love and second chances. Used and Recommended by the National TheatreGeneral Editor Stanley WellsEdited by R. A. FoakesIntroduction by Janette Dillon
Much Ado About Nothing (Folger Shakespeare Library)
by William ShakespeareThe authoritative edition of Much Ado About Nothing from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers. One of Shakespeare&’s most frequently performed comedies, Much Ado About Nothing includes two quite different stories of romantic love. Hero and Claudio fall in love almost at first sight, but an outsider, Don John, strikes out at their happiness. Beatrice and Benedick are kept apart by pride and mutual antagonism until others decide to play Cupid. The Folger Library is the nation&’s best, most navigable and most respected resource for Shakespeare scholarship and teaching. The authoritative edition of Much Ado About Nothing features the side-by-side format favored by both students and teachers, as well as guides to the play&’s most famous lines and Shakespearean phrases and language. This edition includes: -The exact text of the printed book for easy cross-reference -Hundreds of hypertext links for instant navigation -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play -Full explanatory notes conveniently linked to the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play&’s famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare&’s language -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library&’s vast holdings of rare books -An annotated guide to further reading Essay by Gail Kern Paster The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world&’s largest collection of Shakespeare&’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.
Much Ado About Nothing
by William Shakespeare David Bevington David Scott KastanSet in a courtly world of masked revels and dances, this play turns on the archetypal story of a lady falsely accused of unfaithfulness, spurned by her bridegroom, and finally vindicated and reunited with him. Villainy, schemes, and deceits threaten to darken the brilliant humor and sparkling wordplay-but the hilarious counterplot of a warring couple, Beatrice and Benedick, steals the scene as the two are finally tricked into admitting their love for each other in Shakespeare's superb comedy of manners.Each Edition Includes:* Comprehensive explanatory notes * Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship * Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English* Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories * An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmographyFrom the Paperback edition.
Much Ado About Nothing (No Fear Shakespeare)
by SparkNotesDon’t be intimidated by Shakespeare! These popular guides make the Bard’s plays accessible and enjoyable.
Much Ado About Nothing (SparkNotes Literature Guide Series)
by SparkNotesMuch Ado About Nothing (SparkNotes Literature Guide) by William Shakespeare Making the reading experience fun! Created by Harvard students for students everywhere, SparkNotes is a new breed of study guide: smarter, better, faster. Geared to what today's students need to know, SparkNotes provides: *Chapter-by-chapter analysis *Explanations of key themes, motifs, and symbols *A review quiz and essay topicsLively and accessible, these guides are perfect for late-night studying and writing papers
Much Ado about Nothing (The Folger Shakespeare Library)
by William ShakespeareMuch Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare's more popular comedies, with a long history of success on the stage. Much of its appeal lies in its two stories of romantic love with their quite different journeys to comedy's happy ending. Hero and Claudio fall in love almost at first sight; their union has the blessing of the older generation (in the persons of Hero's father, Leonato, and Claudio's prince, Don Pedro).
Much Ado About Nothing (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by William Shakespeare F. H. MaresFamous actors have appeared as this play's sparring lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, from David Garrick's time in the eighteenth century to the present. Angela Stock has added a new section to the Introduction where she reviews the romantic and darker, more cynical aspects of the play in the context of late twentieth-century stage, film and critical interpretations. She also tackles the critical fortunes of Hero and Claudio as they reflect the play's concerns with sexuality and misogyny, eavesdropping and deception.
Much Ado About Numbers: Shakespeare's Mathematical Life and Times
by Rob EastawayOpen a new portal into Shakespeare’s words—and his Renaissance life—with math and numbers as your key. Shakespeare’s era was abuzz with mathematical progress, from the new concept of “zero” to Galileo’s redraft of the heavens. Now, Rob Eastaway uncovers the many surprising ways math shaped Shakespeare’s plays—and his world—touring astronomy, code-breaking, color theory, navigation, music, sports, and more. How reliable was a pocket sundial? Was math illusionist John Dee the real-life Prospero? How long was a Scottish mile, and what could you buy for a groat? Do Jupiter’s moons have a cameo in Cymbeline? How did ordinary people use numbers day to day? And might Shakespeare have tried that game-changing invention—the pencil? Full of delights for devotees of both Tudor history and the Bard, Much Ado About Numbers is proof that the arts and sciences have always danced together.
La Muerta y la Doncella
by Ariel DorfmanLa muerte y la doncella, la obra latinoamericana mas representada en la historia del mundo, ha llegado a constituirse en un clasico sobre la justicia y el perdon, la memoria y el olvido. Dorfman se ha propuesto a explorar preguntas pocas veces hechas en voz alta: "¿Como pueden los represores y los oprimidos cohabitar una misma tierra, compartir una misma mesa?" preguntas que hoy dîa siguen tan vigentes como cuando Dorfman escribia esta obra.
Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life
by Zora Hurston Langston HughesHoliding an exceptional place in the history of African-American theater, Mule Bone is the energetic and often farcical play co-written by Harlem Renaissance luminaries Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. The play centers on a two-man song-and-dance team and the woman who comes between them. Jealousy between the men erupts with the use of a mule bone as a weapon, and the ensuing hilarity and chaos splits the town into two factions.
Multi-media: Video – Installation – Performance
by Nick KayeMulti-media charts the development of multi-media video, installation and performance in a unique dialogue between theoretical analysis and specially commissioned documentations by some of the world’s foremost artists. Nick Kaye explores the interdisciplinary history and character of experimental practices shaped in exchanges between music, installation, theatre, performance art, conceptual art, sculpture and video. The book sets out key themes and concerns in multi-media practice, addressing time, space, the resurgence of ephemerality, liveness and ‘aura’. These chapters are interspersed with documentary artwork and essays by artists whose work continues to shape the field, including new articles from: Vito Acconci The Builders Association John Jesurun Pipilotti Rist Fiona Templeton. Multi-media also reintroduces a major documentary essay by Paolo Rosa of Studio Azzurro in a new, fully illustrated form. This book combines sophisticated scholarly analysis and fascinating original work to present a refreshing and creative investigation of current multi-media arts practice.
Multilingual Dramaturgies: Towards New European Theatre (New Dramaturgies)
by Kasia LechMultilingual Dramaturgies provides a study of dramaturgical practices in contemporary multilingual theatre in Europe. Featuring interviews with international theatremakers, the book gives an insight into diverse approaches towards multilingual theatre and its dramaturgy that reflect cultural, political, and economic landscapes of contemporary Europe, its inhabitants, and its theatres. First-hand accounts are contextualized to reveal a complex set of negotiations involved in the creative and political tasks of staging multilingualism and engaging the audience, as well as in practical issues like funding and developing working models. Using interviews with practitioners from a diverse range of theatrical backgrounds and career levels, and with various models of financial support, Multilingual Dramaturgies also offers an insight into different attitudes towards multilingualism in European theatres. The book illuminates not only the potential for multilingual dramaturgies, but also the practical and creative difficulties involved in making them. By bringing the voices of artists together and providing a critical commentary, the book reveals multilingual dramaturgies as webbed practices of differences that also offer new ways of understanding and performing identity in a European context. Multilingual Dramaturgies sheds light on an exciting theatre practice, argues for its central role in Europe and highlights potential directions for its further development.
Mummers' Plays Revisited (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Peter HarropPeter Harrop offers a reappraisal of mummers’ plays, which have long been regarded as a form of ‘folk’ or ‘traditional’ drama, somehow separate from the mainstream of British theatre. This fresh view of folk and tradition explores how mummers’ plays emerged in an 18th century theatrical environment of popular spouting clubs and private theatricals, yet quickly transformed into ‘traditionary’ drama with echoes of an ancient past. Harrop suggests that by the late 19th century the plays had been appropriated by antiquarians and folklorists, leaving mummer’s plays as a strangely separate and categorised form. This book considers how that happened, and the ways in which these late 19th century ideas were absorbed into the mummers’ plays, providing a new lease of life for them in the 20th and 21st centuries. Ideal for anyone with a specialised interest in this unique form, Mummers’ Plays Revisited spans recent work in theatre history, performance studies and folklore to offer a comprehensive and engaging study.
The Mummy's Claw!
by Mark ChandlerAll Groups / Horror / Spoof / 3 m, 8 f,1 m or f / Join this dizzying gallop through Egyptian temples, fiendish curses, evil spells, ancient incantations, terrifying sorcery and hideous plots by the crazed author of I Shot My Rich Aunt and Doctor Death. In the Nile valley, circa 1903, a party at the home of archaeologist Sir Nevil Blore becomes a struggle for survival when the translation of some stone tablets conjures up an ancient evil. What was the sin of Khopsis, turned to stone and waiting to be reborn if the Blores' niece is sacrificed on his altar? And why doesn't he have a head? What can thwart the magical powers of the 2000 year old high priest (or priestess, if you prefer)? How can Lucy's beloved save her? And why in the world does the mummy have a claw on its index finger? Can they locate the Pharaoh's jewels? And will they wish they hadn't? And what are zic zag eggs? This evening of non stop hilarity has so many surprises and twists you'll lose count.
El mundo abajo
by Patricio JaraUna de las voces más interesantes de la narrativa chilena contemporánea. En estos siete espléndidos cuentos, Patricio Jara nos sumerge en los mundos subterráneos de hombres y mujeres que, por diversas razones, son enfrentados a la tragedia. Entre el desierto de Atacama y la periferia de la gran ciudad, los relatos se conectan y nos permiten ingresar al universo psicológico de quienes habitan estos paisajes. Una piloto que diseña las rutas de los aviones, un buzo profesional que no quiere volver al mar después de un accidente y una pareja de investigadores en la desembocadura del río Loa son algunos de los personajes que difuminan la línea entre lo correcto e incorrecto, y que demuestran que el paso de lo cotidiano a lo siniestro es estrecho. Un conjunto de relatos donde lo temible se abre paso con la fuerza del oleaje.
Murder at Cafe Noir
by David Landau Nikki SternMystery / 4m, 3f / The most popular mystery dinner show in the country, Murder at Cafe Noir has enjoyed weekly productions coast to coast since its premiere in 1989. This forties detective story come to life features Rick Archer, P.I., out to find a curvaceous runaway on the forgotten island of Mustique, a place stuck in a black and white era. The owner of the Cafe Noir has washed ashore, murdered, and Rick's quarry was the last person seen with him. He employs his hard boiled talents to find the killer. Was it the French madame and club manager, the voodoo priestess, the shyster British attorney, the black marketeer or the femme fatale? The audience votes twice on what they want Rick to do next and these decisions change the flow of this comic tribute to the Bogart era.
Murder at Minsing Manor
by Michael SimonAdvanced Groups Mystery/Farce / 8 m, 2 f (with doubling) / 1 set / The first Ridiculous Theatrical Company production by outside playwrights brims with irreverent wit. Horror show host Marius Mintsingue is killed on the air, much to the dismay of would be detectives Buddy and Bob (pubescent boys played by women) who are his biggest fans. Mintsingue's cross dressing lover, finds herself the head of Mintsingue Manor, a Gothic mansion in postwar suburbia. While the murderer stalks, she struggles to support the household without implicating herself by collecting on the will or insurance, to protect Mintsingue's live in protege (a half man/half woman sideshow veteran) and to keep at bay the forces of authority. Bob and Buddy's sleuthing unintentionally brings this mystery to its shattering conclusion. / "Happy, dizzy and very pleasurable." N.Y. Times.
Murder by Accident: Medieval Theater, Modern Media, Critical Intentions
by Jody EndersOver fifty years ago, it became unfashionable--even forbidden--for students of literature to talk about an author's intentions for a given work. InMurder by Accident, Jody Enders boldly resurrects the long-disgraced concept of intentionality, especially as it relates to the theater. Drawing on four fascinating medieval events in which a theatrical performance precipitated deadly consequences, Enders contends that the marginalization of intention in critical discourse is a mirror for the marginalization--and misunderstanding--of theater. Murder by Accidentrevisits the legal, moral, ethical, and aesthetic limits of the living arts of the past, pairing them with examples from the present, whether they be reality television, snuff films, the "accidental" live broadcast of a suicide on a Los Angeles freeway, or an actor who jokingly fired a stage revolver at his temple, causing his eventual death. This book will force scholars and students to rethink their assumptions about theory, intention, and performance, both past and present.
Murder Go Round
by Fred CarmichaelFull length, comedy / 3m, 5f / Interior / As soon as Pat Kirby arrives for safe keeping at an off season summer cottage with Susan, her Witness Protection Program representative, the laughter and intrigue begin. Pat, the key witness in a murder trial, saw an executive shot for control of his overseas account. As he was wheeled into the operating room, she saw him transmit the numbers needed to access the off shore account, but she can't figure how to find those numbers. Soon the place is swarming with government agents and cohorts of the hit man. Who can Pat trust? Is the resident shopkeeper a substitute? Why does the local interior decorator seem out of place? What about the man who claims to be her husband or the girl claiming to be her daughter? Her protector? The young fellow from which agency? And most of all, the head of the WPP who is experiencing temporary amnesia? Everyone wants the numbers in this hilarious comedy.
Murder In The Cathedral
by T. S. EliotThe action occurs between 2 and 29 December 1170, chronicling the days leading up to the martyrdom of Thomas Becket following his absence of seven years in France. Becket's internal struggle is a central focus of the play.
Murder in Green Meadows
by Douglas PostTHE STORY: Thomas Devereaux, a successful architect and local contractor, and his beautiful wife, Joan, have just moved into their dream house in the quiet suburban town of Green Meadows when they are visited by their new neighbors, Carolyn and Jeff.
Murder in the Cathedral: Verse Drama
by T. S. EliotT. S. Eliot's most famous drama, a retelling of the murder of the archbishop of CanterburyMurder in the Cathedral, written for the Canterbury Festival in 1935, was one of T. S. Eliot’s first dramatic achievements, and it remains one of the great plays of the century. It takes as its subject matter the martyrdom of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, depicting the events that led to his assassination, in his own cathedral church, by the knights of Henry II in 1170. Like Greek drama, the play’s theme and form are rooted in religion, ritual purgation and renewal, and it was this return to the earliest sources of drama that brought poetry triumphantly back to the English stage at the time."The theatre is enriched by this poetic play of grave beauty and momentous decision." —The New York Times
Murder Is Fun!
by Catherine BlankenshipComedy / Catherine Blankenship / 7m, 7f / Captain Brown of the Homicide Squad asks the audience to solve a murder for him in this mystery satire. A composer has died under mysterious circumstances. His son, daughter, fiancee, servant and a lawyer re-enact incidents leading to his demise. Unable to deduce the guilty person, characters in the audience quarrel until the doctor breaks the case with a surprising statement. Originally produced at the Yale Experimental Theatre.