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Murder Most Queer: The Homicidal Homosexual In The American Theater
by Jordan SchildcroutThe "villainous homosexual" has long stalked America's cultural imagination, most explicitly in the figure of the gay murderer, a character in dozens of plays. But as society's understanding of homosexuality has changed, so has the significance of these controversial characters, especially when employed by gay theater artists themselves to explore darker fears and desires. "Murder Most Queer" examines the shifting meanings of murderous gay characters in American theater over a century, showing how these representations wrestle with and ultimately subvert notions of gay villainy. "Murder Most Queer" works to expose the forces that create the homophobic paradigm that imagines sexual and gender nonconformity as dangerous and destructive and to show how theater artists--and for the most part gay theater artists--have rewritten and radically altered the significance of the homicidal homosexual. Jordan Schildcrout argues that these figures, far from being simple reiterations of a homophobic archetype, are complex and challenging characters who enact trenchant fantasies of empowerment, replacing the shame and stigma of the abject with the defiance and freedom of the outlaw, giving voice to rage and resistance. These bold characters also probe the darker anxieties and fears that can affect gay lives and relationships. Instead of sentencing them to the prison of negative representations, this book analyzes the meanings in their acts of murder, confronting the real fears and desires condensed in those dramatic acts.
A Murder of Crows
by Ed GraczykComic drama / 3m, 3f / Exterior / Harley and Jennie Woodson are a quirky elderly couple who live above their combination general store/post office in Wallace, Ohio. Business is not too good; they are just about the last folks left in Wallace. There has been a dreadful toxic waste accident, along the lines of Love Canal, and the dirt around them is deadly. Jennie wants to pack up and move out like everyone else, but Harley won't leave even though he is dying of cancer. To him living on a toxic waste site is preferable to moving to Erie, Pennsylvania, to live with his son. Jennie realizes that it is no use and she stays in Wallace to die with her beloved husband.
Murder On The Rerun
by Fred CarmichaelComedy mystery / 2m, 5f / Interior / Takes a different approach to mystery as a ghost tries to find out who murdered her in a witty, sophisticated, yet suspenseful look at the upper crust of Hollywood. The curtain rises to find Jane, Oscar winning screen writer, dead at the bottom of the stairs in a Vermont ski lodge. Her four friends and husband are saying she fell. "I was pushed!" she says as her ghost rises. Aided by Kitty, a rather wanton adviser from "up there," Jane is brought ahead to the present, three years after the murder, where the same group is gathered. They are all famous film makers with an intense hate love relationship; Jane's husband who has married an ambitious ingenue, a heading for middle age leading lady, an arrogant director, and Hollywood's reigning gossip columnist. The five suspects join together to keep the possible murder quiet for reasons of their own but their relationship busts apart with their mutual distrust. Woven through the suspense in humorous, acidic, and revealing comedy is an extraordinary whodunit with a surprise denouement when the murderer is revealed. All the roles are lengthy with well defined characters. For the unusual and audience pleasing combination of comedy, intrigue, and suspense, this is a must!
Murder on Reserve
by Thomas HischakMystery / 4m, 5f, 1 extra / Interior / In the small midwestern town of Sanford, the impossible has happened: someone has strangled crotchety old Faulkner Seaton in the reference section of the local library while the dusty old landmark was open. Most puzzling of all is the fact that nobody in the place saw or heard a thing. Inspector Trigg and his assistant, Lt. Elizabeth Roberts, are brought in from St. Louis to solve the mystery, only to discover the most unlikely collection of suspects: a meticulous librarian, his repressed assistant, a talkative small time speculator, a sweet high school girl, an elderly hypochondriac, a cynical library worker and a colorful drifter. It develops that old Seaton had stumbled into something important in the reference section and a missing book becomes the only clue. Trigg and Roberts set a trap to catch the murderer that results in a thrilling and revealing conclusion. Vivid characters and a plot that keeps the audience guessing make this whodunit an enjoyable romp for any theatre group.
Murder on the Nile
by Agatha ChristieDrama, 8m,5f, Interior Set. Simon Mostyn has recently married Kay Ridgeway, a rich woman, having thrown over his former lover Jacqueline. The couple are on their honeymoon on a paddle steamer on the Nile, accompanied by a bevy of memorable characters. Among those present are Canon Pennefather, Kay's guardian, and Jacqueline, who has been dogging their footsteps all through the honeymoon. During the voyage Jacqueline works herself into a state of hysteria and shoots at Simon, wounding him in the knee. A few moments later Kay is found shot in her bunk. By the time the boat reaches its destination, Canon Pennefather has laid bare an audacious conspiracy and has made sure the criminals shall not go free.
Murder Room
by Jack SharkeyMystery Comedy / 3m., 3f. / Int. When this zany spoof of British mysteries opened in Sydney, Australia, reviewers spouted phrases like "a great vehicle for three ladies," "a plethora of hilarious situations," and "this is a romp!" "Really a minor gem ... witty and sophisticated." - Newcastle Morning Herald "Murder has never been this funny. A spoof of all crime thrillers ... it is good clean mirth all the way. The quick, smart, extremely well timed dialogue of Jack Sharkey comes through loud and clear [with] never a dull moment." - Times "There are secret chambers, secret panels and trap lids galore. They're all operated by the most ridiculous contrivances and gloriously mucked up.... A high, mad melodrama." - Frank Harris
Murder to Music: A Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery (A\libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery Ser. #8)
by Lesley Cookman'With fascinating characters and an intriguing plot, this is a real page turner' KATIE FFORDE praise for the seriesAn addictive and unputdownable crime mystery novel perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Faith Martin, J.R. Ellis, LJ Ross, Miss Marple and Midsummer Murders!Lesley Cookman's bestselling series featuring amateur sleuth Libby Sarjeant is back for its eighth instalment!Amateur detective Libby Sarjeant and psychic investigator Fran Castle are invited to look into a house that is reputedly haunted by a seemingly musical ghost. For once, Libby can be as nosy as she likes without being accused of getting in the way of a police investigation.However, when they unearth 50-year-old graves in the gardens, the police are bound to cramp their style.Someone alive today doesn't want them interfering either, and their lives are in danger as they try to unravel the mystery of their Debussy playing ghost._____________________________________________________ Praise for the bestselling series:'I could not put down.... Would recommend this series to everyone' ***** Reader review'...if you miss the good old days of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers then why not give Lesley Cookman's excellent books a go' ***** Reader review'I love Libby Sarjeant and have read all of the books, which I will read again. All the characters are believable and the plots are good' ***** Reader review'A great series of books that I can't put down. Thank you' ***** Reader review 'A great book full of twists but I really like the relationships and friendships that are forming over each book' ***** Reader review
Murder to Music: A Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery (A Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery Series #8)
by Lesley Cookman'With fascinating characters and an intriguing plot, this is a real page turner' KATIE FFORDE praise for the seriesAn addictive and unputdownable crime mystery novel perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Faith Martin, J.R. Ellis, LJ Ross, Miss Marple and Midsummer Murders!Lesley Cookman's bestselling series featuring amateur sleuth Libby Sarjeant is back for its eighth instalment!Amateur detective Libby Sarjeant and psychic investigator Fran Castle are invited to look into a house that is reputedly haunted by a seemingly musical ghost. For once, Libby can be as nosy as she likes without being accused of getting in the way of a police investigation.However, when they unearth 50-year-old graves in the gardens, the police are bound to cramp their style.Someone alive today doesn't want them interfering either, and their lives are in danger as they try to unravel the mystery of their Debussy playing ghost._____________________________________________________ Praise for the bestselling series:'I could not put down.... Would recommend this series to everyone' ***** Reader review'...if you miss the good old days of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers then why not give Lesley Cookman's excellent books a go' ***** Reader review'I love Libby Sarjeant and have read all of the books, which I will read again. All the characters are believable and the plots are good' ***** Reader review'A great series of books that I can't put down. Thank you' ***** Reader review 'A great book full of twists but I really like the relationships and friendships that are forming over each book' ***** Reader review
Murderous Crossing
by David LandauFull Length / Comedic Mystery / 4m, 3f / Interior The year is 1923 and audience members are passengers on board the HMS Victoria as it crosses the English Channel. The famous Inspector Clurrot has tracked down a homicidal mastermind hiding out on board. Meanwhile, the ship is the vessel of matrimony for the Contessa Follette and John D. Rothchild - a marriage encouraged through financial need and murderous greed. But not everything is as it seems, and it turns out that the English Channel isn't the only thing being crossed. Audience members are recruited to stand in for the best man, bridesmaid, mother of the groom, and father of the bride in this Agatha Christie style comic mystery.
Music and Gender in English Renaissance Drama (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Katrine K. WongThis book offers a survey of how female and male characters in English Renaissance theatre participated and interacted in musical activities, both inside and outside the contemporary societal decorum. Wong’s analysis broadens our understanding of the general theatrical representation of music, or musical dramaturgy, and complicates the current discussion of musical portrayal and construction of gender during this period. Wong discusses dramaturgical meanings of music and its association with gender, love, and erotomania in Renaissance plays. The negotiation between the dichotomous qualities of the heavenly and the demonic finds extensive application in recent studies of music in early modern English plays. However, while ideological dualities identified in music in traditional Renaissance thinking may seem unequivocal, various musical representations of characters and situations in early modern drama would prove otherwise. Wong, building upon the conventional model of binarism, explores how playwrights created their musical characters and scenarios according to the received cultural use and perception of music, and, at the same time, experimented with the multivalent meanings and significance embodied in theatrical music.
Music and Sound in European Theatre: Practices, Performances, Perspectives (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by David Roesner Tamara Yasmin QuickThe need for a research volume on European theatre music and sound is almost self-evident.Musical and sonic practices have been an integral part of theatre ever since the artform was first established 2,500 years ago: not just in subsequent genres that are explicitly driven by music, such as opera, operetta, ballet, or musical theatre, but in all kinds of theatrical forms and conventions. Conversely, academic recognition of the role of theatre music, its aesthetics, creative processes, authorships, traditions, and innovations is still insufficient. This volume unites experts from different disciplines and backgrounds to make a significant contribution to the much-needed discourse on theatre music. The term itself is a shapeshifter that signifies different phenomena at different times: the book thus deliberately casts a wide net to explore both the highly contextual terminologies and the many ways in which different times and cultures understand ‘theatre music’. By treating theatre music as a practice, focusing on its role in creating and watching performances, the book appeals to a wide range of readerships: researchers and students of all levels, journalists, audiences, and practitioners.It will be useful to universities and conservatoires alike and relevant for many disciplines in the humanities.
Music as a Chariot: The Evolutionary Origins of Theatre in Time, Sound, and Music
by Richard K. ThomasMusic as a Chariot offers a multidisciplinary perspective whose primary proposition is that theatre is a type of music. Understanding how music enables the theatre experience helps to shape our entire approach to the performing arts. Beginning with a discussion on the origin and nature of time, the author takes us on an evolutionary journey to discover how music, language and mimesis co-evolved, eventually coming together to produce the complex way we experience theatre. The book integrates the evolutionary neuroscience of the human brain into this journey, offering practical implications and applications for the auditory expression of this concept—namely the fundamental techniques artists use to create sound scores for theatre. With contributions from directors, playwrights, actors and designers, Music as a Chariot explores the use of music to carry ideas into the human soul—a concept that extends beyond the theatrical to include film, video gaming, dance, or anywhere art is manipulated in time.
Music \= Cultures in Contact: Convergences and Collisions (Musicology #16)
by Margaret J. Kartomi Stephen BlumFirst Published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Music in Cinema (Film and Culture Series)
by Michel ChionMichel Chion is renowned for his explorations of the significance of frequently overlooked elements of cinema, particularly the role of sound. In this inventive and inviting book, Chion considers how cinema has deployed music. He shows how music and film not only complement but also transform each other.The first section of the book examines film music in historical perspective, and the second section addresses the theoretical implications of the crossover between art forms. Chion discusses a vast variety of films across eras, genres, and continents, embracing all the different genres of music that filmmakers have used to tell their stories. Beginning with live accompaniment of silent films in early movie houses, the book analyzes Al Jolson’s performance in The Jazz Singer, the zither in The Third Man, Godard’s patchwork sound editing, the synthesizer welcoming the flying saucer in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the Kinshasa orchestra in Felicité, among many more. Chion considers both original scores and incorporation of preexisting works, including the use and reuse of particular composers across cinematic traditions, the introduction of popular music such as jazz and rock, and directors’ attraction to atonal and dissonant music as well as musique concrète, of which he is a composer.Wide-ranging and original, Music in Cinema offers a welcoming overview for students and general readers as well as refreshingly new and valuable perspectives for film scholars.
Music in English Children's Drama of the Later Renaissance (Routledge Revivals)
by Linda Phyllis AusternOriginally published in 1992, Music in English Children’s Drama of the Later Renaissance is the first book-length study to examine the Elizabethan and Jacobean children’s drama, not only from a musicological perspective, but also drawing on the histories of literature, culture, and the theater. It gives the children’s companies new historical significance, showing that they were an integral and ultimately influential part of the London theatrical world. These companies originated important features of later drama, such as music before and between acts, and the exploitation of different timbres for specific effects.Those interested in music history, English literature, theater history, and cultural history will find this a comprehensive and fascinating study. Of special note are the appendices, which offer a unique and important reference source by providing the only definitive list of the plays and songs used by the children.
Music in Shakespearean Tragedy
by F W SternfeldFirst published in 1963. When originally published this book was the first to treat at full length the contribution which music makes to Shakespeare's great tragedies, among them Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear. Here the playwright's practices are studied in conjunction with those of his contemporaries: Marlowe and Jonson, Marston and Chapman. From these comparative assessments there emerges the method that is peculiar to Shakespeare: the employment of song and instrumental music to a degree hitherto unknown, and their use as an integral part of the dramatic structure.
Music in the Shadows: Noir Musical Films
by Sheri Chinen BiesenSome musical films use film noir style and jazz to reveal the dark side of fame and the American Dream.Smoke. Shadows. Moody strains of jazz. Welcome to the world of "noir musical" films, where tormented antiheroes and hard-boiled musicians battle obsession and struggle with their music and ill-fated love triangles. Sultry divas dance and sing the blues in shrouded nightclubs. Romantic intrigue clashes with backstage careers. In her pioneering study, Music in the Shadows, film noir expert Sheri Chinen Biesen explores musical films that use film noir style and bluesy strains of jazz to inhabit a disturbing underworld and reveal the dark side of fame and the American Dream. While noir musical films like A Star Is Born include musical performances, their bleak tone and expressionistic aesthetic more closely resemble the visual style of film noir. Their narratives unfold behind a stark noir lens: distorted, erratic angles and imbalanced hand-held shots allow the audience to experience a tortured, disillusioned perspective.While many musicals glamorize the quest for the spotlight in Hollywood's star factory, brooding noir musical films such as Blues in the Night, Gilda, The Red Shoes, West Side Story, and Round Midnight stretch the boundaries of film noir and the musical as film genres collide. Deep shadows, dim lighting, and visual composition evoke moodiness, cynicism, pessimism, and subjective psychological points of view.As in her earlier study of film noir, Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir, Biesen draws on extensive primary research in studio archives to situate her examination within a historical, industrial, and cultural context.
The Music of Film: Collaborations and Conversations
by Steven A. SaltzmanThe Music of Film opens up the world of film music from the inside. Through a series of interviews and conversations with professional composers, music supervisors, music editors, and picture editors, this book shows how music for film and television works according to insiders in the industry. Here we find a comprehensive collection of techniques and personal insights and get a unique perspective on how these key players in postproduction interact, collaborate, and successfully build their careers. The Music of Film is essential reading for composers, editors, directors, and producers—aspiring and established alike—or anyone interested in learning how to start or manage a profession working with music in feature films, television, and other media.
The Musical as Drama
by H. Scott McMillinDerived from the colorful traditions of vaudeville, burlesque, revue, and operetta, the musical has blossomed into America's most popular form of theater. Scott McMillin has developed a fresh aesthetic theory of this underrated art form, exploring the musical as a type of drama deserving the kind of critical and theoretical regard given to Chekhov or opera. Until recently, the musical has been considered either an "integrated" form of theater or an inferior sibling of opera. McMillin demonstrates that neither of these views is accurate, and that the musical holds true to the disjunctive and irreverent forms of popular entertainment from which it arose a century ago. Critics and composers have long held the musical to the standards applied to opera, asserting that each piece should work together to create a seamless drama. But McMillin argues that the musical is a different form of theater, requiring the suspension of the plot for song. The musical's success lies not in the smoothness of unity, but in the crackle of difference. While disparate, the dancing, music, dialogue, and songs combine to explore different aspects of the action and the characters. Discussing composers and writers such as Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Kander and Ebb, Leonard Bernstein, and Jerome Kern, The Musical as Drama describes the continuity of this distinctively American dramatic genre, from the shows of the 1920s and 1930s to the musicals of today.
Musical Comedy in America: From The Black Crook to South Pacific, From The King & I to Sweeney Todd
by Cecil A. Smith Glenn LittonFirst Published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Musical Instruments
by Darcy KuronenEnhanced with twenty-five audio and twenty-three video clips of expert musicians performing on rare and historical instruments, this e-book edition of Musical Instruments brings the world-renowned collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to life. Musical instruments are among the most meaningful artifacts produced by humankind, a marriage of technology, artistry, symbolism, religion, and entertainment. This title in the MFA Highlights series presents more than a hundred examples, spanning a breadth of centuries and cultures, to invite readers to experience a brilliant array of instruments as producers of both aural and visual delight. The pieces included here - which range from an ancient Greek trumpet to a modern lap steel guitar, and from earthenware panpipes to the complex Indonesian gamelan - are remarkable not only for the myriad sounds they produce, but also for their varied and often extraordinarily beautiful appearance. Musical Instruments offers a vivid encounter with a rich collection, enhanced to provide an accessible and fascinating introduction to the artistry and significance of musical instruments around the world.ABOUT THE AUTHORDarcy Kuronen is Department Head and Pappalardo Curator of Musical Instruments at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Musical Instruments
by Darcy KuronenEnhanced with twenty-five audio and twenty-three video clips of expert musicians performing on rare and historical instruments, this e-book edition of Musical Instruments brings the world-renowned collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to life. Musical instruments are among the most meaningful artifacts produced by humankind, a marriage of technology, artistry, symbolism, religion, and entertainment. This title in the MFA Highlights series presents more than a hundred examples, spanning a breadth of centuries and cultures, to invite readers to experience a brilliant array of instruments as producers of both aural and visual delight. The pieces included here - which range from an ancient Greek trumpet to a modern lap steel guitar, and from earthenware panpipes to the complex Indonesian gamelan - are remarkable not only for the myriad sounds they produce, but also for their varied and often extraordinarily beautiful appearance. Musical Instruments offers a vivid encounter with a rich collection, enhanced to provide an accessible and fascinating introduction to the artistry and significance of musical instruments around the world.ABOUT THE AUTHORDarcy Kuronen is Department Head and Pappalardo Curator of Musical Instruments at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Musical Modernism and German Cinema from 1913 to 1933
by Francesco FinocchiaroThis book investigates the relationship between musical Modernism and German cinema. It paves the way for anunorthodox path of research, one which has been little explored up until now. The main figures of musical Modernism, from Alban Berg to Paul Hindemith, and from Richard Strauss to Kurt Weill, actually had a significant relationship with cinema. True, it was a complex and contradictory relationship in which cinema often emerged more as an aesthetic point of reference than an objective reality; nonetheless, the reception of the language and aesthetic of cinema had significant influence on the domain of music. Between 1913 and 1933, Modernist composers' exploration of cinema reached such a degree of pervasiveness and consistency as to become a true aesthetic paradigm, a paradigm that sat at the very heart of the Modernist project. In this insightful volume, Finocchiaro shows that the creative confrontation with the avant-garde medium par excellence can be regarded as a vector of musical Modernism: a new aesthetic paradigm for the very process - of deliberate misinterpretation, creative revisionism, and sometimes even intentional subversion of the Classic-Romantic tradition - which realized the "dream of Otherness" of the Modernist generation.
The Musical, Second Edition: A Concise History
by Kurt Gänzl Jamie FindlayThe Musical, Second Edition, introduces students and general readers to the entire scope of the history of musical theater, from eighteenth-century ballad operas to nineteenth-century operettas, to the Golden Age of Broadway to today. In this comprehensive history, master theater historian Kurt Gänzl draws on his vast knowledge of the productions, the actors, the music and dance, and the reception of the central repertory of the musical theater. Focus boxes on key shows are included in every chapter, along with a chronology of the major musical productions described in the text. Production photographs from around the world enhance the descriptions of the costumes and staging. This book is an ideal introduction for college-level courses on the History of Musical Theater and will also appeal to the general theatergoer who wants to learn more about how today’s musical developed from its earliest roots.
Musical Style and Genre: History and Modernity
by Marina LobanovaFirst published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.