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Plato’s Labyrinth: Sophistries, Lies and Conspiracies in Socratic Dialogues
by Aakash Singh RathoreThis original and stimulating study of Plato's Socratic dialogues rereads and reinterprets Plato's writings in terms of their dialogical or dramatic form. Taking inspiration from the techniques of Umberto Eco, Jacques Derrida, and Leo Strauss, Aakash Singh Rathore presents the Socratic dialogues as labyrinthine texts replete with sophistries and lies that mask behind them important philosophical and political conspiracies. Plato's Labyrinth argues that these conspiracies and intrigues are of manifold kinds – in some, Plato is masterminding the conspiracy; in others, Socrates, or the Sophists, are the victims of the conspiracies. With supplementary forays ('intermissions') into the world of Xenophon and the Sophists, the complex and evolving series of overlapping arguments that the book lays out unfold within an edgy and dramatic narrative. Presenting innovative readings of major texts – Plato's Parmenides, Republic, Symposium and Meno as also Homer's Odyssey – this work is an ambitious attempt to synthesize philological, political, historical and philosophical research into a classical text-centred study that is at once of urgent contemporary relevance. This book aims to revitalize the study of ancient Greek thought in all its diverse disciplinary richness and will interest students and scholars across the social sciences and humanities, especially those in philosophy, Greek and classical studies, language and literature, politics, media and culture studies, theatre and performance studies, and history.
Plautus in Performance: The Theatre of the Mind (Greek And Roman Theatre Archive Ser. #Vol. 2.)
by Niall W. SlaterPlautus was Ancient Rome's greatest comic playwright, Shakespeare drew heavily on his plots, and his legacy is prevalent throughout modern drama. In this expanded edition of his successful book, one of America's foremost Classical scholars introduces performance criticism to the study of Plautus' ancient drama. In addition to the original detailed studies of six of the dramatists's plays, the methodology of performance criticism, the use of conventions, and the nature of comic heroism in Plautus, this edition includes new studies on: * the induction into the world of the play * the scripted imitation of improvisation * Plautus's comments on his previous work * the nature of 'tragicomedy'.
Play About the Baby: Trade Edition
by Edward AlbeeWinner of three Pulitzer Prizes for Drama during his long and distinguished career, Edward Albee is one of America’s preeminent playwrights. The Play About the Baby is an absurdist black comedy, reminiscent of burlesque in its high spirits and banter, that grapples with such issues as reality and the games we play to define it, the ambiguity of existence, and the agonizing bonds between parents and children. A fresh young couple—Boy and Girl—have a new baby, whom an older couple—Man and Woman—have come to steal. Why? Because, as Man says, “If you don’t have the wound of a broken heart, how can you know you’re alive?” Brutal loss—the loss of a child or childhood self—has been a recurring Albee theme, and Ben Brantley of the New York Times summed up the critical reaction to The Play About the Baby when he called it a “funny, harrowing dramatic fable … as explicit and concise a statement of what Mr. Albee believes as he is ever likely to deliver.”
Play About the Baby: Trade Edition
by Edward AlbeeWinner of three Pulitzer Prizes for Drama during his long and distinguished career, Edward Albee is one of America's preeminent playwrights. The Play About the Baby is an absurdist black comedy, reminiscent of burlesque in its high spirits and banter, that grapples with such issues as reality and the games we play to define it, the ambiguity of existence, and the agonizing bonds between parents and children. A fresh young couple--Boy and Girl--have a new baby, whom an older couple--Man and Woman--have come to steal. Why? Because, as Man says, "If you don't have the wound of a broken heart, how can you know you're alive?" Brutal loss--the loss of a child or childhood self--has been a recurring Albee theme, and Ben Brantley of the New York Times summed up the critical reaction to The Play About the Baby when he called it a "funny, harrowing dramatic fable ... as explicit and concise a statement of what Mr. Albee believes as he is ever likely to deliver."
The Play About the Baby
by Edward AlbeeThe Play About the Baby is an absurdist black comedy from one of America's premier dramatists. Reminiscent of burlesque in its high spirits and banter, the play focuses on a fresh young couple who are visited by an older man and woman, who have come to steal their child. Grappling with the agonizing bonds between parents and children, The Play About the Baby is a wicked, concise and provocative summation of the themes that have guided Albee's legendary career.
Play-Acting: A Guide to Theatre Workshops
by Luke DixonPlay-Acting is an inspired book of theatrical beginnings-jumping-off points for actors, teachers, and directors. Drawing upon his thirty years of designing and leading theater workshops, Luke Dixon goes to the heart of contemporary theater practice. Whether drawing upon Japanese butoh, Shakespearean verse, or African rhythms, these thirty-two workshops cover a wide range of activities-voice warm-ups, body work, the exploration of theatrical space, life games, dreamtime, sense and chakras, working with the spine, and much, much more. More than a collection of exercises, Play-Acting is constructed to take the user on a journey from learning about the anatomy of the individual actor's body to the performance of narrative by a group of actors. With tips on what you might expect to experience as an actor, teacher, or director, along with ideas on how to exploit the unexpected in performance, Play-Acting is a book to be read again and again.
Play and the City: How to Create Places and Spaces To Help Us Thrive
by Alex BonhamPlay is essential, for children but also adults. It's how we relax and revitalise ourselves, build and maintain friendships, try new things, learn and innovate.Cities have always been sites of play, bringing people together and pushing the boundaries of what is humanly possible. And now we need our cities to encourage and facilitate play of all kinds more than ever. If we want a world for our children to play in, we need to have a go at doing things differently. A city that is enjoyable to live in - that provides welcoming spaces, plentiful resources, and an attitude of 'yes, you can' - is a playful city. A city that is good for eight-year-olds as well as eighty-year-olds is a city that's good for all of us. By looking at how different cities across space and time have sought to encourage and facilitate play, Bonham shows us how to conceptualise our own contemporary city as a game, and encourages us to become participants rather than spectators.Play the city! Get involved, make a difference and help to bring your city back to life. There is help here to identify opportunities, build a team of friends and allies, take part - and win! It's time to make your move.
Play and the City: How to Create Places and Spaces To Help Us Thrive
by Alex BonhamPlay is essential, for children but also adults. It's how we relax and revitalise ourselves, build and maintain friendships, try new things, learn and innovate.Cities have always been sites of play, bringing people together and pushing the boundaries of what is humanly possible. And now we need our cities to encourage and facilitate play of all kinds more than ever. If we want a world for our children to play in, we need to have a go at doing things differently. A city that is enjoyable to live in - that provides welcoming spaces, plentiful resources, and an attitude of 'yes, you can' - is a playful city. A city that is good for eight-year-olds as well as eighty-year-olds is a city that's good for all of us. By looking at how different cities across space and time have sought to encourage and facilitate play, Bonham shows us how to conceptualise our own contemporary city as a game, and encourages us to become participants rather than spectators.Play the city! Get involved, make a difference and help to bring your city back to life. There is help here to identify opportunities, build a team of friends and allies, take part - and win! It's time to make your move.
Play Directing: The Basics (The Basics)
by Damon KielyPlay Directing: The Basics introduces theatre students to a step-by-step process for directing plays, including advice on devising. Beginning with a historical overview of directing, this book covers every aspect of the director’s job from first read to closing night. Practical advice on finding plays to produce, analysing scripts, collaborating with the design team, rehearsing with actors, devising company creations, and opening a show are peppered with advice from working professionals and academic directors. A practical workbook, short exercises, helpful websites, and suggested reading encourage readers towards a deeper study of the art of directing. This book empowers high school and early college students interested in theatre and directing to find their own voice, develop a practice, and refine their process.
Play Directing: Analysis, Communication, and Style
by Michael Mclain Francis HodgePlay Directing describes the various roles a director plays, from selection and analysis of the play, to working with actors and designers to bring the production to life.
The Play in the System: The Art of Parasitical Resistance
by Anna Watkins FisherWhat does artistic resistance look like in the twenty-first century, when disruption and dissent have been co-opted and commodified in ways that reinforce dominant systems? In The Play in the System Anna Watkins Fisher locates the possibility for resistance in artists who embrace parasitism—tactics of complicity that effect subversion from within hegemonic structures. Fisher tracks the ways in which artists on the margins—from hacker collectives like Ubermorgen to feminist writers and performers like Chris Kraus—have willfully abandoned the radical scripts of opposition and refusal long identified with anticapitalism and feminism. Space for resistance is found instead in the mutually, if unevenly, exploitative relations between dominant hosts giving only as much as required to appear generous and parasitical actors taking only as much as they can get away with. The irreverent and often troubling works that result raise necessary and difficult questions about the conditions for resistance and critique under neoliberalism today.
The Play of Conscience in Shakespeare’s England (Routledge Studies in Shakespeare)
by Jade StandingHaving a conscience distinguishes humans from the most advanced AI systems. Acting in good conscience, consulting one’s conscience, and being conscience-wracked are all aspects of human intelligence that involve reckoning (deriving general laws from particular inputs and vice versa), and judgement (contemplating the relationship of the reckoning system to the world). While AI developers have mastered reckoning, they are still working towards the creation of judgement. This book sheds light on the reckoning and judgement of conscience by demonstrating how these concepts are explored in Everyman, Doctor Faustus, The Merchant of Venice, and Hamlet. Academic, student, or general-interest readers discover the complexity and multiplicity of the early modern concept of conscience, which is informed by the scholastic intellectual tradition, juridical procedures of the court of Chancery, the practical advice of Protestant casuistry, and Reformation theology. The aims are to examine the rubrics for thinking through, regulating, and judging actions that define the various consciences of Shakespeare’s day, to use these rubrics to interpret questions of truth and action in early modern plays, and to offer insights into what it is about conscience that developers want to grasp to eliminate the difference between human and non-human intelligences, and achieve true AI.
A Play of Dux Moraud (A Joliffe Mystery #2)
by Margaret FrazerPerforming at the wedding of Sir Edmund Deneby's daughter, the player Joliffe has another task to perform--as a spy. <P><P>As he uncovers the secrets of the Denebys' sordid history, it becomes clear that this wedding celebration is destined to end in tragedy.
The Play of Space: Spatial Transformation in Greek Tragedy
by Rush RehmIs "space" a thing, a container, an abstraction, a metaphor, or a social construct? This much is certain: space is part and parcel of the theater, of what it is and how it works. In The Play of Space, noted classicist-director Rush Rehm offers a strikingly original approach to the spatial parameters of Greek tragedy as performed in the open-air theater of Dionysus. Emphasizing the interplay between natural place and fictional setting, between the world visible to the audience and that evoked by individual tragedies, Rehm argues for an ecology of the ancient theater, one that "nests" fifth-century theatrical space within other significant social, political, and religious spaces of Athens. Drawing on the work of James J. Gibson, Kurt Lewin, and Michel Foucault, Rehm crosses a range of disciplines--classics, theater studies, cognitive psychology, archaeology and architectural history, cultural studies, and performance theory--to analyze the phenomenology of space and its transformations in the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. His discussion of Athenian theatrical and spatial practice challenges the contemporary view that space represents a "text" to be read, or constitutes a site of structural dualities (e.g., outside-inside, public-private, nature-culture). Chapters on specific tragedies explore the spatial dynamics of homecoming ("space for returns"); the opposed constraints of exile ("eremetic space" devoid of normal community); the power of bodies in extremis to transform their theatrical environment ("space and the body"); the portrayal of characters on the margin ("space and the other"); and the tragic interactions of space and temporality ("space, time, and memory"). An appendix surveys pre-Socratic thought on space and motion, related ideas of Plato and Aristotle, and, as pertinent, later views on space developed by Newton, Leibniz, Descartes, Kant, and Einstein. Eloquently written and with Greek texts deftly translated, this book yields rich new insights into our oldest surviving drama.
Play On!
by Rick AbbotComedyCharacters: 3 male, 7 female . Interior Set. Perfect for any theatre group, this is the hilarious story of a theater group trying desperately to put on a play in spite of maddening interference from a haughty authoress who keeps revising the script. Act I is a rehearsal of the dreadful show, Act II is the near disastrous dress rehearsal, and the final act is the actual performance in which anything that can go wrong does. When the authoress decides to give a speech on the state of the modern theatre during the curtain calls, the audience is treated to a madcap climax to a thoroughly hilarious romp. Even the sound effects reap their share of laughter.
Play, Performance, and Identity: How Institutions Structure Ludic Spaces (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Matt Omasta Drew ChappellPlay helps define who we are as human beings. However, many of the leisurely/ludic activities people participate in are created and governed by corporate entities with social, political, and business agendas. As such, it is critical that scholars understand and explicate the ideological underpinnings of played-through experiences and how they affect the player/performers who engage in them. This book explores how people play and why their play matters, with a particular interest in how ludic experiences are often constructed and controlled by the interests of institutions, including corporations, non-profit organizations, government agencies, religious organizations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Each chapter explores diverse sites of play. From theme parks to comic conventions to massively-multiplayer online games, they probe what roles the designers of these experiences construct for players, and how such play might affect participants' identities and ideologies. Scholars of performance studies, leisure studies, media studies and sociology will find this book an essential reference when studying facets of play.
Play Readings: A Complete Guide for Theatre Practitioners
by Rob UrbinatiPlay Readings: A Complete Guide for Theatre Practitioners demystifies the standards and protocols of a play reading, demonstrating how to create effective and evocative readings for those new to or inexperienced with the genre. It examines all of the essential considerations involved in readings, including the use of the venue, pre-reading preparations, playwright/director communication, editing/adapting stage directions, casting, using the limited rehearsal time effectively, simple "staging" suggestions, working with actors, handling complex stage directions, talkbacks, and limiting the use of props, costumes, and music. A variety of readings are covered, including readings of musicals, operas, and period plays, for comprehensive coverage of this increasingly prevalent production form.
Play the Scene: The Ultimate Collection of Contemporary and Classic Scenes and Monologues
by Michael Schulman Eva MeklerAlexander Dumas - Christopher Durang - Beth Henley - Kenneth Lonergan - Donald Margulies - Steve Martin - Nicky Silver - Bernard Shaw - Alfred Uhry - Paula Vogel A collection of the greatest scenes and monologues ever written ranging from Elizabethan to Tony Award-winning plays comprehensive anthology spans over five hundred years of theatre. Play the Scene: The Ultimate Collection of Contemporary and Classic Scenes and Monologues by coauthors Michael Schulman and Eva Mekler includes scenes and monologues from classic plays by such notable authors as Edith Wharton as well as the best in contemporary theatre, such as Margaret Edson's Wit. - Blight Spirit - Camille - The Chosen - The Graduate - How I Learned to Drive - The Last Night of Ballyhoo - The Lisbon Traviata - This Is Our Youth - Vincent in Brixton - And many more!
The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War
by James ShapiroA brilliant and daring account of a culture war over the place of theater in American democracy in the 1930s, one that anticipates our current divide, by the acclaimed Shakespeare scholar James ShapiroFrom 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis&’s anti-fascist novel It Can&’t Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre&’s incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted &“un-American&” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, &“the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.&”A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal.
Playbooks and their Readers in Early Modern England (Material Readings in Early Modern Culture)
by Hannah AugustThis book is the first comprehensive examination of commercial drama as a reading genre in early modern England. Taking as its focus pre-Restoration printed drama’s most common format, the single-play quarto playbook, it interrogates what the form and content of these playbooks can tell us about who their earliest readers were, why they might have wanted to read contemporary commercial drama, and how they responded to the printed versions of plays that had initially been performed in the playhouses of early modern London. Focusing on professional plays printed in quarto between 1584 and 1660, the book juxtaposes the implications of material and paratextual evidence with analysis of historical traces of playreading in extant playbooks and manuscript commonplace books. In doing so, it presents more detailed and nuanced conclusions than have previously been enabled by studies focused on works by one author or on a single type of evidence.
The Playboy of the Western World (The Fourth Wall)
by Christopher Collins‘I’m thinking this night wasn’t I a foolish fellow not to kill my father in years gone by.’ – Christy Mahon On the first night of J. M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World (1907) the audience began protesting in the theatre; by the third night the protests had spilled onto the streets of Dublin. How did one play provoke this? Christopher Collins addresses The Playboy ’s satirical treatment of illusion and realism in light of Ireland’s struggle for independence, as well as Synge’s struggle for artistic expression. By exploring Synge’s unpublished diaries, drafts and notebooks, he seeks to understand how and why the play came to be. This volume invites the reader behind the scenes of this inflammatory play and its first performances, to understand how and why Synge risked everything in the name of art.
Playboy of the Western World: A Comedy In Three Acts (Classic, 20th-century, Penguin Ser.)
by J.M SyngeFirst published in 1979. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
The Playboy of the Western World and Riders to the Sea (Dover Thrift Editions: Plays)
by J. M. SyngeTwo beautifully crafted dramas set among the folk of the Aran Islands and western Irish coastlands. The Playboy of the Western World deals with its young hero's progress, in the eyes of others, from timid weakling to paragon of bravery. Riders to the Sea is a dark elegy to the fragile existence of those who live at the mercy of the sea. Reprinted from authoritative editions, complete with Synge's preface to The Playboy of the Western World. New introductory Note.
A Player and a Gentleman: The Diary of Harry Watkins, Nineteenth-Century U.S. American Actor
by Amy E Hughes Naomi J StubbsHardworking actor, playwright, and stage manager Harry Watkins (1825–94) was also a prolific diarist. For fifteen years Watkins regularly recorded the plays he saw, the roles he performed, the books he read, and his impressions of current events. Performing across the U.S., Watkins collaborated with preeminent performers and producers, recording his successes and failures as well as his encounters with celebrities such as P. T. Barnum, Junius Brutus Booth, Edwin Forrest, Anna Cora Mowatt, and Lucy Stone. His is the only known diary of substantial length and scope written by a U.S. actor before the Civil War—making Watkins, essentially, the antebellum equivalent of Samuel Pepys. Theater historians Amy E. Hughes and Naomi J. Stubbs have selected, edited, and annotated excerpts from the diary in an edition that offers a vivid glimpse of how ordinary people like Watkins lived, loved, struggled, and triumphed during one of the most tumultuous periods in U.S. history. The selections in A Player and a Gentleman are drawn from a more expansive digital archive of the complete diary. The book, like its digital counterpart, will richly enhance our knowledge of antebellum theater culture and daily life in the U.S. during this period.