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An Introduction to Feminism and Theatre
by Elaine AstonAt last an accessible and intelligent introduction to the energising and challenging relationship between feminism and theatre. In this clear and enlightening book, Aston discusses wide-ranging theoretical topics and provides case studies including: * Feminism and theatre history * `M/Othering the self': French feminist theory and theatre * Black women: shaping feminist theatre * Performing gender: a materialist practice * Colonial landscapes Feminist thought is changing the way theatre is taught and practised. An Introduction to Feminism and Theatre is compulsory reading for anyone who requires a precise, insightful and up-to-date guide to this dynamic field of study.
An Introduction to Greek Tragedy
by Ruth ScodelThis book provides a brief and accessible introduction to Greek tragedy for students and general readers alike. Whether readers are studying Greek culture, performing a Greek tragedy, or simply interested in reading a Greek play, this book will help them to understand and enjoy this challenging and rewarding genre. An Introduction to Greek Tragedy provides background information; helps readers appreciate, enjoy, and engage with the plays themselves; and gives them an idea of the important questions in current scholarship on tragedy. Ruth Scodel seeks to dispel misleading assumptions about tragedy, stressing how open the plays are to different interpretations and reactions. In addition to general background, the book also includes chapters on specific plays, both the most familiar titles and some lesser-known plays - Persians, Helen, and Orestes - in order to convey the variety that the tragedies offer readers.
An Introduction to Shakespeare
by Peter HylandPeter Hyland provides a highly readable account of the historical, social and political pressures of Shakespeare's England and the material conditions under which his plays were written, including a comprehensive description of the development and status of the theatrical profession. Half of the book is given over to a survey of the plays and examines numerous controversial issues that arise when we ask precisely what we can 'know' about them. For those who are daunted by the volume or the impenetrable prose of much recent writing on Shakespeare, Hyland's book will be a stimulating introduction.
An Introduction to Theatre Design
by Stephen Di BenedettoThis introduction to theatre design explains the theories, strategies, and tools of practical design work for the undergraduate student. Through its numerous illustrated case studies and analysis of key terms, students will build an understanding of the design process and be able to: identify the fundamentals of theatre design and scenography recognize the role of individual design areas such as scenery, costume, lighting and sound develop both conceptual and analytical thinking Communicate their own understanding of complex design work trace the traditions of stage design, from Sebastiano Serlio to Julie Taymor. Demonstrating the dynamics of good design through the work of influential designers, Stephen Di Benedetto also looks in depth at script analysis, stylistic considerations and the importance of collaboration to the designer's craft. This is an essential guide for students and teachers of theatre design. Readers will form not only a strong ability to explain and understand the process of design, but also the basic skills required to conceive and realise designs of their own.
An Introduction to: A Comprehensive Text-Past, Present, and Future
by Marsh CassadyThis semester-long, introductory theatre textbook is highly readable and created specifically to instill a strong interest in theatre.
An O. Henry Christmas (Musical)
by Peter EkstromTwo one-act musicals / 2m, 2f or 3m, 3f / Simple set / Two heart-warming one-act musicals based on the classic O. Henry stories capture the true spirit of giving ( The Gift of the Magi and The Last Leaf ). This holiday favorite is set in turn-of-the-century New York City.
An Oak Tree
by Catherine LoveFirst Published in 2017. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an Informa company.
An Outline History of American Drama (2nd Edition, Revised and Updated)
by Walter J. MeserveIn all instances the plots of important plays are summarized and the titles of relatively significant plays are listed. Because most plays and playwrights suggest more than a single point of view, however, authors and their plays are frequently treated or mentioned under more than one heading. To show the closeness and interdependence of American drama, theatre, and criticism, each chapter relates the progress of dramatic criticism and the achievements of the theatre to a developing American drama. Using information that has not been available to previous historians of American drama (the product of recent research and scholarship) and approaching the subject from the point of view of trends, ideas, and the contributions of particular plays rather than from a chronological discussion of important dramatists, this outline history provides a new and basic approach for a more appreciative understanding of American drama.
An Outline History of the Japanese Drama (Routledge Revivals)
by Frank Alanson LombardStudents of international drama are turning more and more to the study of Japanese drama, desirous to know to what extent its development duplicates or differs from the evolution of drama in other countries. Stimulated by the colour, originality, power, and poetry, they are interested to know more. This title, first published in 1928, traces the general development of the drama of the Japanese. This book will be of interest to students of drama, theatre studies and Asian Studies.
An Outrageous Affair
by Penny Vincenzi'I defy any reader, once they've taken the smallest nibble, not to gobble it all down' Sunday ExpressIn wartime Suffolk, Caroline Hunterton fell in love. Now, decades on, that love becomes the only connection between a tragic Hollywood accident in the 1950s, and a terrible suicide twenty years later. Caroline has spent years trying to keep those secrets from her two daughters, Chloe and Fleur, who have been separated by the Atlantic and have grown up hating one another. But soon, their shared past may be all that can save the family... From rural England and Hollywood's glory days, to London's theatreland and New York's adland, An Outrageous Affair explores the many forms love takes, and how it can change us all.
An Unlikely Debutante
by Laura MartinThe marquess’s fair ladyLord Alexander Whitemore would rather train racehorses than take unconventional but beguiling Lina Lock from gypsy dancer to perfect debutante. However, to win a wager, he’s willing to try!Lina is tired of fairs and fortune-telling. So when Alex’s unusual proposition comes just in time to get her out of hot water, she seizes the opportunity. Skeptical of the aristocracy, Lina must curb her rebellious instincts as she’s swept up into Alex’s world and the unexpected passion he awakens in her…
Ana en el Trópico
by Nilo Cruz Nacho Artime"Extraordinary and evocative, the stellar Anna in the Tropics is a work of art."--Christine Dolen, Miami HeraldThis lush romantic drama depicts a family of cigar makers whose loves and lives are played out against the backdrop of America in the midst of the Depression. Set in Ybor City (Tampa) in 1930, Cruz imagines the catalytic effect of the arrival of a new "lector" (who reads Tolstoy's Anna Karenina to the workers as they toil in the cigar factory) has on a Cuban-American family. Cruz celebrates the search for identity in a new land.
Analysing Gender in Performance
by J. Paul Halferty Cathy LeeneyAnalysing Gender in Performance brings together the fields of Gender Studies and Performance Analysis to explore how contemporary performance represents and interrogates gender. This edited collection includes a wide range of scholarly essays, as well as artists’ voices and their accounts of their works and practices. The Introduction outlines the book’s key approaches to concepts in English language gender discourses and gender’s intersectionalities, and sets out the approaches to performance analysis and methods of research employed by the various contributors. The book focuses on performances from the Global North, staged over the past fifty years. Case studies are diverse, ranging from site-specific, dance theatre, speculative drag, installation, and music video performances to Mabou Mines, Churchill, Shakespeare and Ibsen. Contributors explore how gender intersects with sexuality, social class, race, ethnicity, indigeneity, culture and history. Read individually or in tension with one another, the essays confront the contemporary complexities of analysing gender in performance.
Analysis through Action for Actors and Directors: From Stanislavsky to Contemporary Performance
by David ChambersAnalysis through Action for Actors and Directors is a comprehensive view of an innovative and exciting process for making new theatre.As well as an understanding of how Analysis through Action has developed over time, this book also demonstrates how it can be put into practice in today’s theatre. The first part of this book traces the exciting genealogy from Stanislavsky’s unfinished experiments, through the insights of geniuses Maria Knebel and Georgii Tovstonogov, down to today’s avant-garde auteurs. The second part is a practical manual based on extensive field testing by the author and colleagues. Here, two key components of the process are elucidated: Text Actions – ten interwoven text analysis steps – to be twinned with the thrilling rehearsal process using focused and joyful improvisations called Études.Written for new or experienced theatre students and practitioners, this book will enrich the technique of any theatre artist and anyone else interested in the theatre and its future.
Analytic Philosophy and the World of the Play (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Michael Y. BennettTheatrical characters’ dual existence on stage and in text presents a unique, challenging case for the analytical philosopher. Analytic Philosophy and the World of the Play re-examines the ontological status of theatre and its fictional objects through the "possible worlds" thesis, arguing that theatre is not a mirror of our world, but a re-creation of it. Taking a fresh look at theatre’s key elements, including the hotly contested relationships between character and actor; onstage and offstage "worlds"; and the play-text and performance, Michael Y. Bennett presents a radical new way of understanding the world of the play.
Anamorphic Authorship in Canonical Film Adaptation: A Case Study of Shakespearean Films (Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture)
by Robert GealThis book develops a new approach for the study of films adapted from canonical ‘originals’ such as Shakespeare’s plays. Departing from the current consensus that adaptation is a heightened example of how all texts inform and are informed by other texts, this book instead argues that film adaptations of canonical works extend cinema’s inherent mystification and concealment of its own artifice. Film adaptation consistently manipulates and obfuscates its traces of ‘original’ authorial enunciation, and oscillates between overtly authored articulation and seemingly un-authored unfolding. To analyse this process, the book moves from a dialogic to a psychoanalytic poststructuralist account of film adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. The differences between these rival approaches to adaptation are explored in depth in the first part of the book, while the second part constructs a taxonomy of the various ways in which authorial signs are simultaneously foregrounded and concealed in adaptation’s anamorphic drama of authorship.
Anarchic Dance
by Liz Aggiss Billy Cowie Ian BramleyLiz Aggiss and Billy Cowie, known collectively as Divas Dance Theatre, are renowned for their highly visual, interdisciplinary brand of dance performance that incorporates elements of theatre, film, opera, poetry and vaudevillian humour. Anarchic Dance, consisting of a book and DVD-Rom, is a visual and textual record of their boundary-shattering performance work. The DVD-Rom features extracts from Aggiss and Cowie's work, including the highly-acclaimed dance film Motion Control (premiered on BBC2 in 2002), rare video footage of their punk-comic live performances as The Wild Wigglers and reconstructions of Aggiss's solo performance in Grotesque Dancer. These films are cross-referenced in the book, allowing readers to match performance and commentary as Aggiss and Cowie invite a broad range of writers to examine their live performance and dance screen practice through analysis, theory, discussion and personal response. Extensively illustrated with black and white and colour photographs Anarchic Dance, provides a comprehensive investigation into Cowie and Aggiss’s collaborative partnership and demonstrates a range of exciting approaches through which dance performance can be engaged critically.
Anarchy in High Heels: A Memoir
by Denise LarsonAnarchy in High Heels is not a state of dress; it&’s a state of mind.A San Francisco porno theater might be the last place you&’d expect to plant the seed of a feminist troupe, but truth is stranger than fiction.In 1972, access to birth control and a burn-your-bra ethos were leading young women to repudiate their 1950s conservative upbringing and embrace a new liberation. Denise Larson was a timid twenty-four-year-old actress wannabe when, at an after-hours countercultural event, The People&’s Nickelodeon, she accidentally created Les Nickelettes. This banding together of ¬¬like-minded women with an anything-goes spirit unlocked a deeply hidden female humor. For the first time, Denise allowed the suppressed satirical thoughts dancing through her head to come out in the open. Together with Les Nickelettes, which quickly became a brazen women&’s lib troupe, she presented a series of feminist skits, stunts, and musical comedy plays. In 1980, The Bay Guardian described the group as &“nutty, messy, flashy, trashy, and very funny.&”With sisterhood providing the moxie, Denise took on leadership positions not common for women at the time: playwright, stage director, producer, and administrative/artistic director. But, in the end, the most important thing she learned was the power of female friendship.
And Fat Freddy's Blues
by P. J. BarryFull Length Comedy / 2 m., 2 f. / Interior / Fat Freddy Caputo, a "reformed" mobster, faces a crisis in Jericho, R.I. in 1952: the reuniting of his daughter and her former boyfriend who married another but is now separated. His schemes, including a million dollar bribe, backfire with hilarious and heart warming results. / "A standout!" Forth Worth Star Telegram.
And Go to Innisfree
by Jean Lenox ToddieComedy/Drama. Jean Lenox Toddie . Characters: 3 female. Bare stage. . It's October. The beach is deserted. A woman appears, flowered parasol raised and long skirt sweeping the sand. She has come to make a decision, but will she make it alone? The middle aged matron she was argues for the comfort of a retirement home. The child she was urges her to sit again and eat blackberries, to lie under the brambles and study ants, and to arise at long last and go to Innisfree.
And Maggie Makes Three
by Joan Lowery NixonMaggie, living with her grandmother in Houston, joins the drama club at school, wins a part in a play, begins to make friends, and learns to deal with feelings of loneliness, being in love, and having an unusual family life and background.
And Slowly Beauty
by Michel Nadeau Maureen LabontéEverything changes on what begins as a typical day in the life of the aptly named Mr. Mann, a forty-eight-year-old, buttoned-down, middle management type in a pinstriped grey suit, who feels himself losing touch with his job, his wife, his children, and the rest of his urban life. He wins tickets to a production of Chekhov's Three Sisters and realizes that the mid-life cocoon he has spun around himself is beginning to unwind.And Slowly Beauty, first performed in French in 2003, was created collaboratively by Michel Nadeau and colleagues from his Quebec troupe, Théâtre Niveau Parking. With the intensity of an electric current striking a reflecting pool, Nadeau shows us how Chekhov's century-old drama about the yearning of three sisters in a dreary provincial town directly addresses Mann's own stifled existence and liberates him from his self-imposed "gulag."Mann returns to see Three Sisters a second time, finding that its themes of beauty and poetry lost to the monotony of everyday existence mirror many aspects of his own existence. At the same time, Mann's dying friend realizes that he is for the first time able to appreciate the astonishing beauty of trees outside his window. The irony of such a deathbed admission is not lost on Mr. Mann.With Chekhov's characters and themes coming to inhabit the protagonist's mind and life, emphasized by the repeated image of geese flying overhead - these birds do not question the purpose of their journey but find it sufficient to fly in unison - And Slowly Beauty speaks eloquently to the power of art to transform lives.Cast of 3 women and 3 men.
And Then There Were None
by Agatha ChristieFull Length Play / Mystery Thriller / 8m, 3f / Interior Set. Ten guilty strangers are trapped on an island. One by one they are accused of murder; one by one they start to die. In this superlative mystery comedy statuettes of little soldier boys on the mantel of a house on an island off the coast of Devon fall to the floor and break one by one as those in the house succumb to a diabolical avenger. A nursery rhyme tells how each of the ten "soldiers" met his death until there were none. Eight guests who have never met each other or their apparently absent host and hostess are lured to the island and, along with the two house servants, marooned. A mysterious voice accuses each of having gotten away with murder and then one drops dead - poisoned. One down and nine to go! The excitement never lets up in this ideal play for schools, colleges, and community theatres.
And Then, You Act: Making Art in an Unpredictable World
by Anne BogartFrom well-known auteur of the American theatre scene, Anne Bogart, And Then, You Act is a fascinating and accessible book about directing theatre, acting and the collaborative creative process. Writing clearly and passionately, Bogart speaks to a wide audience, from undergraduates to practitioners, and makes an invaluable contribution to the field tackling themes such as: intentionality inspiration why theatre matters. Following on from her successful book A Director Prepares, which has become a key text for teaching directing classes, And Then, You Act is an essential practitioner and student resource.
And There I Stood with My Piccolo
by Meredith WillsonAnd There I Stood with My Piccolo, originally published in 1948, is a zesty and colorful memoir of composer Meredith Willson&’s early years—from growing up in Mason City, Iowa, to playing the flute with John Philip Sousa&’s band and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, to a successful career in composing for radio and motion pictures in Hollywood. It was apparent to everyone, except maybe Willson himself, that he was on his way to something big.Lighthearted and inspiring, it is no surprise Willson&’s tales caught the attention of prominent Broadway producers. In 1957, just nine years after the publication of this book, The Music Man became a Broadway sensation, winning five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Meredith Willson&’s musical comedy is to this day arguably the most produced and beloved musical in American culture.