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Strike Up The Band: A New History Of Musical Theatre
by Scott MillerThe way some histories portray the advent of musicals, you'd think the genre emerged fully formed with Show Boat. Yet in truth, it took root decades earlier. In Strike Up the Band Scott Miller tells the whole story of musicals, pulling back the curtain on the amazing innovation and adventurousness of the art form, revealing its political and social conscience, and chronicling its incredibly rapid evolution over the last century. Strike Up the Band focuses not only on what happened on stage but also on how it happened and why it matters to us today. It's a different kind of history that explores the famous and, especially, the not-so famous productions to discover the lineage that paved the way to contemporary musicals. Digging into 150 shows, Miller offers a forward-looking perspective on treasures from each era - such as Anything Goes, West Side Story, Hair, and Rent - while also looking at fascinating, genre-busting, and often short-lived productions, including Bat Boy, Rocky Horror Show, Promenade, and The Capeman, to see how even obscure or commercially unsuccessful musicals defined and advanced the form. Moving decade by decade, Miller offers insight and inside information about the artistic approaches various composers, lyricists, bookwriters, and directors have taken, how those approaches have changed over time, and what social and historical forces continue to shape musical theatre today. He provides a strong sense of what groups have historically controlled the industry and how other groups' hard work and vision continue to change the musical theatre landscape for the better. In fact, Strike Up the Band opens a new and vitally important discussion of the roles played in the musical's history by people of color, by gays and lesbians, by people with disabilities, and by women. It frames musical theatre as an important, irreplaceable piece of American history and demonstrates how it reflects the social and political conditions of its time - and how it changes them. On Broadway or off, Strike Up the Band is as adventuresome, detailed, and thoughtful in tracing the story behind the musical as it is in celebrating the form's diversity, vigor, innovation, and promise. Join Scott Miller not only in commemorating great moments on stage, but in gaining a powerful understanding of what the musical was, what it is today, and what it is becoming.
Striker Schneiderman
by Jack GrayA comedy set in Winnipeg during the 1919 General Strike, Striker Schneiderman was first presented in 1970 at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts in Toronto. Its protagonist, Moische Schneiderman, is a tailor whose possessions include a small business, a large mortgage, a devoted wife, three beautiful daughters, and a sense of the ridiculous. Moische also believes passionately in law, order, good government, peace, friendship and being left alone. It is partly because of these passions that he, against his better judgment, becomes involved as a go-between for his clientele, the establishment, his friends, and the left-wing labour movement during the General Strike.
String Quartet: Four Plays by Ronnie Burkett
by Ronnie BurkettA collection of four plays by internationally renowned puppeteer Ronnie Burkett. This anthology includes the three plays of the Memory Dress Trilogy: Tinka's New Dress, Street of Blood, and Happy, as well as Provenance. Tinka's New Dress Two old friends become puppeteers, each performing with the same beloved folk characters, Franz and Schnitzel. Fipsi, ambitious and naive, aligns herself with the rule government, the Common Good. Carl, headstrong and outspoken, is forced underground as his satirical shows parody the censorship and oppression of the Common Good. Based on the illegal puppet shows staged in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, Tinka's New Dress examines propaganda versus truth, compliance versus censorship, and the collective society versus the individual. Street of Blood When Mrs. Edna Rural pricks her finger and bleeds onto her sewing he sees the face of Christ in a quilt square. As the media and the faithful converge on her sleepy prairie town, a has-been Hollywood vampire seeking rejuvenation and a karaoke-singing gay terrorist intent on revenge join the fray. And just as the bloodbath begins, the man in the quilt appears in the flesh to the odd trio, revealing that the bonds of blood are thicker and stranger than their individual thirsts led them to believe. Happy Happy, a cheerful veteran, homespun philosopher, and pensioner, wanders through episodes of grief in the lives of his fellow rooming-house tenants. Alongside Happy is Antoine Marionette, the emcee of the Grey Cabaret, who introduces arch presentations of sadness in song, pantomime, and burlesque that mirror and parody the stages of grief experienced by each character. Provenance Pity Beane, a young art academic, travels to Europe to trace the provenance of the subject of her obsession, a painting of a young man known simply as Tender. What she finds is so much more than she had ever imagined. In a broth run by an aging madam, the twentieth-century art scene is played out from Paris, London, and Vienna in an unrivalled exploration of beauty: our obsession with it, our fantasies about it, our addiction to it, and our ownership of it.
Strip Show: Performances of Gender and Desire (Gender in Performance)
by Katherine Liepe-LevinsonThis book offers an account of an unprecedented North American study of contemporary female and male strip shows. It particularly focuses on the contradictory sex roles, cultural positions, and performance practices of 'straight' strip shows during their second heyday in the early 1990s.Katherine Liepe-Levinson's research took her to over seventy different strip bars, clubs, theatres and sex emporiums ranging from elaborate lap-dancing and couch-dancing 'gentlemen's' clubs in New York, Houston, and San Francisco; to Peoria's onetime duplex cabaret where women strip for men downstairs, and men for women upstairs; to the nightclubs of Montreal where female and male performers displayed the 'Full Monty'. Liepe-Levinson's intriguing, comprehensive study concentrates on the cultural and theatrical elements of the strip shows themselves including the geographic locations and interior designs of the clubs, the choreography and costumes of the dancers and the all-important participation of the audience. She draws upon a variety of methodologies as well as interviews with performers to explore how the strip show's cultural and theatrical aspects simultaneously uphold and break traditional sex roles. Her findings readily complicate several of the most prominent and prevalent theories about sexual representation, gender and desire.
Strippers, Showgirls, and Sharks: A Very Opinionated History of the Broadway Musicals That Did Not Win the Tony Award
by Peter Filichia"Wait..Gypsy didn't win the Tony for Best Musical?"That's a question that gets asked over and over again, every time a new Rose takes to the runway in the Broadway classic "Gypsy". In "Strippers, Showgirls and Sharks", the popular syndicated theatre critic Peter Filichia chronicles the history of the American musical by looking at those shows that did not win the Tony Award for Best Musical. It happens every spring: The American Theatre Wing bestows its annual awards. Only those shows that have reached Broadway are nominated and while all Tony Awards are created equal in height, width and depth, the universally acknowledged biggest prize is the Best Musical Tony. The envelope is opened. The winner is announced and, then, the screeching begins. "Oh no! They gave it to that?" Did the best musical always win the Best Musical prize? Were there other factors that kept a more deserving show from copping the prize? Peter Filichia answers all these questions and more in "Strippers, Showgirls and Sharks" as he looks at many of the 153 previous Best Musical Nominees that didn't win the big prize. What were the biggest omissions? "Gypsy" had the distinct displeasure of not being either the first or second choice of the committee. In 1959 when Ethel Merman and a variety of strippers took the stage, the Tony for Best Musical was a tie between "The Sound of Music" and "Fiorello". In 1971, Stephen Sondheim's "Follies" and its ghostly showgirls lost to a "groovy" re-tuning of "Two Gentlemen of Verona" that hasn't passed the test of time. And, in 1957, "West Side Story", its Jets and Sharks, were bested by the fine people of River City Iowa singing their Americana hearts out in "The Music Man". If you love Broadway, scratch your head on Tony Award night and still can't figure out how a show you loathed won the Tony for Best Musical, you will love riding through the years with Peter Filichia, one of America's most respected and popular theatre critics.
Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist
by Thomas BradshawSatire / 5m, 2f (doubling, flexible casting possible) / Modular sets / Inspired by a true story, Strom Thurmond is Not a Racist is an absurdist look at the life of Senator Strom Thurmond. After fathering a child with his black maid as a young man, the extremely white Strom Thurmond became one of the country's greatest segregationists; all the while playing daddy to his bi-racial daughter Essie Mae Washington Williams. How could someone live such a duplicitous life? It happens. Winner of The American Theater Coop's National Playwriting Contest in 2005. Published with CLEANSED. / "Tom Bradshaw's most important contribution to society is snatching narrative and its elements back from the clutches of the ordinary" -- Richard Maxwell, Playwright and Director
Structural Design for the Stage
by Alys Holden Bronislaw Sammler Bradley L Powers Steven A SchmidtThe follow-up to the 2000 Golden Pen Award-winning Structural Design for the Stage, this second edition provides the theater technician with a foundation in structural design, allowing an intuitive understanding of "why sets stand up." It introduces the basics of statics and the study of the strength of materials as they apply to typical scenery, emphasizing conservative approaches to real world examples. This is an invaluable reference for any serious theatre technician throughout their career, from the initial study of the fundamental concepts, to the day-to-day use of the techniques and reference materials. Now in hardcover, with nearly 200 new pages of content, it has been completely revised and updated to reflect the latest recommended practices of the lumber and steel industries, while also including aluminum design for the first time.
The Structure and Performance of Euripides' Helen
by C. W. MarshallUsing Euripides' play, Helen, as the main point of reference, C. W. Marshall's detailed study expands our understanding of Athenian tragedy and provides new interpretations of how Euripides created meaning in performance. Marshall focuses on dramatic structure to show how assumptions held by the ancient audience shaped meaning in Helen and to demonstrate how Euripides' play draws extensively on the satyr play Proteus, which was part of Aeschylus' Oresteia. Structure is presented not as a theoretical abstraction, but as a crucial component of the experience of performance, working with music, the chorus and the other plays in the tetralogy. Euripides' Andromeda in particular is shown to have resonances with Helen not previously described. Arguing that the role of the director is key, Marshall shows that the choices that a director can make about role doubling, gestures, blocking, humour, and masks play a crucial part in forming the meaning of Helen.
The Struggle for Shakespeare's Text
by Gabriel EganWe know Shakespeare's writings only from imperfectly-made early editions, from which editors struggle to remove errors. The New Bibliography of the early twentieth century, refined with technological enhancements in the 1950s and 1960s, taught generations of editors how to make sense of the early editions of Shakespeare and use them to make modern editions. This book is the first complete history of the ideas that gave this movement its intellectual authority, and of the challenges to that authority that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. Working chronologically, Egan traces the struggle to wring from the early editions evidence of precisely what Shakespeare wrote. The story of another struggle, between competing interpretations of the evidence from early editions, is told in detail and the consequences for editorial practice are comprehensively surveyed, allowing readers to discover just what is at stake when scholars argue about how to edit Shakespeare.
Stuart Academic Drama: An Edition of Three University Plays (Routledge Library Editions: Renaissance Drama)
by David L. RussellAlthough not much is known about the three Stuart plays in this edition, which was first published in 1987, we can ascribe them to one of the English universities, and each is indicative of a distinctly different influence on the Renaissance academic drama. Heteroclitanomalonomia is part of a minor subgenre referred to as the academic play. It demonstrates the predominance of language or rhetoric studies in the period and its very subject is of purely academic interest. Gigantomachia displays the continuing interest of the Renaissance in classical mythology. And A Christmas Messe follows a more homely tradition, a farcical personification of the mundane. This title will be of interest to students of English Literature, Drama and Performance.
Stuart Women Playwrights, 1613–1713
by Pilar Cuder-DominguezIn the field of seventeenth-century English drama, women participated not only as spectators or readers, but more and more as patronesses, as playwrights, and later on as actresses and even as managers. This study examines English women writers' tragedies and tragicomedies in the seventeenth century, specifically between 1613 and 1713, which represent the publication dates of the first original tragedy (Elizabeth Cary's The Tragedy of Mariam) and the last one (Anne Finch's Aristomenes) written by a Stuart woman playwright. Through this one-hundred year period, major changes in dramatic form and ideology are traced in women's tragedies and tragicomedies. In examining the whole of the century from a gender perspective, this project breaks away from conventional approaches to the subject, which tend to establish an unbridgeable gap between the early Stuart period and the Restoration. All in all, this study represents a major overhaul of current theories of the evolution of English drama as well as offering an unprecedented reconstruction of the genealogy of seventeenth-century English women playwrights.
Studies in the Textual Tradition of Terence
by John N. GrantThe textual tradition of the Latin dramatist Publius Terentius Afer (second century BC) is unusually rich and complex. Over six hundred manuscripts containing some or all of Terence's six comedies have survived, but only one codex and three small fragments date from antiquity. All the rest were copied in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance when Terence was very popular. Recently scholars have been devoting considerable study to the role of his works and the commentaries on them in the cultural and intellectual development of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. However, little attention has been given to an examination and re-examination of the manuscripts in order to determine which are the most useful for establishing a reliable text of the plays. In this study John N. Grant examines afresh the manuscript tradition of the comedies, looking in particular at a branch of the medieval manuscripts which has been neglected in the past. He establishes the primacy of one manuscript, the value of which has hitherto been disputed, and points out the importance of others which have been known but have been neglected by past editors of Terence. In addition, through a careful study of the cycle of illustrations that appear in some medieval manuscripts he brings under scrutiny the history of the transmission of the text in late antiquity. He shows that, contrary to the generally held view, the date of the original cycle of illustrations from which those in the medieval manuscripts are derived cannot be used to provide a chronological keystone for the lost ancient manuscripts which were the ancestors of the surviving witnesses. An appendix with a selection of readings from over 150 manuscripts will be of value to those interested in investigating further the relationships among the extant manuscripts. This study lays the foundation for a new edition of the plays of Terence.
Study and Revise for GCSE: The History Boys
by Sue Bennett Dave StockwinExam Board: AQA, WJEC, WJEC EduqasLevel: GCSE (9-1)Subject: English literatureFirst teaching: September 2015First exams: Summer 2017Enable students to achieve their best grade in GCSE English Literature with this year-round course companion; designed to instil in-depth textual understanding as students read, analyse and revise The History Boys throughout the course.This Study and Revise guide:- Increases students' knowledge of The History Boys as they progress through the detailed commentary and contextual information written by experienced teachers and examiners- Develops understanding of plot, characterisation, themes and language, equipping students with a rich bank of textual examples to enhance their exam responses- Builds critical and analytical skills through challenging, thought-provoking questions that encourage students to form their own personal responses to the text- Helps students maximise their exam potential using clear explanations of the Assessment Objectives, annotated sample student answers and tips for reaching the next grade- Improves students' extended writing techniques through targeted advice on planning and structuring a successful essay- Provides opportunities for students to review their learning and identify their revision needs with knowledge-based questions at the end of each chapter
Studying Shakespeare: A Practical Introduction
by Katherine Armstrong Graham AtkinThis book is a concise single volume guide to studying Shakespeare, covering practical as well as theoretical issues. The text deals with the major topics on a chapter-by-chapter basis, starting with why we study Shakespeare, through Shakespeare and multimedia, to a final chapter on Shakespeare and Theory. Current trends and recent developments in Shakespearean studies are also discussed, with an emphasis on the contextualisation of Shakespeare, historical appropriations of his work and the debate concerning his place in the literary canon. Extensive reference is made to a variety of developing media, e.g. film, audio cassette, video, CD-Rom and global digital networks, bringing the study of Shakespeare into the twentieth century.
Stunning and Other Plays
by David Adjmi"Nearly everything about David Adjmi's Stunning has an original ring to it, from the setting . . . to the brassy bleat of the dialogue." -Time Out New YorkThis volume of distinctive work includes Stunning, set in an insular Syrian Jewish community, where a teenage bride's world is disrupted by her intellectual African American housekeeper; Evildoers, about the collapse of two privileged couples; and Elective Affinities, a post-9/11 monologue.David Adjmi's work has been produced at Lincoln Center Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, and the Royal Court in London. He has received numerous commissions and is the recipient of a 2009 Kesselring Fellowship and a Bush Artist Fellowship.
Stunts of Late Nineteenth-Century New York: Aestheticised Precarity, Endangered Liveness
by Kirstin SmithStunts of Late Nineteenth- Century New York: Aestheticised Precarity, Endangered Liveness examines the emergence of stunts in the media, politics, sport and art of New York at the turn of the twentieth century. This book investigates stunts in sport, media and politics, demonstrating how these risky performances tapped into anxieties and fantasies concerning work, freedom, gendered/ raced/ classed bodies and the commodifi cation of human life. Its case studies examine bridge jumping, extreme walking contests, stunt journalists such as Nellie Bly, and cycling feats including Annie Londonderry’s round- the- world venture. Supported by extensive archival research and Performance Studies theorisations of precarity, liveness and surrogation, Smith theorises an under- examined form which is still prevalent in art, politics and commerce, to show what stunts reveal about value, risk and human life. Suitable for scholars and practitioners across a range of subjects, from Performance Studies to gender studies, to media studies, Stunts of Late Nineteenth- Century New York explores how stunts turned everyday precarity into a spectacle.
Stupid Fucking Bird
by Aaron Posner Anton ChekovAn aspiring young director rampages against the art created by his mother's generation. A nubile young actress wrestles with an aging Hollywood star for the affections of a renowned novelist. And everyone discovers just how disappointing love, art, and growing up can be. In this irreverent, contemporary, and very funny remix of Chekhov's The Seagull, Aaron Posner stages a timeless battle between young and old, past and present, in search of the true meaning of it all. Original songs composed by James Sugg draw the famously subtextual inner thoughts of Chekhov's characters explicitly to the surface. <p><p>STUPID FUCKING BIRD will tickle, tantalize, and incite you to consider how art, love, and revolution fuel your own pursuit of happiness.
Style: An Approach To Appreciating Theatre
by E. Bert WallaceStyle: An Approach to Appreciating Theatre offers brief, readable chapters about the basics of theatre as a starting point for discussion, and provides new adaptations of classic plays that are both accessible to students learning about theatre and fit for production. In this text, style is the word used to describe the various ways in which theatre is done in real space and time by humans in the physical presence of other humans. The book uses style, the "liveness" of theatre that makes it distinct from literature or history, as a lens to see how playwrights, directors, designers, and actors bring scripts to life on stage. Rather than focusing on theatre history or literary script analysis, it emphasizes actual theatrical production through examples and explores playscripts illustrating four theatrical styles: Realism, Theatricalism, Expressionism, and Classicism. Susan Glaspells Realistic play Trifles is presented as written, while The Insect Play by the Brothers apek, The Hairy Ape by Eugene ONeill, and Antigone by Sophocles are original, full-length adaptions. Style: An Approach to Appreciating Theatre is the perfect resource for students of Theatre Appreciation, Introduction to Theatre, Theatrical Design, and Stagecraft courses.
Style For Actors: A Handbook for Moving Beyond Realism
by Robert Barton"Style is a journey from tourist to native. It is living in the world of the play, not just visiting it." - from Chapter One Anyone who has ever struggled with capes, fans, swords, doublets and crinolines should make Style for Actors 2nd Edition their constant companion. Robert Barton has completely updated his award winning handbook for the 21st century with contemporary references and up-to-date illustrations. This is the definitive guide to roles in historical drama. The past is a foreign country, and this outstanding book is concerned with exploring it from the actor’s point of view. Specific guides range from Greek, Elizabethan, Restoration and Georgian theatre to more contemporary stylings, including Futurism, Surrealism and Postmodernism. Barton takes great care to present the actor with the roles and genres that will most commonly confront them. His analysis moves from entire genres to specific scenes and characters. A huge resource of nearly 150 practical exercises helps a newfound understanding of style to make the leap from page to performance.
Style for Actors: A Handbook for Moving Beyond Realism
by Robert BartonStyle for Actors is an award-winning handbook and the definitive guide to roles in historical drama. Anyone who has ever struggled with capes, fans, swords, doublets and crinolines should make this third edition their constant companion. The past is a foreign country, and this outstanding book is concerned with exploring it from the actor's point of view. Specific guides to each major period give readers a clear map to discover a range from Greek, Elizabethan, Restoration and Georgian theatre to more contemporary stylings, including Futurism, Surrealism and Postmodernism. New material in this edition covers Commedia dell'arte and non-Western forms of theatre, theatrical fusion and developments in musicals and Shakespeare. The book’s references, images, resource lists and examples have all been updated to support today's diverse performers. Robert Barton takes great care to present the actor with the roles and genres that will most commonly confront them. Containing a huge resource of nearly 150 exercises, suggestions for scene study and applications not only for theatrical performance but also for stylistic challenges in the reader’s own offstage life, this book is an invaluable resource for students and practitioners of acting and drama.
The Subject of Tragedy: Identity and Difference in Renaissance Drama (Routledge Revivals)
by Catherine BelseyFirst published in 1985, The Subject of Tragedy takes the drama of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as the starting point for an analysis of the differential identities of man and woman. Catherine Belsey charts, in a range of fictional and non-fictional texts, the production in the Renaissance of a meaning for subjectivity that is identifiably modern. The subject of liberal humanism – self-determining, free origin of language, choice and action – is highlighted as the product of a specific period in which man was the subject to which woman was related.
Subject to Change
by Jules E. TascaFirst produced at the Pheasant Run Playhouse in Chicago, with Phyllis Diller featured as Madeline Basset, the action takes place in a two story residence in suburban New York. The play concerns the two Bassett sisters, Gertrude is prudish, capable and hardworking, says only "Oh, fudge", when she's upset. Madeline is completely dependent on her sloppy, fat cunning, and sounds like a plumber who has lost his number four wrench the perfect role for Phyllis Diller? When Gertrude decides to marry, leaving Madeline to fend for herself, the situation becomes traumatic. In an attempt to break up Gertrude's romance, Madeline runs the gamut, making obscene telephone calls to the bridegroom's 80 year old lush of a mother; outrageously insulting the groom to be, sneaking off to New York to trip on LSD, and finally sneaking back home to live in the attic and sulk. When all efforts fail, she feigns a stroke.
Subjects of Advice: Drama and Counsel from More to Shakespeare
by Ivan LupiIn Subjects of Advice, Ivan Lupić uncovers the rich interconnectedness of dramatic art and the culture of counsel in the early modern period. While counsel was an important form of practical knowledge, with concrete political consequences, it was also an ingrained cultural habit, a feature of obligatory mental, moral, and political hygiene. To be a Renaissance subject, Lupić claims, one had to reckon with the advice of others. Lupić examines this reckoning in a variety of sixteenth-century dramatic contexts. The result is an original account of the foundational role that counsel played in the development of Renaissance drama.Lupić begins by considering the figure of Thomas More, whose influential argument about counsel as a form of performance in Utopia set the agenda for the entire century. Resisting linear narratives and recovering, instead, the simultaneity of radically different kinds of dramatic experience, he shows the vitality of later dramatic engagements with More's legacy through an analysis of the moral interlude staged within Sir Thomas More, a play possibly coauthored by Shakespeare. More also helps explain the complex use of counsel in Senecan drama, from the neo-Latin plays of George Buchanan, discussed in connection with Buchanan's political writings, to the historical tragedies of the mid-sixteenth century.If tyranny and exemplarity are the keywords for early Elizabethan drama of counsel, for the plays of Christopher Marlowe it is friendship. Lupić considers Marlowe's interest in friendship and counsel, most notably in Edward II, alongside earlier dramatic treatments, thus exposing the pervasive fantasy of the ideal counselor as another self. Subjects of Advice concludes by placing King Lear in relation to its dramatic sources to demonstrate Shakespeare's deliberate dispersal of counsel throughout his play. Counsel's customary link to plain and fearless speech becomes in Shakespeare's hands a powerful instrument of poetic and dramatic expression.
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