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Theatrical Violence Design: Safety, Illusion, and Story in Stage Combat Choreography
by Richard Gilbert David BarefordTheatrical Violence Design offers the reader a complete education in the theory and practice of designing violence for the theater. From swordfights to exchanges of gunfire to domestic violence, the theater abounds in physical conflict. The artists who design that violence, sometimes called fight directors or choreographers, will find in this book an invaluable resource for becoming more expert at their craft. In the chapters of this book, they will encounter the core principles of creating violent effects, the body of knowledge with which they should be familiar, and the nuts and bolts of the process of design work from the first meeting with a director through closing night.This book is written for the student of stage combat to transition into violence design and will also be of interest to experienced violence designers and choreographers.
Theatricality and Performativity: Writings On Texture From Plato's Cave To Urban Activism (Performance Philosophy)
by Teemu PaavolainenThis book defines theatricality and performativity through metaphors of texture and weaving, drawn mainly from anthropologist Tim Ingold and philosopher Stephen C. Pepper. Tracing the two concepts’ various relations to practices of seeing and doing, but also to conflicting values of novelty and normativity, the study proceeds in a series of intertwining threads, from the theatrical to the performative: Antitheatrical (Plato, the Baroque, Michael Fried); Pro-theatrical (directors Wagner, Fuchs, Meyerhold, Brecht, and Brook); Dramatic (weaving memory in Shaffer’s Amadeus and Beckett’s Footfalls); Efficient (from modernist “machines for living in” to the “smart home”); Activist (knit graffiti, clown patrols, and the Anthropo(s)cene). An approach is developed in which ‘performativity’ names the way we tacitly weave worlds and identities, variously concealed or clarified by the step-aside tactics of ‘theatricality’.
Theatricality as Medium
by Samuel WeberEver since Aristotle's Poetics, both the theory and the practice of theater have been governed by the assumption that it is a form of representation dominated by what Aristotle calls the "mythos," or the "plot." This conception of theater has subordinated characteristics related to the theatrical medium, such as the process and place of staging, to the demands of a unified narrative. This readable, thought-provoking, and multidisciplinary study explores theatrical writings that question this aesthetical-generic conception and seek instead to work with the medium of theatricality itself. Beginning with Plato, Samuel Weber tracks the uneasy relationships among theater, ethics, and philosophy through Aristotle, the major Greek tragedians, Shakespeare, Kierkegaard, Kafka, Freud, Benjamin, Artaud, and many others who develop alternatives to dominant narrative-aesthetic assumptions about the theatrical medium. His readings also interrogate the relation of theatricality to the introduction of electronic media. The result is to show that, far from breaking with the characteristics of live staged performance, the new media intensify ambivalences about place and identity already at work in theater since the Greeks. Praise for Samuel Weber: “What kind of questioning is primarily after something other than an answer that can be measured . . . in cognitive terms? Those interested in the links between modern philosophy nd media culture will be impressed by the unusual intellectual clarity and depth with which Weber formulates the . . . questions that constiture the true challenge to cultural studies today. . . . one of our most important cultural critics and thinkers”—MLN
Theatricality, Dark Tourism and Ethical Spectatorship
by Emma WillisTheatricality, Dark Tourism and Ethical Spectatorship: Absent Others builds upon recent literature concerning theatre and ethics and offers a uniquely interdisciplinary approach. With a focus on spectatorship, the book brings together analysis of dark tourism – travel to sites of death and disaster – and theatrical performances. At dark tourism sites, objects and architecture are often personified, imagined to speak on behalf of absent victims. Spectatorsare drawn into this dialogical scenario in that they are asked to 'hear' the voices of the dead. Theatrical performances that depict grievous histories often gain power through paradoxically demonstrating the limits of their representational ability: spectators are asked to attune themselves to absences and incomprehensibilities. This study asks whether playing the part of the listener can be understood in ethical terms. Sites surveyed span a broad geographical scope – Germany, Poland, Vietnam, Cambodia, New Zealand and Rwanda – and are brought into contrast with performances including: Jerzy Grotowski's Akropolis, Catherine Filloux's Photographs from S21, Adrienne Kennedy's An Evening with Dead Essex and Erik Ehn's Maria Kizito.
Theatricality, Playtexts and Society (Elements in Contemporary Performance Texts)
by David BarnettThis Element proposes a novel way of defining, understanding and approaching theatricality, a term that exists both in the theatre and, more broadly, in everyday life. It argues that four foundational, material processes of theatre-making manifest themselves in all playtexts in both overt and covert forms. Each of the four sections defines a different theatrical process, explores its functions in two chosen playtexts and examines its implications for the wider experience of the spectators outside the theatre. The Element concludes with a supplementary reflection on performance to show how even seemingly untheatrical playtexts can be analysed and staged to reveal their unspoken theatricality. It also argues that this new understanding of theatricality has a politics, that the artifice of any theatre and the constructedness of any society are analogous and that both, consequently, can be fundamentally changed. This Element is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Theban Plays
by Sophocles Paul Woodruff Peter MeineckThis volume offers the fruits of Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff's dynamic collaboration on the plays of Sophocles' Theban cycle, presenting the translators' Oedipus Tyrannus (2000) along with Woodruff's Antigone (2001) and a muscular new Oedipus at Colonus by Meineck. Grippingly readable, all three translations combine fidelity to the Greek with concision, clarity, and powerful, hard-edged speech. Each play features foot-of-the-page notes, stage directions, and line numbers to the Greek. Woodruff's Introduction discusses the playwright, Athenian theatre and performance, the composition of the plays, and the plots and characters of each; it also offers thoughtful reflections on major critical interpretations of these plays.
Theft: A Play in Four Acts
by Jack LondonJack London (January 12, 1876 - November 22, 1916), was an American author who wrote The Call of the Wild and other books. A pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first Americans to make a huge financial success from writing.The Scarlet Plague was written by Jack London and originally published in London Magazine in 1912. It was re-released in February of 2007 by Echo Library. The story takes place in 2072, sixty years after the scarlet plague has depopulated the planet. James Howard Smith is one of the few people left alive in the San Francisco area, and as he realizes his time grows short, he tries to impart the value of knowledge and wisdom to his grandsons.American society at the time of the plague has become severely stratified and there is a large hereditary underclass of servants and "nurses"; and the politcal system has been replaced by a formalized oligarchy. Commercial airship lines exist, as do some airships privately owned by the very rich.
Their Majesty: Drag Performance and Queer Communities in London (Routledge Series in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Theatre and Performance)
by Joe ParslowThis book explores drag performance in London since 2009 via the pubs, bars and clubs that make LGBTQ+ communities thrive.It studies the complex relationship between drag performance, LGBTQ+ venues and queer communities. In exploring drag performance, the book develops a greater understanding of the connection between drag performance and queer communities, in particular exploring how drag might facilitate queer communities and offer queer modes of survival and resistance for queer people. Through this, the book describes a contemporary moment in which drag performance is increasingly popular and increasingly important at a time when homophobic and transphobic violence is prevalent, and LGBTQ+ venues are often under threat of closure. Understanding the increased/increasing mainstream popularity of drag, the book examines drag performance that is connected to and resists mainstream attention in order to account for its complexity in London (and beyond).This book takes the author’s engagement with and love for drag and exerts a critical, political and queer pull in order to develop new terrains of queer studies and queer performance studies.
Themes Out Of School: Effects and Causes
by Stanley CavellIn the first essay of this book, Stanley Cavell characterizes philosophy as a "willingness to think not about something other than what ordinary human beings think about, but rather to learn to think undistractedly about things that ordinary human beings cannot help thinking about, or anyway cannot help having occur to them, sometimes in fantasy, sometimes as a flash across a landscape. " Fantasies of film and television and literature, flashes across the landscape of literary theory, philosophical discourse, and French historiography give Cavell his starting points in these twelve essays. Here is philosophy in and out of "school," understood as a discipline in itself or thought through the works of Shakespeare, Molière, Kierkegaard, Thoreau, Brecht, Makavejev, Bergman, Hitchcock, Astaire, and Keaton.
Themes and Variations in Shakespeare's Sonnets
by J B LeishmanFirst published in 1961. This study analyses Shakespeare's treatment of the universal themes of Beauty, Love and Time. He compares Shakespeare with other great poets and sonnet writers - Pindar, Horace and Ovid, with Petrarch, Tasso and Ronsart, with Shakespeare's own English predecessors and contemporaries, notably Spenser, Daniel and Drayton and with John Donne. By discussing their resemblances and differences, a not altogether orthodox picture of Shakespeare's attitude to life is presented, which suggests that he was not as phlegmatic and equable a person as critics have often supposed.
Theo-Drama: Dramatis Personae—Persons in Christ (Theological Dramatic Theory #3)
by Graham Harrison Hans Urs Von BalthasarThe third volume of Theo-Drama is considered the most central book of Fr. von Balthasar's entire theological project. Structrually it is the middle volume of the middle part of his theological trilogy: Glory of the Lord, Theo-Drama, and Theo-Logic. More significantly, it contains von Balthasar's synthetic treatment of the central mysteries of the Catholic Faith: Christ, Mary, the Church, man and the Trinity. <p><p>The various elements of von Balthasar's theological reflection converge here, and here as nowhere else one can find the systematic elaboration of his Christology, Mariology, ecclesiology, anthropology and trinitarian doctrine. It is both a one-volume compendium of this theology and a key to his trilogy and other writings.
Theophilus North
by Matthew BurnettMatthew BurnetBased on the Thornton Wilder novel. Comedy/Drama. Characters: 4 male, 3 female to play over 20 characters . Simple sets. Helen Hayes Award nomination, Outstanding New Play. It is the spring of 1926. Thirty year old Theophilus North quits his teaching post in New Jersey and embarks on a quest for fun, adventure and his place in the world. His used car breaks down in Newport, Rhode Island, and he is stranded in this city of renowned wealth. Theophilus becomes involved in the lives and troubles of Newport's residents and is changed by the lessons he learns through them. Effective with minimal sets, properties and costumes, this touching, funny and insightful charmer is exceptionally easy to produce. "Hope pulses so strongly through Theophilus North.... Burnett injects his script with cosmic scope.... Imaginative, forceful theater.... Charming and breathtaking all at once.... In the spirit of Wilder and with a dramatic vigor all its own, the play turns large-hearted living into art." --Variety . "Undaunted, [it] evokes...tender, unforced humanity.... Rich in dry humor, and in Wilder's...philosophy that the cosmic permeates the quotidian.... Gently funny, spryly wise..." --Time Out New York . "Charming... Captures Wilder's spirit of genial humor and tempered optimism.... Ignites sparks of surprisingly deep emotion." --New York Daily News . "Excavates the Wilder play buried in the novel.... This Theophilus North is unmistakably a cousin of Our Town.... There are muscles rippling under the play's rose-scented skin." --New York Sun . "Five stars.... Purely sparkles with intelligence, wit and humanity.... This is a play both for the head and the heart." --TalkinBroadway.com . "Beautiful and intelligent... A mixture of Wilderesque sobriety and esprit. The late author would undoubtedly have tipped his boater..." --TheaterMania.com
Theorie und Theater
by Astrid Hackel Mascha VollhardtDie Theaterwissenschaft beruft sich gern auf den gemeinsamen Ursprung von Theorie und Theater. Ein Grund zu fragen, auf welche Weise akademische Diskurse Eingang in zeitgenössische Performances, Tanz- und Theaterinszenierungen finden und was diese umgekehrt zur Vermittlung oder sinnlichen Fremdwerdung theoretischen Wissens beitragen können. Untersucht werden die zahlreichen Verflechtungen und Unwägbarkeiten zwischen Theorie und Theater, die szenische Selbstreferenzialität und Widerständigkeit gegen die eigene Theoretisierbarkeit, die Herausforderungen im Umgang mit humanwissenschaftlichen, (post-)feministischen und queeren Theorien sowie der Stellenwert von Sprache, Sinn und Sinnlichkeit in zeitgenössischen Inszenierungen.
Theorising and Designing Immersive Environments: Enchanting Spaces (Palgrave Studies in Performance and Technology)
by Ágnes-Karolina Bakk Péter Kristóf MakaiThis edited volume discusses the topic of immersion, approaching it from the perspective of various media and stakeholders: experiencers and creators. While the concept of immersion has gained widespread currency in the last decades beyond video games, its critical theory has not reached the same momentum, meaning that there is no unified way of using the term. This causes many misunderstandings and stands as an obstacle to successful expectation management processes, especially in the entertainment industry. This book presents a nuanced platform of discussion to answer the question of how immersion can manifest itself in different media, and how creators are embracing the current trends within the experience economy.
Theory
by Norman YeungIs there a limit to free speech? Who gets to decide? Isabelle’s film theory students are stunned that she would open an unmoderated online discussion group to complement a controversial syllabus. Her intention was for them to learn from each other, but when an anonymous student starts to post racist comments and offensive videos on the forum and others challenge Isabelle’s methods, she is forced to decide whether to intervene or to let the social experiment play out. But the posts soon turn abusive and threatening to Isabelle’s relationship with her wife, Lee, causing her to take matters into her own hands. In this thrilling exploration of the intersections and divisions within liberalism, a young tenure-track professor finds herself in a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse that has her questioning her beliefs and fighting back for her life.
Theory, Practices, and Transcontinental Articulations (New Latin American Cinema #1)
by Michael T. MartinMapping the historical and cultural contexts of film practices in Latin America, this two-volume collection of programmatic statements, essays and interviews is devoted to the study of a theorized, dynamic and unfinished cinematic movement. Forged by Latin America's post-colonial environment of underdevelopment and dependency, the New Latin American Cinema movement has sought to inscribe itself in Latin America's struggles for cultural and economic autonomy. <p><p> This volume explores the formation of the New Latin American Cinema movement, its national and continental implications (including the diasporic/exilic experience) and transcontinental articulations through the writings of pioneer film-makers and scholars. Glauber Rocha, Julio Garcia Espinosa, Jorge Sanjines, Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino address the central question of the Latin American aesthetic—a particular style and production method connected with the political and social conditions and circumstances of Latin America. Ana Lopez, Julianne Burton and Michael Chanan examine the movement's formation in the 1950s and its development through the 1980s in a socio-historical context, paying special attention to modes of production and consumption. Paul Willemen assesses the movement's relevance to radical film practice and theory in the First and Third Worlds, and Antonio Skarmeta calls for a distribution network of Third World Cinema on a pan-European level. The volume concludes with essays by Ruby Rich and Zuzana M. Pick who address, from widely different approaches, the issues of the movement's adaptability, renovation and identity, in consideration of its evolution since the 1950s.
Theory/Theatre: An Introduction
by Mark FortierTheory/Theatre: An Introduction provides a unique and engaging introduction to literary theory as it relates to theatre and performance. Mark Fortier lucidly examines current theoretical approaches, from semiotics, poststructuralism, to cultural materialism, postcolonial studies and feminist theory. Drawing upon examples from Shakespeare and Aphra Behn, to Chekhov, Artaud, Cixous and Churchill, the author examines the specific realities of theatre in order to come to a richer understanding of the relations between performance and cultural theory. Theory/Theatre: An Introduction is the only study of its kind and will be invaluable reading for new students and scholars of performance studies.
Theory/Theatre: An Introduction
by Mark FortierTheory/Theatre: An Introduction provides a unique and engaging introduction to literary theory as it relates to theatre and performance. Mark Fortier lucidly examines current theoretical approaches, from semiotics, poststructuralism, to cultural materialism, postcolonial studies and feminist theory. Drawing upon examples from Shakespeare and Aphra Behn, to Chekhov, Artaud, Cixous and Churchill, the author examines the specific realities of theatre in order to come to a richer understanding of the relations between performance and cultural theory. Theory/Theatre: An Introduction is the only study of its kind and will be invaluable reading for new students and scholars of performance studies.
Theory/Theatre: An Introduction
by Mark FortierThis fully updated and revised fourth edition of Theory/Theatre is a unique and highly engaging introduction to cultural theory as it relates to theatre and performance. It is a comprehensive and accessible examination of current theoretical approaches, from semiotics and poststructuralism, through to cultural materialism, postcolonial studies, queer and feminist theories.Key updates to the new edition include further perspectives and expanded content on:- Technology, audience reception and liveness- Further examinations of feminism, transgender and gender theory, as well as queer theory- Disability studies- Critical Race Theory- Decolonization- Intersectionality- Critical PhenomenologyBringing contemporary voices and examples to light, author Mark Fortier introduces the ways in which established and emerging theories can interact with theatre and performance.This is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of theatre and performance studies.
There Goes The Bride
by John Chapman Ray CooneyComedy / 4m, 4f / Interior / An extremely funny play about a young girl's forthcoming marriage and attitudes about premarital sex. Excerpts from the London reviews and the critics reaction can best describe this farce.
There is Violence and There is Righteous Violence and There is Death or, The Born-Again Crow
by Caleigh CrowGrocery-store clerk Beth has had a hell of a week. A hell of a life, actually, full of people squashing her soul. And after pushing back at life—stabbing a steak to her boss’s desk and lighting a magazine rack on fire, for instance—freshly unemployed Beth regroups at her mom’s suburban home. Just when Beth starts to think she’s to blame for systemic limits, the gift of a bird feeder sparks a relationship with a talking Crow who reconnects her with her true power.This sly chamber piece from new voice Caleigh Crow turns post-capitalism ennui on its head with a righteous fury. It unearths the subtle (and not so subtle) ways we gaslight the marginalized, especially Indigenous women, people living with mental-health afflictions, and anyone struggling to make ends meet in low-income service jobs. There Is Violence captures the vivacity and humour of one truly remarkable woman not meant for this earth, and brings her to her own glorious transcendence.
There's A Burglar In My Bed
by Michael ParkerComedy / 3m, 4f / Various sets / William Worthington III and his wife are both going to be away for the weekend from their two hundred acre Massachusetts estate with its twenty six bedroom mansion, he to Delaware to shoot ducks with the Duponts and she to her mother's in Boston. Both have, in fact, arranged trysts with their respective lovers in the estate's beach cottage. Inevitably their paths cross and divorce is in the air. Neither is willing to give up the world famous Worthington necklace, so each devises a plan to steal it. True to the laws of farce, both simulated burglaries are scheduled for same night. Fun filled chaos ensues: mistaken identities, unlikely romantic liaisons, a bumbling private detective, a fake necklace, one very determined nymphomaniac and two scantily clad pseudo nuns sharing a single skirt where did they come from? Confusion is piled on confusion until the mystery of who has the real necklace and who has the fake is revealed in a surprise ending.
There's No One Like You
by Linda Schwartz Beverly ArmstrongWelcome to the world of Playbooks® and the beginning of a wonderful role-play reading adventure! Playbook® stories are presented in a unique and colorful format and are read out loud by several readers like a play, without memorization, props, or a stage. <p><p>When you read a Playbook®, you and other readers bring the story to life and become the characters. As you read your part out loud, you will have fun expressing and acting like your character. You and the other readers will explore the story plot together and learn what will happen next. It's an exciting journey of discovery that pulls you into the story, and you'll want to read it out loud again and again!
Thieving Three-Fingered Jack: Transatlantic Tales of a Jamaican Outlaw, 1780-2015
by Frances R. BotkinThe fugitive slave known as “Three-Fingered Jack” terrorized colonial Jamaica from 1780 until vanquished by Maroons, self-emancipated Afro-Jamaicans bound by treaty to police the island for runaways and rebels. A thief and a killer, Jack was also a freedom fighter who sabotaged the colonial machine until his grisly death at its behest. Narratives about his exploits shed light on the problems of black rebellion and solutions administered by the colonial state, creating an occasion to consider counter-narratives about its methods of divide and conquer. For more than two centuries, writers, performers, and storytellers in England, Jamaica, and the United States have “thieved" Three Fingered Jack's riveting tale, defining black agency through and against representations of his resistance.Frances R. Botkin offers a literary and cultural history that explores the persistence of stories about this black rebel, his contributions to constructions of black masculinity in the Atlantic world, and his legacies in Jamaican and United States popular culture.
Things We Said Today: Short Plays and Monologues
by Neil LabuteNeil LaBute is one of America's most provocative and lauded playwrights, and his darkly exhilarating talent is on glorious view in this new collection. Things We Said Today features the scripts for Neil LaBute's groundbreaking Directv project 10x10--a series of short films written and directed by LaBute based on ten compelling original monologues, five each for men and women. Also included are five short plays displaying the power and scope of Neil LaBute's creative vision. In Pick One, three white guys come up with a way to solve America's problems; in The Possible one young woman seduces another's boyfriend for an unexpected reason. Call Back features an actress and actor who spar about a past encounter that she, unnervingly, remembers much better than he does. Good Luck (In Farsi), "a pleasingly astringent study in competitiveness and vanity" (The New York Times) has two actresses pulling out all the stops in a preaudition psych out; and in Squeeze Play a father and his son's baseball coach strike a mutually beneficial deal. Rounding out the collection are two monologues commissioned as part of Centerstage's "My America" project.