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The World of Theatre: Tradition and Innovation
(11/29/2005) The World of Theatre is the first introduction to theatre book to truly focus on diversity and globalism, integrating coverage of multicultural, international and experimental theatre throughout. Theatre is presented as a global and multicultural form that reflects both traditional and evolving world views. While the American commercial theatre and European forms are central to the text, alternative theatres are placed side by side for comparison and contrast in each chapter, thus avoiding the s... |
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Theatre and Travel: Tours of the South
(3/2/2005) Presents rare information on traveling circus, minstrel, opera, and Toby shows. This collection of essays explores an understudied but pervasive aspect of American theatre: theatre on the road, from minstrel shows and Toby shows to contemporary African American theatre, 19th-century circus rail travel, and small-town opera houses. The challenges in gathering and compiling data on these ephemeral productions, from such far-flung sources as railroad schedules and weather reports, minutes f... |
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New York Then/New York Now
(2/21/2005) New York Then/New York Now—a collection of essays, memoirs, interviews, commentary, and plays—contemplates New York City’s history and future as a center for groundbreaking theatrical forms and ideas. Featuring the work of theater artists, producers, and critics, this special issue of Theater is concerned with the ideas and practicalities of making theater in and for New York within specific historical, political, and economic contexts. The first section, “New York Then,” reflects on ... |
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The Complete Annotated Gilbert & Sullivan
(1/1/2005) Lovers of Gilbert and Sullivan will be in heaven with the publication of these two books, which nicely complement each other. Stedman (English, Roosevelt Univ., Chicago) offers an outstanding study of this playwright and his often overlooked works, with much of its value deriving from its study of Gilbert without Sullivan. The author is a recognized expert on Gilbert as well as the Victorian time period, and she shows him to be a complex and interesting man who often found himself at odds with ... |
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The Cambridge Companion to David Mamet
(1/1/2004) This collection of specially written essays offers both student and theatregoer a guide to one of the most celebrated American dramatists working today. Readers will find the general and accessible descriptions and analyses provide the perfect introduction to Mamet's work. The volume covers the full range of Mamet's writing, including now classic plays such as American Buffalo and Glengarry Glen Ross, and his more recent work, Boston Marriage, among others, as well as his films, such as The Ver... |
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Golda's Balcony: A Play
(11/21/2003) The sold out off-Broadway smash has moved to Broadway! The rise of Golda Meir from impoverished Russian schoolgirl to Prime Minister of Israel is one of the most amazing stories of the 20th century. Now her life has been transformed into a one-woman play of overwhelming power and triumph by William Gibson, author of The Miracle Worker. Golda's Balcony earned actress Tovah Feldshuh a 2003 Drama Desk award."Enlightening ... Now, hearing from someone who was there at the birth of the country, who ... |
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The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama
(6/25/2003) Known through three editions as the boldest and most distinguished introduction to drama, William Worthen's pace-setting text continues to provide exciting plays usefully situated within their historical and cultural contexts. |
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The Lyrics of Noel Coward
(1/1/2002) Mad Dogs and Englishmen, Don't Put your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs Worthington and over 250 more lyrics from Coward's musical masterpieces. Noel Coward is one of the greatest lyricists of the twentieth century. Songs such as A Room with a View, The Stately Homes of England, Mad Dogs and Englishmen and Mrs Worthington are known, sung and loved the world over. This edition gathers together over 250 of Coward's lyrics, arranged in chronological order and grouped by show. In addition, these masterp... |
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Theatre World 1994-1995, Vol. 51
(1/1/2000) Theatre World, the statistical and pictorial record of the Broadway and off-Broadway season, touring companies, and professional regional companies throughout the United States, has become a classic in its field. The book is complete with cast listings, replacement producers, directors, authors, composers, opening and closing dates, song titles, and much, much more. There are special sections with biographical data, obituary information, listings of annual Shakespeare festivals and major drama a... |
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Theatre World 1993-1994, Vol. 50
(1/1/2000) Theatre World, the statistical and pictorial record of the Broadway and off-Broadway season, touring companies, and professional regional companies throughout the United States, has become a classic in its field. The book is complete with cast listings, replacement producers, directors, authors, composers, opening and closing dates, song titles, and much, much more. There are special sections with biographical data, obituary information, listings of annual Shakespeare festivals and major drama a... |
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The Social Significance of Modern Drama
(1/1/2000) Out of print virtually since its completion in 1914, Emma Goldman's pioneer work Social Significance in Modern Drama bridges modern drama and political philosophy, pointing out the road that remains to be travelled toward a theatre of social empowerment. Activist, feminist, philosopher and anarchist, Emma Goldman was a passionate thinker about all things modern when the 20th century was still raw and new. The emergence of her treatise on the theatre after years of obscurity is certain to arouse ... |
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Polaroid Stories
(1/1/1999) Naomi Iizuka’s 1997 play, Polaroid Stories, consciously uses stories, characters and themes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses to tell the stories of street kids living on the edge in a desolate, urban landscape. Because these characters are named after Orpheus and Eurydice, and Echo and Narcissus, or based on stories of Dionysus, and Ariadne and Theseus, and because scenes are entitled “The Story of Semele” or “Theseus in the Labyrinth,” Iizuka creates a world that has two dimensions: the g... |
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Musical Theater: An Appreciation
(2004) This unique historical survey illustrates the interaction of multiple artistic and dramatic considerations with an overview of the development of numerous popular musical theater genres. This introduction provides more than a history of musical theater, it studies the music within the shows to provide an understanding of the contributions of musical theater composers as clearly as the artistry of musical theater lyricists and librettists. The familiarity of the musical helps readers understand h... |
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The Teen's Musical Theatre Collection: Young Women's Edition
(2001) These popular publications are compiled especially for the tastes and abilities of the talented teenage singer/actor. Songs span from classic stage musicals, to "the golden age of Hollywood," to the stage and cinema of the 1980s and '90s. Indispensible for teaching young singers, these book/CD packs also include notes on each selection.The Young Women's Edition includes 33 songs: Beauty and the Beast * Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend * Honey Bun * I Could Have Danced All Night * I Enjoy Being ... |
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Auditioning for the Musical Theatre
(1988) Proven tactics and techniques from a leading New York vocal coach on how to "act" a song, choose the right material, handle a callback, what to wear, how to use eye contact, select a voice teacher and vocal coach, and more. Includes 130 excellent yet unusual audition songs for all types of situations and performers, including juveniles and dancers. |
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Antony and Cleopatra
(2005) A battle-hardened soldier, Antony is one of the three leaders of the Roman world. But he is also a man in the grip of an all-consuming passion for the exotic and tempestuous queen of Egypt. And when their life of pleasure together is threatened by the encroaching politics of Rome, the conflict between love and duty has devastating consequences. |
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King Richard II
(2002) The sensitive and poetic Richard II is undoubtedly the rightful king of England, but he is unscrupulous and weak. When his cousin Henry Bolingbroke returns from banishment to usurp the crown, Richard's right to the throne proves of little help to him. Richard is forced to abdicate, but as his power is stripped away, he gains dignity and self-awareness, and he meets his death heroically. |
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The Comedie of Errors
(2000) The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's earliest plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors (along with The Tempest) is one of only two of Shakespeare's plays to observe the classical unities. It has been adapted for opera, stage, screen and musical theatre. The Comedy of Errors tells the story of two sets of identical twins that... |
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King Henry VI, Part 3
(2001) Henry VI, Part 3 or The Third Part of Henry the Sixt (often written as 3 Henry VI) is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1591, and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. Whereas 1 Henry VI deals with the loss of England's French territories and the political machinations leading up to the Wars of the Roses, and 2 Henry VI focuses on the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles, and the inevitability of armed conflict, 3 Henry VI deal... |
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King Henry VI
(1891) Henry VI, Part 1 or The First Part of Henry the Sixt (often written as 1 Henry VI) is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1591, and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. Whereas 2 Henry VI deals with the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles, and the inevitability of armed conflict, and 3 Henry VI deals with the horrors of that conflict, 1 Henry VI deals with the loss of England's French territories and the political machination... |
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Henry V
(1998) Henry V is a historical play by William Shakespeare, written in 1599. It is based on the life of King Henry V of England, and focuses on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Years' War. The play is the final part of a tetralogy, preceded by Richard II, Henry IV, part 1 and Henry IV, part 2. The original audiences would thus have already been familiar with the title character, who was depicted in the Henry IV plays as a wild, undisciplined lad... |
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The Lamentable Tragedie of Titus Andronicus
(2000) Titus Andronicus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare that may be his earliest tragedy and is thought to have been written in the early 1590s. By far Shakespeare's bloodiest work, the play depicts a cycle of revenge between the Roman general Titus and his enemy Tamora, the Queen of the Goths. It lost popularity during the Victorian era because of its gore, but its critical reputation and popularity have recently revived. |
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Richard III
(2004) Richard III is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays on the stage and has been adapted successfully for film. This new and innovative edition recognizes the play's pre-eminence as a performance work: a perspective that informs every aspect of the editing. Challenging traditional practice, the text is based on the 1597 Quarto which, brings us closest to the play as it would have been staged in Shakespeare's theater. The introduction, which is illustrated, explores the long performance history f... |
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Coriolanus
(2000) Shakespeare's last tragedy explores the career and death of a brilliant and arrogant Roman general. This is an ambitious and intriguing story of heroism. |
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King Henry The Eighth
(2005) I come no more to make you laugh; things now That bear a weighty and a serious brow, Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe, Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow, We now present. Those that can pity here May, if they think it well, let fall a tear: The subject will deserve it. Such as give Their money out of hope they may believe May here find truth too. Those that come to see Only a show or two, and so agree The play may pass, if they be still and willing, I'll undertake may see awa... |
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The Merry Wives of Windsor
(2001) While emphasizing the liveliness of Shakespeare's play in stage terms, David Crane also claims that this citizen comedy needs to be taken as an expression of Shakespeare's fundamental understanding of human life, conveyed centrally in the character of Falstaff. In the process Crane also examines the bard's free and vigorous use of different linguistic worlds within the play. |
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Love's Labor's Lost
(2005) Young King Ferdinand and his courtiers agree to dedicate three years to ascetic and celibate study. But when the fetching Princess of France and her ladies arrive on a diplomatic mission, the men’s resolve is put to an arduous – and witty – test. The tension between their vow and their passion forms the subject of this charming, sparkling early comedy. Performed by Greg Wise, Samantha Bond, and the Arkangel cast. |
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Spunk
(1993) Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance. Of Hurston's four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays, she is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. |
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Gilgamesh: A Verse Play
(2006) Gritty, laconic, well-known poet Komunyakaa (who won a Pulitzer for 1993's Neon Vernacular) teams up with playwright and dramaturge Garcia for a compelling, short, stage-ready adaptation of the Sumerian epic that may be the oldest story in the world. In the play, as in its ancient source, the ill-content King Gilgamesh develops a deep passion for Enkidu, a wild man who grew up among beasts. The king and the wild man fight together against the spectral forest-monster Humbaba; they win, but the r... |
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The Opera of the Twentieth Century: A Passionate Art in Transition
(2006) In the late 1500s in Florence, aristocrats of the Renaissance renovated classical Greek dramas into dramatic musicals and gave birth to the first operas. After centuries of transformation, the opera is still appreciated as a historically dynamic paradigm of the fine arts. Composers of the twentieth century have worked hard to fashion a voice distinct from the romantic composers of the nineteenth century and the traditions that preceded them, and this volume explores the extent of their success. ... |
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Warsaw Visitor, Tales from the Vienna Streets: The Last Two Plays of William Saroyan
(1990) Late in life Saroyan wrote: “In 1943 I turned my back on Broadway, but I did not stop writing plays… I wrote new plays every year… and they are part of the real American theatre, and of the real world theatre, even though they have not been produced, performed, and witnessed.” In fact, William Saroyan left some 150 unpublished plays, two of which are offered here. Typically Saroyan in their graceful, acrobatic use of language, these plays have a breadth, a universality, and a somber... |
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The Seesaw Log: A Chronicle of the Stage Production, with the Text, of Two for the Seesaw
(1984) A day-by-day candid account of the creativity, conflict and compromise involved in the making of a smash-hit Broadway play. |
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The Complete Plays of William Dean Howells
(2003) William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was an American realist author and literary critic. He wrote his first novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1871, but his literary reputation really took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which describes the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur in the paint business. His social views were also strongly reflected in the novels Ann... |
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Old Money
(2002) Still best known for The Heidi Chronicles, which won a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize in 1989, Wasserstein is a comic and satirical playwright who has carved out a target area defined by wealth and the rarefied air of privilege. Poking fun at members of the American aristocracy is easy, but Wasserstein also makes us care about them as people. Old Money is no exception. This is a comedy of manners the kind of play that is funny if the manners are bad enough. It is set in fashionable Manhattan du... |
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Uncommon Women and Others
(1998) Comprised of a collage of interrelated scenes, the action begins with a reunion, six years after graduation, of five close friends and classmates at Mount Holyoke College. They compare notes on their activities since leaving school and then, in a series of flashbacks, we see them in their college days and learn of the events, some funny, some touching, some bitingly cynical, that helped to shape them. Each of the group is a distinct individual, and it is their varying reaction to the staid, shel... |
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Ichabod: A New Musical Adaptation of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow
(1995) Play Script. Beware! The horseman rides through a hollow that is anything but sleepy in this nimble new musical. Space staging. Cast of 6 males, 4 females, but flexible and may be larger. Imaginative traditional costumes. The classic tale of Washington Irving emerges transformed by the theatrical genius of Jones and the musical talent of Cole. We are challenged to look our fears squarely in the face - - or hoof, as the case may be. Schoolmaster Ichabod offers a new twist in teaching as his st... |
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Zaïre
(2000) ZARA and Nerestan, Christian slaves, had grown up in the palace of Osman, Sultan of Turkey. Zara was but a baby when she was brought to the palace. In fact, the only proof that she was a Christian lay in the ornamental cross she wore. Consequently she had found no difficulty in accepting the Moslem faith. Nerestan, however, though but a young lad when captured, took his obligations to Christianity and his fellow slaves seriously. Two years before the opening of the play he had secured from the ... |
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The Theatre Quotation Book: A Treasury of Insights and Insults
(2004) In two acts that consider what the theatre is and what it does, a star-studded cast of intellects, wits and wags here take center stage to enlighten, provoke, and amuse. A collection of close to 1000 distinctive anecdotes, aphorisms, adages and assaults written and spoken by actors, directors, composers, producers, critics and other observers - everyone from Sophocles to David Mamet, from Buddha to Brando. |
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Tony Kushner in Conversation
(1998) In the Fall of 1992, Millennium Approaches, the first part of Tony Kushner's Angels in America, won England's prestigious Evening Standard award as the season's Best Play. By the Spring of 1993, Millennium had come to Broadway and won its highest honor, the Tony Award for Best Play, and the distinguished Pulitzer Prize for drama as well. Through its epic theatrical panorama of the intimate and political dynamics that arise when individuals, histories, and cultures intersect, Millennium captured... |
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Caroline, or Change
(2004) Louisiana, 1963: A nation reeling from the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement and the Kennedy assassination. Caroline, a black maid, and Noah, the son of the Jewish family she works for, struggle to find an identity for their friendship. Through their intimate story, this beautiful new musical portrays the changing rhythms of a nation. Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori have created a story that addresses contemporary questions of culture, community, race and class through the lens and musi... |
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The Rez Sisters
(1992) Winner of the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Play Nominated for the Governor General's Award This award-winning play by Native playwright Tomson Highway is a powerful and moving portrayal of seven women from a reserve attempting to beat the odds by winning at bingo. And not just any bingo. It is THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD and a chance to win a way out of a tortured life. The Rez Sisters is hilarious, shocking, mystical and powerful, and clearly establishes the creative voice of ... |
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Doing It: Five Performing Arts
(2001) Does an opera producer do anything besides tell the singers where to stand? Can a single note be played more or less beautifully on the piano? In these essays, five of our most accomplished artists and critics explore the relationship between technique and interpretation in the performing arts. Tom Stoppard considers ways of controlling how an audience gets information while watching a play, and Charles Rosen reflects on the very physical relationship between the musician and the instrument. Jon... |
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The Real Thing
(1984) A talented ensemble cast brings to life Stoppard's classic play featuring the loves and loves lost of playwright Henry; his wife, Charlotte; an actor named Max; and his activist wife, Annie. Featuring a play within a play, this production is superbly performed if slightly confusing in audiobook format—it's often difficult to keep track of who is speaking and to keep track of the endlessly reconfiguring relationships. Henry searches for meaning both in art and romantic relationships as he atte... |
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Elizabeth Rex
(2002) Based on the original stage production at the Stratford Festival of Canada, directed by Martha Henry. In this daring and original production of Timothy Findley's Governor-General Award winning play, William Shakespeare and the formidable Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I, are brought together in a remarkable encounter on the night of April 22, 1616. The night the Queen's Lover will be executed, by the Queen's decree. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition. |
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A Mad World, My Masters
(1999) The Globe Quartos is a ground-breaking new series of forgotten plays co-published with Shakespeare's Globe in London. It marks the astonishing discovery of work by Shakespeare's contemporaries, and for some of the plays, this is the first time they have been in print in over 400 years. Middleton's craft and wit abound in this masterly satire of London Society at the turn of the 17th century. Disjointed and dysfunctional families wrangle and plot, cuckold and gull, 'but women's wit is ever at fu... |
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A Game at Chess
(1997) Thomas Middleton's notorious play, A Game at Chess, provoked a scandal when it was first performed in 1624. Through a masterly use of the metaphor of chessplay, this satire of men in high places was immediately recognized. The play was performed nine times to large theater audiences before the Privy Council closed the Globe theatre. Numerous contemporary reports and official documents relating to the scandal (printed in the appendix, some for the first time ever), provide a rich content for thi... |
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Spectacles
(2004) De Spectaculis (also known as On the Spectacles) is a surviving moral and ascetic treatise by Tertullian. Written somewhere between 197-202, the work looks at the moral legitimacy and consequences of Christians attending the circus, theatre, or amphitheatre ("the pleasures of public shows"). In it, Tertullian posits against the popular view that human enjoyment can be of no offence to God. His view of these public entertainments are that they are a misuse of God's creation and a perversion of ... |
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Interesting Times: Adapted for the Stage
(2003) When the Agatean Empire requests the Great Wizzard, Lord Vetinari of Ankh-Morpork sends a pathetically inept wizard named Rincewind 6000 miles away to the Counterweight Continent to intercede. The latest novel in the satirical fantasy "Discworld" series; for fantasy collections with the series. |
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Summer & Smoke
(1998) The play is a simple love story of a somewhat puritanical Southern girl and an unpuritanical young doctor. Each is basically attracted to the other but because of their divergent attitudes toward life, each over the course of years is driven away from the other. Not until toward the end does the doctor realize that the girl's high idealism is basically right, and while she is still in love with him, it turns out that neither time nor circumstances will allow the two ultimately to come together. ... |
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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
(2004) The definitive text of this American classic—reissued with an introduction by Edward Albee (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and A Delicate Balance) and Williams' essay "Person-to-Person." Cat on a Hot Tin Roof first heated up Broadway in 1955 with its gothic American story of brothers vying for their dying father's inheritance amid a whirlwind of sexuality, untethered in the person of Maggie the Cat. The play also daringly showcased the burden of sexuality repressed in the agony of her husban... |
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