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Broadway Bookshelf

Biographies, show books, musical scores, history, and must-read theatre books.
Biographies Show Books Autobiography For Actors Musical Scores Reference Books History

1776: A Musical Play (1976)

1776 The musical was produced on Broadway in 1969, running for 1,217 performances, and was made into a film of the same name in 1972. The show was nominated for five Tony Awards and won three, including Best Musical.
1776: A Musical Play Cover
24 Favorite One Act Plays (1963)

Two dozen classic dramas by some of the finest and most famous playwrights of the last hundred years--Anton Chekhov, Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Miller, and A.A. Milne.
24 Favorite One Act Plays Cover
Guys and Dolls: Vocal Selections (1982)

12 vocal selections from the Broadway staple, including: Adelaide's Lament * A Bushel and a Peck * Fugue for Tinhorns * Guys and Dolls * I've Never Been in Love Before * If I Were a Bell * Luck Be a Lady * Sit down You're Rockin' the Boat * and more.
Guys and Dolls: Vocal Selections Cover
Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, The Suppliants, Seven Against Thebes, The Persian (1961)

Aeschylus (525-456 BC) brought a new grandeur and epic sweep to the drama of classical Athens, raising it to the status of high art. In "Prometheus Bound", the defiant Titan Prometheus is brutally punished by Zeus for daring to improve the state of wretchedness and servitude in which mankind is kept. "The Suppliants" tells the story of the fifty daughters of Danaus who must flee to escape enforced marriages, while "Seven Against Thebes" shows the inexorable downfall of the last members of the c...
Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, The Suppliants, Seven Against The Cover
No Acting Please (1979)

No Acting Please-Beyond the Method a Revolutionary Approach to Acting and Living. Foreword by Jack Nicholson
No Acting Please Cover
The Sound of Music: Vocal Selections (1981)

11 songs: Climb Ev'ry Mountain * Do-Re-Mi * Edelweiss * I Have Confidence * The Lonely Goatherd * Maria * My Favorite Things * Sixteen Going on Seventeen * So Long, Farewell * Something Good * The Sound of Music.
The Sound of Music: Vocal Selections Cover
Designing with Light: An Introduction to Stage Lighting (1983)

This comprehensive survey of the practical and aesthetic aspects of basic stage lighting design treats its subject as an art closely integrated with that of the director, actor, and playwright, and as a craft that provides practical solutions for the manipulation of stage space. An eight-page color section provides a discussion of the practical applications of color theory as well as an analysis of the color choices for the lighting design of an actual production. Numerous illustrations of techn...
Designing with Light: An Introduction to Stage Lighting Cover
The Pot of Gold and Other Plays (1965)

One of the supreme comic writers of the Roman world, Plautus (c.254–184 BC), skilfully adapted classic Greek comic models to the manners and customs of his day. This collection features a varied selection of his finest plays, from the light-hearted comedy Pseudolus, in which the lovesick Calidorus and his slave try to liberate his lover from her pimp, to the more subversive The Prisoners, which raises serious questions about the role of slavery. Also included are The Brothers Menaechmus, which...
The Pot of Gold and Other Plays  Cover
An Unsocial Socialist (1972)

An Unsocial Socialist was published in 1887, having been written in 1883. The tale begins with a humorous description of student antics at a girl's school then changes focus to a seemingly uncouth laborer who, it soon develops, is really a wealthy gentleman in hiding from his overly affectionate wife. He needs the freedom gained by matrimonial truancy to promote the socialistic cause, to which he is an active convert. Once the subject of socialism emerges, it dominates the story, allowing only ...
An Unsocial Socialist  Cover
Environmental Theater (1973)

Here are the exercises which began as radical departures from standard actor training etiquette and which stand now as classic means through which the performer discovers his or her true power of transformation. Available for the first time in fifteen years, this new expanded edition offers a new generation of theater artists the gospel according to Richard Schechner, the guru whose principles and influence have influenced a quarter century of theater.
Environmental Theater Cover
Audition (1979)

Michael Shurtleff has been casting director for Broadway shows like Chicago and Becket and for films like The Graduate and Jesus Christ Superstar. His legendary course on auditioning has launched hundreds of successful careers. Now in this book he tells the all-important HOW for all aspiring actors, from the beginning student of acting to the proven talent trying out for that chance-in-a-million role!
Audition Cover
Backwards & Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays (1983)

This guide to playreading for students and practitioners of both theater and literature complements, rather then contradicts or repeats, traditional methods of literary analysis of scripts. Ball developed his method during his work as Literary Director at the Guthrie Theater, building his guide on the crafts playwrights of every period and style use to make their plays stageworthy. The text is full of tools for students and practitioners to use as they investigate plot, character, theme, expo...
Backwards & Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays Cover

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