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Latest Broadway Books

Mark Ravenhill

(1/1/2011)

Mark Ravenhill is the first book to provide a detailed analysis of the work of arguably the most important dramatist to have emerged from the British theatre over the past twenty years. Shopping and F***ing (1996), with its unrelenting representation of dysfunctional youth, dark humour and graphic sex and violence, was seen by many to uniquely capture the social and political fallout of a decade, and Ravenhill fast attained a status as the ‘rude boy’ of British theatre. However, the numer...

Patti LuPone: A Memoir

(9/14/2010)

Broadway legend LuPone, a five-time Tony nominee and two-time Tony winner, raises the curtain on her life and career in this engaging memoir. Detailing both her travails and her triumphs, she takes the reader on a guided tour recalling some memorable moments in musical theater. She began in her teens when she and her twin brothers performed on Long Island as the LuPone Trio. On a 1968 scholarship at John Houseman's Juilliard Drama Division, she was "overwhelmed with fear," but then toured with H...

Playbill's At This Theatre

(1/1/2010)

Theatregoers' favorite history of Broadway is back in an updated and expanded 2010 edition including more than 500 color production photos, vintage archival photos, and Playbill covers from all forty currently operating Broadway theatres. Thirty-eight of the original chapters have been expanded to cover all the shows that have opened in the ten years since the popular 2000 edition, with two new chapters added to include Broadway theatres recently refurbished and returned to life. This unique chr...

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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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 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.

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...

Theatre World 1993-1994, Vol. 50

(1/1/2000)

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...

One Less Bitter Actor: The Actor's Survival Guide

(2007)

An invaluable reference for anyone who is a working actor, or wants to be. Learn how to make it in the day-to-day business of acting and stay sane and focused while attempting to merge art and commerce. This book covers everything the author wishes someone had told him about how casting decisions are made, what rejection really means, how to behave on a set, the two factors the business is built on, and much more.

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Babylon Girls: Black Women Performers and the Shaping of the Modern

(2008)

Babylon Girls is a groundbreaking cultural history of the African American women who performed in variety shows--chorus lines, burlesque revues, cabaret acts, and the like--between 1890 and 1945. Through a consideration of the gestures, costuming, vocal techniques, and stagecraft developed by African American singers and dancers, Jayna Brown explains how these women shaped the movement and style of an emerging urban popular culture. In an era of U.S. and British imperialism, these women challen...

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Plays From the Contemporary American Theater

(2002)

Includes eight full-length, award-winning plays: * Streamers by David Rabe * Marco Polo Sings a Solo by John Guare * Wings by Arthur Kopit * Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You by Christopher Durang * Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley * The Dining Room by A.R. Gurney * Painting Churches by Tina Howe * Ma Rainey's Black Bottom by August Wilson Edited and with an introduction by Brooks McNamara.

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The Storm

(2011)

One of Ostrovsky’s most poetical works, The Storm is set in Kalinov, a provincial town on the banks of the Upper Volga. Trapped in an unhappy marriage, Katerína is tormented by her widowed mother-in-law, Marfa Kabanova. Katerína seeks solace in an affair with a similarly toermented young lover, and the confession of this affair to her husband leads ultimately to tragedy. The Storm was a great success on its first performance the Maly Theatre, Moscow, in November 1859, and continues to b...

The Director's Eye: A Comprehensive Textbook for Directors and Actors

(2001)

Can a theatre class textbook be both inspirational and informative? Yes! This holistic book on directing and acting does it all. Students will keep it as a lifelong career reference on how to make things work. Written subjectively, it's based on nearly a half-century of teaching and directing. A text that compels involvement in all layers of creating memorable theatre. Thirty-five chapters in seven sections with assignments and convenient section summaries make a complete semester course. This ...

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Stick Fly: A Play

(2008)

Two brothers see their weekend at the family home on Martha's Vineyard as a great opportunity to introduce their girlfriends to their upper class African American parents. Instead, they stumble into a domestic powder keg that exposes secrets of prejudice, hypocrisy and adultery.

Bus Stop: A Three-Act Romance

(1995)

Upon hitting Broadway in 1955 Bus Stop was an immediate commercial & critical success. During a winter storm a busload of weary travelers are forced to shack up at a roadside diner until morning. Inge was renowned for his in-depth character studies, Bus Stop is no exception and offers a warm play about the intersecting lives of eight ordinary people. A L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring: Megan Anderson, Terrence Currier, Rachel Miner, Anson Mount, Kyle Prue, Lynnie Raybuck, Jef...

Stage Management

(2009)

Revered as the authoritative resource for stage management, this book offers readers a practical manual on how to stage manage in all theater environments. Rich with practical resources — checklists, diagrams, examples, forms and step-by-step directions — Stage Management eschews excessive discussion of philosophy and gets right to the essential materials and processes of putting on a production. In addition to sharing his own expertise, Stern has gathered practical advice from working ...

Duck Hunter Shoots Angel

(2007)

Duck Hunter Shoots Angel was Mitch Albom’s first play not based on a book and his first comedy. The story of two bumbling Alabama duck-hunting brothers who think they accidentally shot down an angel debuted in the summer of 2004 at the Purple Rose Theater, in Chelsea, Michigan, a theater started by actor Jeff Daniels. It went on to become that theater’s highest-grossing play. It then moved to downtown Detroit for a good stretch at the City Theatre before moving on to other productions ar...

Gangsters and Gold Diggers: Old New York, the Jazz Age, and the Birth of Broadway

(2003)

Once upon a time Broadway was just another street. In Gangsters & Gold Diggers, Jerome Charyn transports readers back to a swaggering, golden era in American life—the Roaring Twenties—when Broadway suddenly exploded into Broadway. Damon Runyon was the first chronicler of the Big Street. He created the myth of Broadway, invented the "slanguage." The Ziegfeld Follies became its most important institution—everybody, including Zelda Fitzgerald, wanted to be a Follies Girl. Then came Lindy’...

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Ghost Light: An Introductory Handbook for Dramaturgy

(2010)

Ghost Light: An Introductory Handbook for Dramaturgy offers useful and entertaining answers to the confounding questions: “What, exactly, is dramaturgy, and what does a dramaturg do?” According to Michael Mark Chemers, dramaturgs are the scientists of the theater world—their primary responsibility is to query the creative possibilities in every step of the production process, from play selection to costume design, and then research the various options and find ways to transform that knowl...

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Acting the Song: Performance Skills for the Musical Theatre

(2008)

Acting the Song offers a contemporary, integrated approach to singing in musicals that results in better-trained, smarter performers who can use song to add drama and dimension to their roles. Directors, teachers of musical theater, and students—including actors, singers, or dancers—will find time-tested advice, exercises and worksheets for all skill levels. This book guides readers through musical theater elements, classroom workshops, and the world of professional auditions and performa...

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A Twist of Lemmon: A Tribute to My Father

(2008)

Author Lemmon's parents divorced when he was three, and each remarried, so his memories of his famous father tend to center around specific activities they shared rather than daily life. When Chris was 11, the two went to Alaska for the first of many annual wilderness outings. Piano playing was another enthusiasm; Jack had picked it up by ear and urged Chris into lessons, which he loved so much that for a while he considered turning pro. Their third mutual passion was golf. Neither (especially ...

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The Comedies

(2008)

Terence was the outstanding comedic playwright of his generation and one of the founding fathers of European comic drama. All six of his plays survive and are collected in this volume. Acknowledged as classics soon after his early death, admired above all for their style but also for their insights into human nature, these plays have been imitated by authors as diverse Molière and P.G. Wodehouse. They deal with the love-life of adolescent boys and with associated tensions in their relations wi...

The Art of the Monologue: Monologues They Haven't Heard Yet

(2007)

The Art of the Monologue" - A collection of original monologues and complete how to sections that help you with casting type, monologue selection and final performance.

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Play Directing in the School: A Drama Director's Survival Guide

(1997)

Directing plays in schools requires knowledge and talents far different than directing for community or professional theatre. In ten comprehensive chapters the author explains the "real world" of producing effective theatricals in the school environment. He details the pitfalls and the problems while providing ideas for consistently successful shows. He covers budgeting, scheduling, faculty politics, motivating and disciplining students and many other school-life realities beyond a director or t...

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Broadway's Best

(2000)

16 beautiful solo arrangements of Broadway standards from 14 great shows. Includes: All I Ask of You * And All That Jazz * Beauty and the Beast * Bring Him Home * Cabaret * Edelweiss * If I Loved You * It Might as Well Be Spring * Seasons of Love * September Song * Some Enchanted Evening * Where Is Love? * With One Look * and more.

Eastern Standard

(1998)

Eastern Standard is a play by Richard Greenberg. Set in 1987, it focuses on yuppies, AIDS, the stock market and insider trading scandals, homelessness, and urban malaise.

Legislative Theatre: Using Performance to Make Politics

(1998)

Boal is a Brazilian activist who has devoted his career to effecting social change through theater. This book is an account of his most recent efforts, especially during his term as a legislator. Growing out of his Theatre of the Oppressed, an international theater movement giving artistic and social voice to the otherwise voiceless, Legislative Theatre is an interactive dramaturgy. Working locally, Boal gets citizens to articulate their concerns by developing plays that are then presented loca...

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A Short History of Opera

(1965)

When first published in 1947, A Short History of Opera immediately achieved international status as a classic in the field. Now, more than five decades later, this thoroughly revised and expanded fourth edition informs and entertains opera lovers just as its predecessors have. The fourth edition incorporates new scholarship that traces the most important developments in the evolution of musical drama. After surveying anticipations of the operatic form in the lyric theater of the Greeks, medi...

No Applause--Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous

(2006)

Starred Review. Much has been written about the American institution of vaudeville, but readers would be hard-pressed to find an account as humorous and sharp as writer and performer Trav S.D.'s tasty chronicle. Although critics in the early 20th century lambasted vaudeville as crude, sometimes clever, but generally "trite and empty," the author points out that from 1881 to 1932, vaudeville "was the heart of American show business," so ubiquitous that "if you were beyond the reach of vaudeville...

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Performance: A Critical Introduction

(2003)

Performance: A Critical Introduction was the first textbook to provide an overview of the modern concept of performance and its development in various related fields. This comprehensively revised, illustrated edition discusses recent performance work and takes into consideration changes that have taken place in the study of performance since the book's original publication in 1996. Marvin Carlson guides the reader through the contested definition of performance as a theatrical activity and the ...

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Tick Tick ... Boom: The Complete Book And Lyrics

(2008)

Before the revolutionary rock musical Rent, Jonathan Larson had another story to tell... his own. tick, tick ... BOOM! is a three-chapter pop rock musical about facing crossroads in life and holding on to your dreams that was first produced off Broadway in 2001. It tells the story of young Jonathan, a promising young composer on the eve of his 30th birthday. His girlfriend wants to get married and move out of the city (tick); his best friend is making big bucks on Madison Avenue (tick); and he'...

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Moonlight And Magnolias

(2005)

This is an insight into 1930s Hollywood and an epic of laughter. David O. Selznick is determined to rewrite Gone with the Wind. He engages the services of “script doctor” Ben Hecht, who has never read the book, and director Victor Fleming, poached straight from the set of The Wizard of Oz.

The Actor's Encyclopedia of Casting Directors: Conversations with Over 100 Casting Directors on How to Get the Job

(2000)

Karen Kondazian has compiled inside information from talking to the premier casting directors in film, television, and commercials from New York to Los Angeles.

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History of Theatre

(2000)

This bold undertaking covers Western theatre from ancient Greece to the present day. It traces the development of dramatic art through the miracle plays, the great Shakespearean period, Moliere and Racine in France, Goethe in Germany, through the 19th century and the main movements in the 20th century. It is illustrated by numerous examples of differing styles, with some historical recordings as well and excerpts from nearly 50 plays. A fascinating journey. It is written by David Timson, the Br...

Swashbuckling: A Step-by-Step Guide to the Art of Stage Combat and Theatrical Swordplay - Revised and Updated Editi

(2004)

The ultimate guide to stage fighting technique and basic swordplay, this book covers everything an actor must do to give a dynamic and convincing performance as a stage combatant.

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The Theatre: A Concise History

(1998)

Acting, direction, stagecraft, theater architecture and design, above all the whole extraordinary evolution of dramatic literature--here is an all-embracing and richly illustrated history, worldwide in scope and ranging from the ancient origins of the theater in the choral hymns sung around the altar of Dionysus to the fascinating variety of forms that it has taken in our own age. For this revised edition, Enoch Brater has written a new chapter, taking into account contemporary movements in the...

The Santaland Diaries / Season's Greetings: 2 Plays

(1998)

THE STORIES: THE SANTALAND DIARIES is a brilliant evocation of what a slacker's Christmas must feel like. Out of work, our slacker decides to become a Macy's elf during the holiday crunch. At first the job is simply humiliating, but once the thousands of visitors start pouring through Santa's workshop, he becomes battle weary and bitter. Taking consolation in the fact that some of the other elves were television extras on One Life to Live, he grins and bears it, occasionally taking out his frus...

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Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject--A Reader

(1999)

The complete guide to camp; an anthology of the best writing on its history and current theory in cultural studies and lesbian and gay studies

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Master Teachers of Theatre: Observations on Teaching Theatre by Nine American Masters

(1988)

Claribel Baird reviews the interpretation of classical texts for theatrical performance. Howard Bay interrupted his stage design career of more than 150 Broadway productions to help students. Bernard Beckerman asks if there are approaches to the teaching of dramatic literature that particularly suit drama-as-theatre. Robert Benedetti offers suggestions on the teaching of acting. Oscar Brockett treats the problems of the theatre teacher and the processes of learning. Agnes Haaga shows that the ...

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Rocky Horror Show

(1998)

The whole gory story in song! Vocal selections from the hit musical arranged for piano, voice and guitar. Complete with lyrics and photo section.

Great Scenes and Monologues for Actors

(1998)

Great Scenes and Monologues for Actors, spanning nearly 500 years of drama, from Shakespearean England to Contemporary Broadway, is a useful tool for every student or actor wanting to improve their acting skills. Included are 80 scenes and monologues from playwrights ranging from William Shakespeare to Anton Chekhov to Wendy Wasserstein. This small and affordable book can help improve memory, concentration, and confidence.

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Tallulah: My Autobiography

(2004)

Her father and her uncle were U.S. congressmen. Her grandfather was a U. S. senator. Although born to privilege in Alabama and groomed in a convent school, Tallulah Bankhead resolved not to be just another Southern belle. Quickly she rose to the top and became an acclaimed actress of London's West End and on the Broadway stage. Her performances in many plays of the 1920s brought her to the notice of Hollywood. She starred in such Paramount films as My Sin, Faithless, The Devil and the Deep, an...

Commedia Dell'Arte: An Actor's Handbook

(1994)

An entertaining and highly illuminating account of Commedia's origins as a popular theatrical form, plus a practical and timely step-by-step guide to using commedia techniques in performance.

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The Fervent Years: The Group Theatre And The Thirties

(1983)

The Group Theatre was perhaps the most significant experiment in the history of American theater. Producing plays that reflected topical issues of the decade and giving a creative chance to actors, directors, and playwrights who were either fed up with or shut out of commercial theater, the ”Group” remains a permanent influence on American drama despite its brief ten-year life. It was here that method acting, native realism, and political language had their tryouts in front of audiences who...

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I Know Where Im Going: Katharine Hepburn, A Personal Biography

(2011)

Chandler, author of several life histories of deceased actors and directors, now focuses her signature biographical style on the life of Katharine Hepburn. Chandler’s biographies are culled from conversations she conducted with subjects and their confidantes, though she publishes the results of the interviews decades after all involved have died. Despite Hepburn’s reputation for reticence, here she opens up in surprising and frank detail, recalling her earliest childhood memories, including...

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The Country Girl

(1998)

One of America's great dramatists rocked the worlds of Broadway and Hollywood in this moving drama about a desperately self-destructive alcoholic actor and Georgie, his long-suffering wife. A searing, emotional play of love and redemption.

Cymbeline

(2009)

Surrounded by historical myth and intrigue, Shakespeare's "Cymbeline" weaves an elaborate tale of palatial envy and power. Cymbeline, King of Britain, commands the wedlock of his lovely daughter Imogen to Cloten, the son of the Queen by a former husband. With her passionate eyes set upon the poor yet heroic Posthumus, Imogen refuses. Disgusted at the prospect of his daughter marrying a lower class citizen, Cymbeline banishes Posthumus from Britain. With death and deceit between them, Imogen an...

The Truth

(2003)

While filling his pages with reports of local club meetings and pictures of humorously shaped vegetables, William accidentally discovers dark forces plotting to overthrow the city's ruler.

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