Broadway Bookshelf — Biography — Page 9

Oedipus Rex

(3/15/2012)

Oedipus Rex is the greatest of the Greek tragedies. The story of the mythological king, who is doomed to kill his father and marry his mother, has resonated in world culture for almost 2,500 years. But Sophocles’ drama as originally performed was much more than a great story—it remains a superb poetic script and exciting theatrical experience, now faithfully brought to life in this English translation and audiobook. David Mulroy’s brilliant verse rendition of Oedipus Rex recaptures t...

French Reflections in the Shakespearean Tragic

(3/13/2012)

Contemporary Theatre, Film & Television

(3/2/2012)

Healing, Performance and Ceremony in the Writings of Three Early Modern Physicians

(3/1/2012)

In early modern Europe medicine and theatre were often regarded as part of the same popular culture. Itinerant medical 'quacks' and troupes of actors were both integral parts of everyday life, each drawing upon theatricality to attract customers and promote their services. In this study, the writings of three renowned physicians - the Swiss Platter brothers and their Austrian colleague Guarinonius - are used to explore the often neglected interfaces between healing and performance. Their descrip...

After My Life in Art

(3/1/2012)

The Astaires: Fred & Adele

(3/1/2012)

Before "Fred and Ginger," there was "Fred and Adele," a show-business partnership and cultural sensation like no other. In our celebrity-saturated era, it's hard to comprehend what a genuine phenomenon these two siblings from Omaha were. At the height of their success in the mid-1920s, the Astaires seemed to define the Jazz Age. They were Gershwin's music in motion, a fascinating pair who wove spellbinding rhythms in song and dance. In this book, the first comprehensive study of their theatr...

Staging Fashion

(2/28/2012)

Although Jane Hading (1859–1940), Lily Elsie (1886–1962), and Billie Burke (1884–1970) gained fame as stage actresses, their popular appeal also rested on their ability to cultivate a glamorous appearance. Their careers illustrate the early transformation of actresses into marketable commodities whose celebrity status depended on the consumption of their images. This celebrity, in turn, was used to market an array of beauty and fashion goods to women striving to emulate them. The three ...

Wonder in Shakespeare

(1/31/2012)

Wonder is a highly ambivalent word and idea which can denote woe, horror, or terror on one hand and delight, jubilation, or ecstasy on the other. In the first part of this book, Adam Max Cohen embraces the many meanings of wonder in order to challenge the generic divides between comedy, tragedy, history, and romance to suggest that Shakespeare's primary goal in crafting each of his play worlds was the evocation of one or more varieties of wonder. In the second part of this book, seven esteemed ...

Reading Modern Drama

(1/31/2012)

Exploring the relationship between dramatic language and its theatrical aspects, Reading Modern Drama provides an accessible entry point for general readers and academics into the world of contemporary theatre scholarship. This collection promotes the use of diverse perspectives and critical methods to explore the common theme of language as well as the continued relevance of modern drama in our lives. Reading Modern Drama offers provocative close readings of both canonical and lesser-known ...

In Rehearsal

(1/27/2012)

In Rehearsal is a clear and accessible how-to approach to the rehearsal process. Author Gary Sloan brings more than thirty years' worth of acting experience to bear on the question of how to rehearse both as an individual actor and as part of the team of professionals that underpins any successful production. Interviews with acclaimed actors, directors, playwrights, and designers share a wealth of knowledge on dynamic collaboration. The book is divided in to three main stages, helping the re...

The Makeup Artist Handbook

(1/26/2012)

Get professional techniques usually known only by Hollywood makeup artists in this full-color, comprehensive book from accomplished makeup pros Gretchen Davis and Mindy Hall. The two come to you with impressive backgrounds in film and television industries--their projects have included Pearl Harbor, Rent, Stuart Little, and The Nanny Diaries, and Mindy Hall is fresh off her Academy Award win for her work on 2009's Star Trek. This new edition of The Makeup Artist Handbook offers even more illustr...

Pioneer Performances

(1/25/2012)

The Wild West was popular with American audiences long before the appearance of the Hollywood western. From 1829 to 1881, playgoers throughout the nation applauded frontier dramas that celebrated conventional American values like rugged individualism and the ideology of Manifest Destiny. Yet, as Pioneer Performances shows, a more subversive cultural agenda often worked within the orthodox framework of this popular drama. Drawing on a range of plays and public entertainments, Matthew Rebhorn unc...

American Cinema / American Culture Telecourse

(1/20/2012)

Scene Design

(1/15/2012)

Scene Design: Rendering and Media is intended to help students or practitioners improve their skills at making finished renderings of scene designs for theater. The book demonstrates the process of creating the renderings through real world methods and techniques. Chapters are dedicated to a detailed discussion of various tools including drawing, light and shadow, color mixing, painting, figures, and other media, and the book is rife with colorful and inspirational examples.

Acharnians, Knights, and Peace

(1/13/2012)

Most readers nowadays encounter the plays of Aristophanes in the classroom, not the theater. Yet the “father of comedy” wrote his plays for the stage, not as literary texts. Many English translations of the plays were written decades ago, and in their outdated language they fail to capture the dramatic liveliness of the original comedies. Here Michael Ewans offers new and lively translations of three of Aristophanes’ earliest surviving plays: Acharnians, Knights, and Peace. While remain...

Mastering Public Speaking (8th Edition)

(1/7/2012)

Updated it its 8th edition, Mastering Public Speaking equips readers with a firm grounding in the “hows” and “whys” of public speaking by providing an ideal balance of theory and skills while placing important emphases on critiquing, ethics, and critical thinking. Written in a casual, lively style and clearly organized, the eighth edition of Mastering Public Speaking builds on its previous success. The first public speaking book to devote an entire chapter to ethics, the eighth edition ...

Shakespeares Lost Play in Search of Card

(1/5/2012)

Shakespeare, Cervantes, Middleton and Fletcher. The giants of 16th-century literature are all involved in the mystery surrounding Cardenio; a play 'lost' for centuries, which many believe to be the work of England's greatest dramatist. With his incredible passion for, and understanding of, the work of William Shakespeare, director and author Gregory Doran takes the reader on a unique journey; a fascinating search through the fog of literary history for a glint of dramatic gold, and a thrilling a...

Directing A Handbook for Emerging Theatre Directors

(1/3/2012)

The theatre director is one of the most critical roles in a successful drama company, yet there are no formal qualifications required for entry into this profession. This practical guide for emerging theatre directors answers all the key questions from the very beginning of your career to key stages as you establish your credentials and get professionally recognized. It analyzes the director's role through relationships with the actors, author, designer, production manager and creative teams an...

A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature

(1/3/2012)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1840. Excerpt: ... LECTURE XII. Comparison of the English and Spanish theatres.--Spirit of the romantic drama--Shakspeare.--His age and the circumstances of his life.--How far costume is necessary, or may be dispensed with.--Shakspeare the greatest drawer of characters.--Vindication of the genuineness of his pathos.--Play on words.-- M...

Shakespeare and Genre: From Early Modern Inheritances to Postmodern Legacies

(12/20/2011)

An Actor's Craft: The Art and Technique of Acting

(12/20/2011)

An Actor's Craft is a handbook for acting students that provides critical approaches and guidance. Speaking passionately about the art of acting, David Krasner illuminates the multifaceted job of an actor. Combining technique with personal examples, he demonstrates how to achieve excellence in performance, how to recognize quality acting, and how to use the technique of acting in an advanced way.

Trusting Performance: A Cognitive Approach to Embodiment in Drama

(12/6/2011)

This exciting new work argues for the exploration of drama as a conduit to deep emotional learning that has the ability to change the somatic identity of performers and audiences alike. Rokotnitz suggests that the preference for reciprocity exhibited by human physiological systems also extends into psychological and cognitive processes. Modeling her epistemological inquiry upon the paradigms instantiated by our biological architecture, she argues that effective knowledge acquisition and interper...

The Sketchbooks of Jocelyn Herbert

(12/1/2011)

From her early work with such writers as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, and John Osborne, to her time with Laurence Olivier at the National Theatre, Jocelyn Herbert (1917–2003) pioneered a simple yet atmospheric set design style that remains influential today. Britain’s leading stage designer brought her innovative approach to the big screen on such films as Lindsay Anderson’s Isadora. Published for the first time, Herbert’s sketchbooks provide an intimate portrait of her life and work...

Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be: The Life of Lionel Bart

(11/7/2011)

Lionel Bart was a writer and composer of British pop music and musicals, best known for creating the book, music and lyrics for Oliver! He also wrote the famous songs Living Doll (Cliff Richard) and From Russia With Love (Matt Munroe).He was a millionaire aged thirty in the Sixties, bankrupt in the Seventies and died in 1999.In this first revealing biography, the authors gained exclusive access to Bart's personal archives - his unfinished autobiography, his letters and scrapbooks. They detail ho...

Arthur Miller: 1962-2005

(10/28/2011)

This masterful biography sheds new light on one of the 20th-century’s most acclaimed literary figures. Arthur Miller’s prize-winning plays, including Death of a Salesman, A View from the Bridge, and The Crucible brought him an international and enduring following. While the first half of his life was marked by events such as his refusal to provide information to the House Un-American Activities Committee and his marriage to Marilyn Monroe, the second half proved no less fascinating. In 1962,...

Lillian Lorraine: The Life and Times of a Ziegfeld Diva

(10/13/2011)

After a meteoric ascent on Broadway that began with Ziegfeld's 1910 Follies, Lillian Lorraine went on to become one of the most famous entertainers in America. Her passionately lived life made her a prime target for the tabloid gossip doyens of the day. This biography recounts the early West Coast life of this superstar as well as her coronation on Broadway, her work in silent film, and her sexual liaisons that helped her gain her notoriety. It also covers her eventual disappearance from public ...

Shakespeare and Laughter: A Cultural History

(10/11/2011)

This book examines laughter in the Shakespearean theater, in the context of a cultural history of early modern laughter. Aimed at an informed readership, as well as graduate students and scholars in the field of Shakespeare studies, it is the first study to focus specifically on laughter, not comedy. It looks at various strands of the early modern discourse on laughter, ranging from medical treatises and courtesy manuals to Puritan tracts and jestbook literature. It argues that few cultural phen...

David Mamet and American Macho

(8/31/2011)

Why did Americans reject the British gentleman as their dominant model of masculinity? Why is a boy's relationship to his mother a crucial factor in shaping his masculinity? What and how do boys learn about what it means to be a man? Holmberg demonstrates how David Mamet's plays provide insights into these questions, and into the masculine malaise. Through the gangsters, businessmen, soldiers, sailors, athletes, frontiersmen and thugs he created, Mamet celebrates and criticizes American macho. T...

Judy: A Legendary Film Career

(8/23/2011)

Through her incomparable work on screen, stage, record, radio, and television, Judy Garland earned renown as “The World’s Greatest Entertainer.” It was as a motion picture star though, that she first rose to international fame. From her feature film debut in 1936 through the aptly titled I Could Go on Singing in 1963, she lit up the screen with a magic uniquely hers—and dazzled world-wide audiences of all ages. Judy Garland starred in two dozen of the all-time classic movie musicals,...

Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein

(8/18/2011)

In Wendy and the Lost Boys bestselling author Julie Salamon explores the life of playwright Wendy Wasserstein's most expertly crafted character: herself. The first woman playwright to win a Tony Award, Wendy Wasserstein was a Broadway titan. But with her high- pitched giggle and unkempt curls, she projected an image of warmth and familiarity. Everyone knew Wendy Wasserstein. Or thought they did. Born on October 18, 1950, in Brooklyn, New York, to Polish Jewish immigrant parents, Wendy was t...

How to Run a Theater: Creating, Leading and Managing Professional Theater

(8/16/2011)

Jim Volz is one of America's leading theatre consultants with more than three decades of work with theatre, dance, music, museum and arts center management. In this book Jim Volz brings his expertise to anyone who works in arts management, from novices to middle managers to executive directors. How to Run a Theater is a unique, dynamic, and savvy guide to building an arts institution that works. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience, here is practical advice on a variety of management skil...

Theater, Stories and Scenes of A Forgotten People

(8/1/2011)

Theater, Stories and Scenes of A Forgotten People.

John Gielgud: Matinee Idol to Movie Star

(7/19/2011)

John Gielgud’s long and distinguished career in the theatre forever changed our interpretation of the classical repertoire, and marked him out as one of the finest and most influential actors of all time. This authoritative and comprehensive biography is the definitive account of his life and glittering stage career on both sides of the Atlantic: in Shakespeare and other classics; in plays by contemporary dramatists such as Edward Albee, Harold Pinter, David Storey, Edward Bond and Alan Bennet...

Elia Kazan

(7/19/2011)

When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to give Kazan (1909–2003) an honorary Oscar in 1999, it rekindled the lingering resentment over his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee nearly 50 years earlier. Schickel, who produced a short film for the Academy's presentation and covered the controversy in his role as Time's movie critic, has virtually no sympathy for Kazan's detractors, arguing that HUAC was "a harsh and permanent fact of American life" in ...

Identifying Mavor Moore

(7/12/2011)

A cultural giant, Mavor Moore has had a hand in some of the greatest achievements in building Canada’s theatrical identity, and yet he is relatively unkown to the Canadian theatre community. The enigmatic, obscured figure behind many of the most important moments in building Canada’s theatrical and cultural landscape has largely been ignored by history.

Memories of Chekhov: Accounts of the Writer from His Family, Friends and Contemporaries

(7/5/2011)

This revelatory documentary biography of Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), one of the world's best playwrights, consists of over 100 memories of Chekhov's close friends, family and colleague writers and artists, such as Ivan Bunin, Konstantin Stanislavsky and Maxim Gorky. Utilizing material from the archives and rare periodicals from the 1900s-1930s, the biography addresses his affairs with female admirers, his passions and hobbies, his visits to shelters for the homeless, his support of aspiring write...

Gilbert of Gilbert & Sullivan: His Life and Character

(7/1/2011)

The author of The Pirates of Penzance, The Mikado, HMS Pinafore, W. S. Gilbert—a witty, caustic, and disrespectful man—was one of the celebrities of the late Victorian age, and in this book his glorious, contradictory character is explored and brought vividly to life. In his time he was many things: journalist, theater critic, cartoonist, comic poet, stage director, short story writer, and dramatist. He wrote the most brilliantly inventive plays of his time, a political satire he wrote was b...

National Service: Diary of a Decade at the National Theatre

(6/1/2011)

During the ten years from 1987 to 1997 that he was Director of the Royal National Theatre, Richard Eyre kept a diary - a record that disarmingly captured a life at the heart of British cultural and political affairs. The powerful and the famous inevitably strut and fret upon its pages, but National Service is also a moving personal journey, charted faithfully by a fiercely self-aware and frequently self-doubting individual. The job of grappling with a giant three-headed monster as complex as the...

Jerry Orbach, Prince of the City

(5/1/2011)

Today the late actor Jerry Orbach (1935-2004) is best remembered as the world-weary New York City Detective Lennie Briscoe from the Emmy Award-winning NBC television series Law and Order. But that work only accounts for 12 years of a 50-year career that spanned stage, screen, and television. From the moment he landed the role of the Street Singer in the 1955 off-Broadway revival of The Threepenny Opera, he distinguished himself as a major performer in popular musicals and plays, including The Fa...

Marlene Dietrich, A Personal Biography

(3/29/2011)

In Marlene, the legendary Hollywood icon is vividly brought to life, based on a series of conversations with the star herself and with others who knew her well. In the mid-1970s Charlotte Chandler spoke with Marlene Dietrich in Dietrich’s Paris apartment. The star’s career was all but over, but she agreed to meet because Chandler hadn’t known Dietrich earlier, “when I was young and very beautiful.” Dietrich may have been retired, but her appearance and her celebrity—her famous mystiq...

Free for All: Joe Papp, The Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told

(11/2/2010)

Turan, now the film critic for the Los Angeles Times, was approached by theatrical producer Joe Papp in the 1980s to develop an oral history of the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Public Theater, then blocked the book from publication after reading an early draft. Years later, we can understand some of Papp's reluctance: former colleagues speak frankly about his failure to share credit for success with others, and why the effort to move his radical style of theater into Lincoln Center met ...

The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller

(8/1/2010)

Arthur Miller is regarded as one of the most important playwrights of the twentieth century, and his work continues to be widely performed and studied around the world. This updated Companion includes Miller's work since the publication of the first edition in 1997 - the plays Mr Peters' Connections, Resurrection Blues, and Finishing the Picture - and key productions of his plays since his death in 2005. The chapter on Miller and the cinema has been completely revised to include new films, and d...

Henrik Ibsen: A Bibliography of Criticism and Biography

(4/27/2010)

The following bibliography has been compiled to meet a general rather than a scholarly need. It is for this reason that the subject index has been expanded beyond the limits required by the Ibsen specialist. While it is hoped that the bibliography will not be despised by the expert, it has been the convenience of the library assistant, the college student and the ubiquitous club woman that the compiler has had in mind throughout its preparation. No attempt has been made to compile a complete lis...

Arthur Miller: 1915-1962

(5/21/2009)

This is the long-awaited biography of one of the twentieth century's greatest playwrights whose postwar decade of work earned him international critical and popular acclaim. Arthur Miller was a prominent figure in American literature and cinema for over sixty years, writing a wide variety of plays - including The Crucible, A View from the Bridge, All My Sons, and Death of a Salesman - which are still performed, studied and lauded throughout the world. Born in 1915 to moderately affluent Jewish-A...

Rage and Glory: The Volatile Life and Career of George C. Scott

(10/1/2008)

George C. Scott (1927-1999) born in Wise, Virginia, created some of the 20th century's most memorable performances on stage and screen - the cunning prosecutor in Anatomy of a Murder, the manipulative gambler in The Hustler, the buffoonishly warmongering chief of staff in Dr. Strangelove, and, of course, the brilliant and rebellious Patton. He also played Willy Loman, Richard III, Mussolini, Scrooge, Fagin, and countless others. But his offstage life was as filled with drama and controversy as a...

The Cambridge Companion to August Wilson

(3/1/2007)

One of America's most powerful and original dramatists, August Wilson offered an alternative history of the twentieth century, as seen from the perspective of black Americans. He celebrated the lives of those seemingly pushed to the margins of national life, but who were simultaneously protagonists of their own drama and evidence of a vital and compelling community. Decade by decade, he told the story of a people with a distinctive history who forged their own future, aware of their roots in an...

Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent

(7/1/2006)

Rent can be characterized as a Tony- and Pulitzer-winning rock musical and film, but it can be described also as an ensemble experience that just kept growing. Nobody can describe that deeply human process better than actor Anthony Rapp, who played video artist Mark Cohen in both the Broadway play and the movie. His heartwarming personal memoir shows the continuity between the musical's genesis and the emotional lives of the artists workshopping it. With You takes you backstage and into the hea...

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...

The Fabulous Lunts: A Biography of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne

(10/13/2005)

For 40 years, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were the most acclaimed stage actors in America. From 1928 (six years after their marriage) until their retirement in 1960, they appeared only togethermost notably in drawing-room comediesperfecting the subtle team playing that became their hallmark. In this comprehensive biography, Brown, theater professor at Western Illinois University, meticulously documents the couple's lives. Describing the perishable art of stage performance (the Lunts made few f...

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 ...