Broadway Bookshelf — For Actors — Page 19

Naked Playwriting: The Art, The Craft, And The Life Laid Bare

(2005)

Naked Playwriting is a complete playwriting course—from developing a theme through plotting and structuring a play, developing characters, creating dialog, formatting the script, and applying methods that aid the actual writing and rewriting processes. Naked Playwriting also offers sound guidance on marketing and submitting play scripts for both contests and production, protecting one’s copyright, and working with directors and theater companies. Well-written, comprehensive, and filled wit...

How to Start Your Own Theater Company

(2010)

With advice and instruction from an experienced actor and theater director, this pragmatic, authoritative guide imparts backstage know-how for wouldbe playhouse practitioners on everything from fundraising and finding a space to selecting plays and navigating legal issues. Chronicling three seasons at Chicago’s award-winning Congo Square Theatre, this journey behind the curtain reveals the nitty-gritty details—such as managing rent, parking, and safety issues; determining tax status and cal...

The Theatre of the Absurd

(2004)

In 1953, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot premiered at a tiny avant-garde theatre in Paris; within five years, it had been translated into more than twenty languages and seen by more than a million spectators. Its startling popularity marked the emergence of a new type of theatre whose proponents—Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, Pinter, and others—shattered dramatic conventions and paid scant attention to psychological realism, while highlighting their characters’ inability to understand one ...

Assasins

(1993)

Assassins is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman, based on an idea by Charles Gilbert, Jr. It uses the premise of a murderous carnival game to produce a revue-style portrayal of men and women who attempted (successfully or otherwise) to assassinate Presidents of the United States. The music varies to reflect the popular music of the eras depicted. The musical first opened Off-Broadway in 1990, and the 2004 Broadway production won five Tony Awards.

The Wild Duck

(1997)

The only play in which Ibsen denies the validity of revolt, The Wild Duck suggests that under certain conditions, domestic falsehoods are entirely necessary to survival. Plays for Performance Series.

One on One: The Best Womens Monologues for the 21st Century

(2007)

editors, each associated with theatre, collaborated on this book of monologues for actresses. What they discovered, besides bravura pieces for auditions, acting classes, and study, was the pulse of the millennial theatrical scene. A follow-up to the popular previous edition from the 1990s, One on One: The Best Women's Monologues for the 21st Century includes the work of over 70 playwrights, spotlighting the best of Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional, and experimental writings since 2000. A specia...

To the Actor

(2002)

To the Actor is the perfect handbook for professional and amateur actors and directors. Michael Chekhov's simple and practical method, used by actors all over the world, will train your imagination and body to quickly and effectively call up emotion, develop characters, and strengthen awareness.

Urinetown: The Musical

(2003)

Winner of three Tony Awards, including Best Book, Urinetown is a tale of greed, corruption, love, and revolution in a time when water is worth its weight in gold.

Performance Success : Performing Your Best Under Pressure (Theatre Arts)

(2001)

Performance Success teaches a set of skills so that a musician can be ready to go out and sing or play at his or her highest level, working with energies that might otherwise be wasted in unproductive ways. This is a book of skills and exercises, prepared by a master teacher.

The Drama Teacher's Survival Guide: A Complete Tool Kit for Theatre Arts

(2007)

Success assured - for every show YOLI direct or produce! Written from 37 years of drama teaching experience, this book provides detailed, step-by-step information, examples and suggestions about how to direct a school drama program without mistakes, trouble or delay. The nineteen chapters cover everything: play selection, tryouts, rehearsals, costuming, props, lighting, publicity and final performance. To further clarify each step, examples are provided with illustrations, photos and proven ide...

At Play: Teaching Teenagers Theater

(2006)

Young people and improvisational theater should be a natural combination--so why do we so rarely find this combo in today's classrooms? According to Elizabeth Swados--playwright, director, composer, poet, author of children's books and of an acclaimed family memoir--improvisational theater is the perfect creative outlet for junior-high and high-school students . . . if only they can be given the tools and the guidance to make the most of this natural yet rigorous art form. Drawing on her own...

The Sanford Meisner Approach: An Actors Workbook

(1994)

Founding member of the famed Group Theater and friend, colleague, and later rival to Lee Strasberg, Sanford Meisner spent his life teaching a variation of the Stanislavsky-based Method acting that brought Strasberg so much fame. In this clearly written introduction to Meisner's techniques, Silverberg, himself a graduate of Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater, outlines a 15-week program of exercises designed by Meisner to help actors approach each performance with the playful spon...

A Year with the Producers: One Actor's Exhausting (But Worth It) Journey from Cats to Mel Brooks' Mega-Hit

(2002)

In the summer of 2000, Denman, an actor in New York for eight years, set his heart on appearing in Brooks's much-hyped musical, ignoring New York Post gossip writer Michael Riedel's acerbic comment that it "[h]as all the makings of a floperoo." Here, Denman offers a candid one-year diary of his experiences as singer, dancer and understudy in the production. His style is breezy and refreshingly honest, charting each step from audition to opening night. Winning over director Susan Stroman was the...

The Playwright's Guidebook: An Insightful Primer on the Art of Dramatic Writing

(2002)

A practical compendium based on author Stuart Spencer's experience crafting plays (Resident Alien; The Rothko Room; etc.) and teaching at Sarah Lawrence College, The Playwright's Guidebook offers counsel on issues like structure, conflict, character and problem-solving. This contemporary guide fills the gaps left open by many books, supplying organized and realistic advice for would-be playwrights. As Spencer says, "A play is more wrought than written. A playwright constructs a play as a wheelw...

One on One: The Best Men's Monologues for the 21st Century

(2008)

Covering the best of Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional, and experimental theatre since 2000, One on One challenges actors to explore the inner self, develop skill and artistry for auditions, and deliver a knockout onstage performance. These monologues - sometimes comic, sometimes serious, and often both - tackle issues ranging from race, class, gender, relationships and romance to coming of age, mortality, 9/11, and the Iraq war.

On Method Acting

(1989)

Practiced by such actors of stature as Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Julie Harris, Dustin Hoffman, and Ellen Burstyn (not to mention the late James Dean) the Method offers a practical application of the renowned Stanislavsky technique. On Method Acting demystifies the "mysteries" of Method acting -- breaking down the various steps into clear and simple terms, including chapters on: Sense Memory -- the most vital component of Method acting Improvisation -- without it, the most integral p...

Salome

(2010)

THE YOUNG SYRIAN: She has a strange look. She is like a little princess who wears a yellow veil, and whose feet are of silver. She is like a princess who has little white doves for feet. One might fancy she was dancing.

The Playboy of the Western World and Riders to the Sea

(1993)

Two beautifully crafted dramas set among the folk of the Aran Islands and western Irish coastlands. The Playboy of the Western World deals with its young hero’s progress, in the eyes of others, from timid weakling to paragon of bravery. Riders to the Sea is a dark elegy to the fragile existence of those who live at the mercy of the sea. Reprinted from authoritative editions, complete with Synge’s preface to The Playboy of the Western World. New introductory Note.

Travesties

(1994)

Travesties was born out of Stoppard's noting that in 1917 three of the twentieth century's most crucial revolutionaries -- James Joyce, the Dadaist founder Tristan Tzara, and Lenin -- were all living in Zurich. Also living in Zurich at this time was a British consula official called Henry Carr, a man acquainted with Joyce through the theater and later through a lawsuit concerning a pair of trousers. Taking Carr as his core, Stoppard spins this historical coincidence into a masterful and riotous...

Plays for the Theatre

(2007)

Enhance your understanding and appreciation of theatre by going straight to the source-the play scripts! This anthology includes 15 plays that represent a wide historical range as well as the vibrant diversity of contemporary American theatre. An opening essay sets the context for each play, helping you to read with a more informed and analytical eye. The scripts also serve as a foundation that makes discussions of the various types of theatrical experience in your main text more meaningful.

Mr. Pim Passes By

(2009)

A A Milne was the creator of the beloved character Winnie the Pooh. He was a film writer, author, poet and fictional character creator for television. Before his success with Winnie the Pooh Milne was known for his plays. Mr. Pim Passes By was first published in 1919. Carraway Pim comes to visit Mardens' country house with a letter of introduction. Mr. Pim is an unassuming fellow who some how manages to cause trouble in this amusing farce. There is of course a beautiful young ward who wants to ...

The Countess Cathleen

(2010)

This is a novel written by W. B. Yeats, who received the Nobel Prize in 1923. In this play, the Countess Cathleen sells her soul to the devil to aid her tenants and to save them from selling their own souls during a famine in Ireland.

Stage Rigging Handbook

(2007)

Succinct and jargon free, Stage Rigging Handbook remains the only book in any language that covers the design, operation, and maintenance of stage-rigging equipment. It is written in an at-a-glance outline form, yet contains in-depth information available nowhere else. This fully indexed third edition includes three new parts: the first, an explanation of inspection procedures for rigging systems; the second, a discussion of training in the operation of rigging systems; and the third, essential ...

The Right to Speak: Working with the Voice

(1993)

In The Right to Speak, renowned voice teacher Patsy Rodenburg teaches you how to meet any speaking challenge with total self-assurance. Rodenburg has trained thousands of actors, singers, media personalities, lawyers, politicians, business people, teachers and students in the art of using their voice fully and expressively without fear. She has taught them how to breathe, how to support their breath, how to stretch their voice to meet any vocal effort and how to have total confidence in whatever...

The Seagull

(2002)

When it opened in St Petersburg in 1896, The Seagull survived only five performances after a disastrous first night. Two years later it was revived by Nemirovich-Danchenko at the newly-founded Moscow Art Theatre with Stanslasky as Trigorin and was an immediate success. Checkhov's description of the play was characteristically self-mocking: "A comedy - 3F, 6M, four acts, rural scenery (a view over a lake); much talk of literature, little action, five bushels of love".

Acting: The First Six Lessons: Documents from the American Laboratory Theatre

(2010)

Acting: The First Six Lessons was first published in 1933 and remains a key text for anyone studying acting today. These dramatic dialogues between teacher and idealistic student explore the field of acting according to one of the original teachers of Stanislavsky’s System in America. This new edition of an essential text is edited by Rhonda Blair and supplemented for the very first time with documents from the American Laboratory Theatre. These collect together a broad range of exciting un...

The Birds and Other Plays

(2003)

The plays in this volume all contain Aristophanes' trademark bawdy comedy and dazzling verbal agility. In THE BIRDS, two frustrated Athenians join the birds to build the utopian city of 'Much Cuckoo in the Clouds'. THE KNIGHTS is a venomous satire on Cleon, a prominent Athenian demagogue, while THE ASSEMBLY WOMEN deals with the battle of the sexes as the women of Athens infiltrate the all-male Assembly in disguise. The lengthy conflict with Sparta is the subject of PEACE, inspired by the hope of...

The Heidi Chronicles

(1991)

The graduating seniors of a Seven Sisters college, trying to decide whether to pattern themselves after Katharine Hepburn or Emily Dickinson. Two young women besieged by the demands of mothers, lovers, and careers--not to mention a highly persistent telephone answering machine--as they struggle to have it all. A brilliant feminist art historian trying to keep her bearings and her sense of humor on the elevator ride from the radical sixties to the heartless eighties.

Causing a Scene: Extraordinary Pranks in Ordinary Places with Improv Everywhere

(2009)

A fake U2 concert. A deranged hypnotist. A book signing by a dead author. Welcome to the wild world of Improv Everywhere. From the infamous No Pants! Subway Ride to the legendary Grand Central Freeze, Improv Everywhere has been responsible for some of the most original and subversive pranks of the Internet age. In Causing a Scene, the group's agents provide a hilarious firsthand account of their mischievous antics. Learn how they created a time loop in a Starbucks and gave Best Buy eig...

Duo!: The Best Scenes for Two for the 21st Century

(2009)

Culled from the work of over 100 playwrights and encompassing the seminal issues of our time, this follow-up compendium is by turns comic and serious but always intensely human. Pieces include scenes from August: Osage County, George and Martha, Intimate Apparel, Take Me Out, and Water Music.

The History Boys

(2007)

At a boys' grammar school in Sheffield, eight boys are being coached for the Oxbridge entrance exams. It is the mid-eighties, and the main concern of the unruly bunch of bright teenagers is getting out, starting university - and starting life. At the heart of The History Boys are four characters, each with contrasting outlooks on teaching and school: Hector, an eccentric English teacher with no interest in exams; Irwin, a young teacher who sees history as "entertainment"; Mrs Lintott, a traditi...

Voice and the Actor

(1991)

"Speaking is part of a whole: an expression of inner life." Cicely Berry has based her work on the conviction that while all is present in nature our natural instincts have been crippled from birth by many processes—by the conditioning, in fact, of a warped society. So an actor needs precise exercise and clear understanding to liberate his hidden possibilities and to learn the hard task of being true to the ‘instinct of the moment’. As her book points out with remarkable persuasiveness ‘...

I GOT IN! The Ultimate College Audition Guide For Acting And Musical Theatre

(2010)

Nationally recognized college audition coach, Mary Anna Dennard, shares her expertise on how to prepare for the highly competitive college audition process. Included are: Exclusive audition tips from college auditors, list of colleges with performing arts degrees, guidance on monologues, songs, wardrobe, head shot and resume, how to schedule college auditions.

Still Waters

(2010)

Those who relished Lauck's bestselling memoir Blackbird will dive happily into this satisfying sequel. It picks up at the bus station where readers left little Jennifer meeting her grandfather, who they hoped would provide a safe haven after the tragic events that left her orphaned and at the mercy of a wicked stepmother. This book opens with the police report of her brother Bryan's suicide; while its impact may be less dramatic to Lauck's first-time readers, they'll soon become absorbed by her ...

The Improv Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Improvising in Comedy, Theatre, and Beyond

(2008)

"The Improv Handbook" is a great new guide that covers the history of improvisation and includes chapters on spontaneity and the fundamentals of storytelling.Although there are already several successful books on the market about the theory and practice of improvised theatre, there's nothing comprehensive, helpful, fun and full of experience and advice."The Improv Handbook" is a great new guide from a husband and wife team who have years of studying, performance and teaching behind them. Beginni...

Theatre for Young Audiences: 20 Great Plays for Children

(2005)

Kazan on Directing

(2010)

Elia Kazan was the twentieth century’s most celebrated director of both stage and screen, and this monumental, revelatory book shows us the master at work. Kazan’s list of Broadway and Hollywood successes—A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, On the Waterfront, to name a few—is a testament to his profound impact on the art of directing.

Miss Julie

(2004)

Miss Julie is Strindberg's masterpiece, written at the height of his powers as a dramatist. It treats sexuality and human struggle with a frank realism previously unknown in the theatre. This volume also includes Strindberg's Preface to the play. Helen Cooper's taut, contemporary stage version, which premiered in London in 1990 at the Greenwich Theatre, 'is fiercely faithful to the play's transfixing contradictions' (Independent) and 'marvellously brisk and demotic' (Time Out).

How to Get the Part... Without Falling Apart!

(1999)

Gene Hackman, Halle Berry, Heather Locklear, Gabriel Byrne, James Bond's Pierce Bronson, Kelly Preston, most of the cast from Melrose Place and 1000s of actors all take acting classes from Margie Haber. How to Get the Part... gives actors tools to break through their psychological roadblocks to auditioning.

Acting in Musical Theatre: A Comprehensive Course

(2009)

Acting in Musical Theatre is the only complete course in approaching a role in a musical. It is the first to combine acting, singing and dancing into a comprehensive guide, combining what have previously been treated as three separate disciplines. This book contains fundamental skills for novice actors, practical insights for professionals, and even tips to help veteran musical performers refine their craft. Drawing on decades of experience in both acting and teaching, the authors provide c...

The Actor Speaks: Voice and the Performer

(2002)

In The Actor Speaks, Patsy Rodenburg takes actors and actresses, both professional and beginners, through a complete voice workshop. She touches on every aspect of performance work that involves the voice and sorts through the kinds of vexing problems every performer faces onstage: breath and relaxation; vocal range and power; communication with other actors; singing and acting simultaneously; working on different sized stages and in both large and small auditoriums; approaching the vocal demand...

Theft- A Play In Four Acts

(2010)

From Content: "Margaret Chalmers. Twenty-seven years of age; a strong, mature woman, but quite feminine where her heart or sense of beauty are concerned. Her eyes are wide apart. Has a dazzling smile, which she knows how to use on occasion. Also, on occasion, she can be firm and hard, even cynical An intellectual woman, and at the same time a very womanly woman, capable of sudden tendernesses, flashes of emotion, and abrupt actions. She is a finished product of high culture and refinement, and a...

Fanny's First Play

(2006)

Fanny's First Play is a 1911 play by G. Bernard Shaw. A play by a writer who wished to remain anonymous, then later discovered to be written by George Bernard Shaw and produced by The Shuberts. It opened in Sep 16, 1912 and had the longest first run of any of Shaw's plays.

Theatre (Eight Edition)

(2007)

This lively introduction to theatre offers equal measures of appreciation of theatrical arts, history of performance, and descriptions of the collaborative theatrical crafts. The author’s enthusiasm for and knowledge of the current theatre, highlighted by contemporary production shots from around the world, put the students in the front row. The text includes extensive excerpts from seven plays: Prometheus Bound, Oedipus Tyrannos, The York Cycle, Romeo and Juliet, The Bourgeois Gentleman, The ...

Acting: Onstage and Off

(2008)

Demonstrating how offstage performance can be effectively adapted for the theatre, as well as how onstage training can be applied toward leading a full life outside the theatre, ACTING: ONSTAGE AND OFF is a humorous yet informative book that discusses the interplay between life on and off the stage. You'll learn everything from the phases of actor training to body-relaxation techniques.

112 Acting Games: A Comprehensive Workbook Of Theatre Games for Developing Acting Skills

(2005)

There are more than 100 performance-tested theatre games in this unusually comprehensive collection. They were compiled after more than 15 years of workshops and study sessions. Included are a wide range of proven activities to assist in teaching specialised skills. The book is divided into 20 sections from Relaxation to Thinking Outside the Box. This is a flexible workbook designed to help instructors and participants mould and adapt many ideas to fit their needs.

On Directing

(1997)

This guide to directing takes the reader from the initial choice of play right through every aspect of its production to performances and beyond. It contains the author's directing notes for ten of his best-known productions and anecdotes about working with famous playwrights and actors.

Breaking Into Acting For Dummies

(2002)

Provides the expert advice you need to get your big break! Jump-start your career and land that paying part From preparing for auditions to finding an agent, the acting business is a challenging and competitive field. This indispensable guide is what every aspiring actor needs to get a foot in the door. Discover how to market yourself, choose a dynamic head shot, create a stellar acting resume, join unions, and pay the bills while you pursue your acting dreams. The Dummies Way Explanat...

Acting for Young Actors: The Ultimate Teen Guide

(2006)

Written by an Emmy Award–winning director and longtime teacher and actor • Information on unions, recommended classes, a glossary of terminology, television network contact information, bibliography, recommended plays and online resources are included • Aimed at teens age 12–18 and written in a fully accessible style and printed in a handy format Do you know a teen that's been bitten by the acting bug? Here's just the book they need! Acting for Young Actors, aimed at teens and tweens,...

Creating Unforgettable Characters

(1990)

In this book, Linda Seger shows how to create strong, multidimensional characters in fiction, covering everything from research to character block. Interviews with today's top writers complete this essential volume.