Biographies, show books, musical scores, history, and must-read theatre books.
This volume of Moliere's dramatic commentaries on society presents The Miser, a misguided hero who obsessively disrupts the lives of those around him. The School for Wives is newly translated for this edition and was fiercely denounced as impious and vulgar. Moliere's response to his detractors became The School for Wives Criticized. Even more alarming to critics was his version of Don Juan. In The Hypochondriac, he produced an outrageous expose of medicine.
No, this isn't a guide to helping introverts learn how to loosen up and be themselves. Rather, it's a new perspective on auditioning for theater. "Acting doctor" Guskin, who's worked with Kline, Glenn Close, James Gandolfini, Steve Martin and others, explains his strategy, which, at its core, states that actors do not have a responsibility to create characters, but to be continually responsive to their lines, wherever their inclinations take them. It's an honest, non-gimmicky take on a perennial...
No Acting Please-Beyond the Method a Revolutionary Approach to Acting and Living. Foreword by Jack Nicholson
Ever been told you have a great voice? Put it to use with a career as a voice-over actor! In Voice-Overs, a veteran voice-over actor, writer, producer, and voice-over teacher provides the inside scoop on the industry and gives all the tools needed for personal training. This one-of-a-kind resource includes a CD featuring vocal exercises and exclusive interviews with voice-over actors. A treasure trove of exercises, games, and improv and acting techniques helps readers build their skills. Sample ...
This practical reference manual, with its precise, authentic instructions on how to speak in more than 100 dialects, has established itself as the most useful and comprehensive guide to accents available, now increased by a third in this revised printing. As before, the accents range from regional U.S. and British dialects to European accents that include, among others, the Germanic, Slavic and Romance Languages. Completing his around-the-world journey, the author then covers the Middle East, Af...
Free to Act presents a holistic approach to actor training that integrates physical and psychological technique. Its integrated approach emphasizes the idea that the body informs the mind and that emotion is rooted in physical action. Providing a carefully developed system of training, Free to Act guides the student-actor through the complex process by which an actor is formed.
Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" ("A Moorish Captain") by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565. The work revolves around four central characters: Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army; his wife Desdemona; his lieutenant, Cassio; and his trusted ensign Iago. Because of its varied and current themes of racism, love, jealousy, a...
In 1982, on Manhattan's Upper West Side, the wealthy, articulate pot-smoking teenagers who were small children in the '60s have emerged as young adults in a country that has just resoundingly rejected everything they were brought up to believe in. The very last wave of New York City's '60s-style Liberalism has come of age and there's nowhere left to go. In meticulous, hilarious, and agonizing detail, THIS IS OUR YOUTH follows forty-eight hours of three very lost young souls in the big city at th...
The Robbers (German: Die Räuber) was the first drama by German playwright Friedrich Schiller. The play was published in 1781 and premiered on January 13, 1782 in Mannheim, Germany. It was written towards the end of the German Romanticist Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") movement and has been considered by many critics, such as Peter Brooks, to have influenced the development of European melodrama. The play astounded its Mannheim audience and made Schiller an overnight sensation. It later be...
Winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for drama, Dinner With Friends examines the lives of two couples and the repercussions of divorce on their friendships. With wit, compassion and consummate skill, playwright Donald Margulies weighs the cost of breaking up and of staying together.
The play tells the story of a brutish, unthinking laborer known as Yank, as he searches for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the rich. At first Yank feels secure as he stokes the engines of an oceanliner, and is highly confident in his physical power over the ship's engines. However, when the weak but rich daughter of an industrialist in the steel business refers to him as a "filthy beast," Yank undergoes a crisis of identity. He leaves the ship and wanders into Manhattan, only to f...
This is the second volume of Stanislaviski's enduring trilogy on the art of acting. The "System" which he describes is a means both of mastering the craft of acting and of stimulating the actor's individual creativeness and imagination. It has become the central force determining almost every performance we see on stage or screen, and still remains today the only comprehensive theory of acting we possess. In Building a Character Stanislavski discusses with mastery and insight the actor's physic...
These three plays exemplify Eugene O'Neil's ability to explore the limits of the human predicament, even as he sounds the depths of his audiences' hearts.
This is the only book that offers a comprehensive collection of contemporary stage monologues for a complete range of roles. An invaluable tool for actors looking for new audition material or for anyone interested in theater.
Based on the story of Job, this drama in verse tells the story of a twentieth-century American banker and millionaire whom God commands be stripped of his family and wealth, but who refuses to turn his back on God. J.B. won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1959 and the Tony Award for best play. More important, the play sparked a national conversation about the nature of God.
Declan Donnellan’s fresh and radical approach to acting takes a scalpel to the heart of actor’s persistent fears from . . . "I don’t know what I’m doing" through "I don’t know who I am" to "I don’t know what I’m playing." The Actor and the Target has already been hailed by the press in Russia where it is already published: "Practically and modestly written, Declan Donnellan’s book helps actors to release their talent to be free on stage. However Donnellan’s path leads to wid...
In the four decades since its first publication, Michael Chekhov's To the Actor has become a standard text for students of the theater. But To the Actor is a shortened, heavily modified version of the great director/actor/teacher's original manuscript, and On the Technique of Acting is the first and only book ever to incorporate the complete text of that brilliant manuscript. Scholars and teachers of Chekhov's technique have hailed On the Technique of Acting as the clearest, most accurate presen...
This best-selling PAJ volume presents over 250 comedy routines used by commedia performers in Europe from 1550 to 1750. Includes an introduction, two complete commedia scenarios, and a glossary of commedia characters.
Sister Elizabeth Donderstock is Squeamish, has been her whole life. She makes cheese balls (traditional and smoky) that sustain the existence of her entire religious community, Clusterhaven. However, she feels unappreciated among her Squeamish brethren, and she decides to try her luck in the outside world. Along the way, she meets a Cockney-speaking Ukrainian immigrant couple who find her a job waiting tables at Plymouth Crock, a family restaurant run almost entirely by recovering alcoholics. Th...
Written in 1728, John Gay’s opera caricatures society, marriage and Italian operatic style in this comic satire which is considered revolutionary because it took on poverty and corruption as its subject as told by the thieves, prostitutes and villains of the slums and prisons of 18th century London. The lyrics were set to famous songs the day making it hugely popular with audiences and a radical departure from traditional opera. Bertolt Brech and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera is based on...
With Saint Joan, Shaw reached the height of his fame as a dramatist. In this play he distilled many of the ideas he had been trying to express in earlier works on the sublects of politics, religion and creative evolution. Fascinated by the story of Joan of Arc, but unhappy with the way she had traditionally been depicted, Shaw wanted to remove 'the whitewash which disfigures her beyond recognition'. He presents a realistic Joan: proud, intolerant, naive, foolhardy, always brave - a rebel who cha...
Anna in the Tropics is a poignant and poetic new play set in 1929 Florida in a Cuban-American cigar factory, where cigars are still rolled by hand and "lectors" are employed to educate and entertain the workers.
With clarity and insight, Richard Brestoff introduces the great acting teachers, explaining their techniques and how ther are applied today. Beginning with Quintilian and Delsarre he guides us to the present with an inside look at what is currently being taught in the major acting schools and private acting studios; The Actor's Studio, Yale University, NYU, Juillard and many more are visited. Great Acting Teachers and Their Methods will help you understand the most important ideas about acting, ...
Acting: Make It Your Business, written by an award-winning, veteran casting director, puts the power to land jobs and thrive in any medium - stage, film, TV, or the Internet - directly into the hands of the actor. This blunt, wise, and often hilarious guide overflows with cutting-edge audition, marketing, and networking strategies, combining traditional techniques with those best suited for the digital age. Well-known actors and powerful agents make cameos throughout, offering newcomers and work...
From well-known auteur of the American theatre scene, Anne Bogart, And Then, You Act is a fascinating and accessible book about directing theatre, acting and the collaborative creative process. Writing clearly and passionately, Bogart speaks to a wide audience, from undergraduates to practitioners, and makes an invaluable contribution to the field tackling themes such as: intentionality inspiration why theatre matters. Following on from her successful book A Director Prepares, which has...
For more than 20 years of directing, teaching, and participating in improvisation, Mick Napier has watched thousands of scenes. His experience as founder of the acclaimed Annoyance Theatre/Annoyance Productions, as well as Resident Director and Artistic Consultant for The Second City, has led him to continually question why and how scenes work or don't work and what one must do in order for a scene to be successful. In this book, Napier takes an irreverent, but constructive look at the art an...
What does a shy Englishman in search of rest do when he visits a fishing lodge in Georgia? In Larry Shue s hilarious farce, Charlie Baker, a proof reader by day and a boring husband by night, adopts the persona of a foreigner who doesn t understand English. When others begin to speak freely around him, he not only becomes privy to secrets both dangerous and frivolous, he also discovers an adventurous extrovert within himself. A L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring: Kenneth Danzi...
Script Analysis for Actors, Directors, and Designers applies directly to the experience of theatrical production. You will immediately be able to inforporate the concepts and processes you learn into both your practical and creative work. Whether you are an actor, a director, or a designer, you will benefit from clear and comprehensive examples, end-of-chapter questions, and summaries meant to stimulate their creative process as they engage in production work. Based on the premise that plays ...
The first complete collection of the dramatic works of leading modern American playwright Susan Glaspell, this book includes all seven of the Pulitzer Prize winner's one-act works: Suppressed Desires, Trifles, The People, The Outside, Woman's Honor, Close the Book, and Tickless Time. The book also features her seven full-length plays, including Bernice, Inheritors, The Verge, Alison's House, The Comic Artist, Chains of Dew, and Springs Eternal, the last two of which are published here for the fi...
Magnificent Monologues For Teens: The Teens’ Monologue Source For Every Occasion! provides 12-17 year-olds with performable age-appropriate comedic and dramatic monologues, all 100% teen tested. CHAMBERS STEVENS introduces young actors to the joys and how-to’s of performing monologues written in true Hollywood industry-standard style in preparation for competitions, debates and professional stage and screen auditions. +40 monologues are incorporated, each is titled for quick content perusal,...
A collection of manifestos originally published in 1938, The Theater and Its Double is the fullest statement of the ideas of Antonin Artaud. “We cannot go on prostituting the idea of the theater, the only value of which is in its excruciating, magical relation to reality and danger,” he wrote. He fought vigorously against an encroaching conventionalism he found anathema to the very concept of theater. He sought to use theater to transcend writing, “to break through the language in order to...
Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama is a book by David Mamet that discusses playwriting. In it, Mamet discusses the conscious and unconscious processes that go on in developing a work of art.
The Actor in You introduces aspiring actors to beginning acting by helping them realize and develop the basic acting skills they already possess and hone them for the stage. By drawing the principles of acting from observations about everyday behavior, the author shows acting students how they already possess many acting skills. Acclaimed for its direct and enjoyable writing style, The Actor in You draws on exercises and examples from well-known plays, and popular television programs to lead th...
A farcical look at political violence as it's played out during The Troubles in Northern Ireland against the drab backdrop of a bare, rustic Irish cottage and unending boredom in an inhospitable environment in which a mutilated cat sets off a murderous cycle of revenge.
Whether you are looking for a monologue that is sweet and funny, or serious and thought provoking, Sugared and Spiced has it all. Colorful characters and inventive situations make these monologues fun to read and a blast to perform.
Games for Actors and Non-Actors is a valuable handbook of methods, techniques, games, and exercises, and is a genuinely inspiring work by the world-famous author of Theatre of the Oppressed. It is designed to help anyone - whether actor on non-actor - rehearse for real life: make the fictional real.
As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The work was based upon the early prose romance Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie by Thomas Lodge. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility. As You Like It follows its heroine Rosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle's court, accompanied by her cousin Celia ...
The Tony Award-winning play that focuses on the meaning of art (in the form of a solid white painting) as well as the meaning of friendship, to both the man who bought the painting and the two friends who come to see it."
William Esper, one of the leading acting teachers of our time, explains and extends Sanford Meisner's legendary technique, offering a clear, concrete, step-by-step approach to becoming a truly creative actor. Esper worked closely with Meisner for seventeen years and has spent decades developing his famous program for actor's training. The result is a rigorous system of exercises that builds a solid foundation of acting skills from the ground up, and that is flexible enough to be applied to an...
Stanislavski’s ‘system’ has dominated actor-training in the West since his writings were first translated into English in the 1920s and 30s. His systematic attempt to outline a psycho-physical technique for acting single-handedly revolutionized standards of acting in the theatre. Until now, readers and students have had to contend with inaccurate, misleading and difficult-to-read English-language versions. Some of the mistranslations have resulted in profound distortions in the way his ...
It is one of the three plays Shaw published as Plays Unpleasant in 1898, because its purpose is not to entertain its audience - as the traditional Victorian theatre was supposed to - but instead to raise awareness of social problems and serve as a criticism of capitalist behaviour. The other two plays were Widowers' Houses and Mrs Warren's Profession.
Anton Chekhov is a unique force in modern drama, his works cherished for their brilliant wit and insight into the human condition. In this stunning new translation of one of Chekhov’s most popular and beloved plays, Laurence Senelick presents a fresh perspective on the master playwright and his groundbreaking dramas. He brings this timeless trial of art and love to life as memorable characters have clashing desires and lose balance in the shifting eruptions of society and a modernizing Russia....
More than a how-to book, this classic guidebook to the director's craft is a tool for those looking to translate the page to the stage—or to the screen—and is of immense value to actors, writers, students, and teachers. Essential for any student of theater or film, here is what all directors need to know—and what every actor, scriptwriter, and audience member wants them to know. It includes four appendices, an original acting exercise, a recommended reading list, and a helpful index.
Designed for non-majors, this introductory text is a practical guide to theatre--what it is and how to enjoy it. Its survey of the theatre landscape is enlivened by behind-the-scenes stories from the two authors--one an actor/director and the other a costume designer. Exercises at the ends of chapters (unique to this text) prompt students to reflect on their own experiences with theatre.
Moss Hart once said that you never really learn how to write a play; you only learn how to write this play. Crafted with that adage in mind, The Dramatic Writer’s Companion is designed to help writers explore their own ideas in order to develop the script in front of them. No ordinary guide to plotting, this handbook starts with the principle that character is key. “The character is not something added to the scene or to the story,” writes author Will Dunne. “Rather, the character is the...
This new edition of a highly acclaimed handbook, last published in 1983 and widely used by theater teachers and directors, is sure to be welcomed by members of the theater profession. Spolin, who died in 1994, developed her improvisational techniques of using "game" exercises while teaching with the WPA Recreational Project in Chicago. Editor Sills, her son and founder of the Second City Theater, here updates over 200 classic exercises and adds 30 new ones. The creative group work and games, whi...
By the founder of the famous American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.) in San Francisco - a candid account of his working method as a director. A Sense of Direction represents a life's work in directing. William Ball engages his audience in a wide-ranging discussion of the director's process, from first read-through to opening night. An informative, insightful, and often astonishingly clear look at the the process of making theatre.
At the core of this Hollywood howto guide is the concept of The Eight Characters of Comedy, the eight specific character archetypes used in sitcoms dating back to the advent of TV. Every actor can find a sitcom niche by identifying with one of these eight characters. Using past and current actors and sitcom personalities, Sedita describes in detail where these characters come from and how actors can play them truthfully. * who is normally cast as The Logical Smart One’ * why do we love The Lov...
0riginating at the National Theatre of Great Britain, Amadeus was the recipient of both the Evening Standard Drama Award and the Theatre Critics Award. In the United States, the play won the coveted Tony Award and went on to become a critically acclaimed major motion picture winning eight Oscars, including Best Picture. Now, this extraordinary work about the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is available with a new preface by Peter Shaffer and a new introduction by the director of the 1998 Broa...
Sure, Harris's most acclaimed novel, the second of his Henry Wiggen books, centers around a pair of ballplayers for the fictionally fabled New York Mammoths--the novel's narrator, pitcher Wiggen, and Bruce Pearson, his tag-along catcher and best friend. And sure, on one level, it's the conventional tale of a disparate dugout population cohering over the course of a season and marching ineluctably toward the World Series. But convention, like a 55-foot curveball, ends there and then scoots off i...
