Broadway Bookshelf — For Actors — Page 5

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For Actors Books

Take Me Out

(2002)

Darren Lemming is the star center fielder for the champion New York Empires. An extraordinary athlete, he fills both his fans and his teammates with awe at his abilities and his presence on the field and off. When he makes the matter-of-fact announcement that he’s gay, he throws his team into turmoil and confusion, while he also emboldens his closeted accountant, Mason Marzac, to come to terms with his own sexuality—and to fully experience the pure joy of watching great athletes play a spor...

Spinning into Butter: A Play

(2000)

Set on a college campus in Vermont, Spinning into Butter is a new play by a major young American playwright that explores the dangers of both racism and political correctness in America today in a manner that is at once profound, disturbing, darkly comic, and deeply cathartic. Rebecca Gilman challenges our preconceptions about race relations, writing of a liberal dean of students named Sarah Daniels who investigates the pinning of anonymous, clearly racist letters on the door of one of the colle...

Noises Off

(2010)

Noises Off, the classic farce by the Tony Award—winning author of Copenhagen, is not one play but two: simultaneously a traditional sex farce, Nothing On, and the backstage “drama” that develops during Nothing On’s final rehearsal and tour. The two begin to interlock as the characters make their exits from Nothing On only to find themselves making entrances into the even worse nightmare going on backstage. In the end, at the disastrous final performance, the two plots can be kept separat...

The Marriage of Bette & Boo

(1998)

As the play begins Bette and Boo are being united in matrimony, surrounded by their beaming families. But as the further progress of their marriage is chronicled it becomes increasingly clear that things are not working out quite as hoped for. The birth of their son is followed by a succession of stillborns; Boo takes to drink; and their respective families are odd lots to say the least: His father is a sadistic tyrant, who refers to his wife as the dumbest woman in the world; while Bette's side...

Laughing Wild and Baby with the Bathwater: Two Plays

(1994)

“Laughing wild amid severest woe” perfectly describes the fiercely ironic comedy of Christopher Durang’s Laughing Wild (which takes its title from this Thomas Gray quotation via Samuel Beckett) and the previously unpublished Baby with the Bathwater. In Laughing Wild, two comic monologues evolve into a man and a woman’s shared nightmare of modern life and the isolation it creates. From her turf battles at the supermarket to the desperate clichés of self-affirmation he learns at his “pe...

Laughing Wild and Baby with the Bathwater: Two Plays

Churchill Plays: 3

(2001)

Includes:Ice Cream, Mad Forest, The Shriker, Lives of the Great Poisoners and A Mouthful of Birds, as well as an introduction by the author.

Churchill Plays: 2

(1990)

This second collection of plays by Caryl Churchill includes "Objections to Sex and Violence", "Softcops", "Top Girls", "Fen" and "Serious Money".

Churchill: Plays One

(1985)

The plays in this volume represent the best of Churchill's writing up to and including her emergence onto the international theatre scene with Cloud Nine. The volume also contains a new introduction by the author as well as short prefaces to each play.

The Mousetrap and Other Plays

(2000)

Readers will be front-row center for this special trade collection of Agatha Christie's greatest suspense plays, which includes: The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in history, Ten Little Indians and Witness for the Prosecution, both made into classic films, Appointment with Death, The Hollow, Towards Zero, Go Back to Murder, and one of Christie's personal favorites, The Verdict-all perfectly staged by the Queen of Crime.

Marina Carr: Plays 1

(2000)

Marina Carr: Plays 1 introduces the work of a major new voice in playwrighting. Carr has been praised for the beauty and uniqueness of her language, was cited by The Independent as "a hugely valuable dramatic voice," and has even been compared to Eugene O'Neill. A prominent voice in British letters who has been building momentum in the United States for the past decade, Carr's four critically acclaimed works are gathered together here for the first time.

Callback: How to Prepare for the Callback to Succeed in Getting the Part

(2004)

"Ginger Howard Friedman is one of the most innovative and important teachers of our time."--Jerry Orbach You got the audition. Now how do you get the part? What can you do to ensure getting a callback? And what can you do at the callback to demonstrate that you're the one for that role? In this invaluable book, veteran casting director-playwright-teacher Ginger Howard Friedman shares her trade secrets for successful auditioning. Through creative visualization techniques and exercises, she prepar...

Callback: How to Prepare for the Callback to Succeed in Getting the Part

The Tale of the Allergist's Wife and Other Plays

(2001)

Charles Busch is renowned for weaving popular culture, wicked camp humor, and biting social satire into an unusual and uproarious theatrical signature that has earned him the Outer Critics' John Gassner Award for Playwrighting and a Drama Desk Award for Best Play nomination. Of his latest play, The New York Times has written, "Uproarious ... wall-to-wall laughs ... Mr. Busch has swum straight into the mainstream and stays comfortably afloat there." Busch is the author of such plays as Vampire Le...

The Tale of the Allergist's Wife and Other Plays

Breathing, Movement, Exploration

(2001)

Breathing, Movement, Exploration is a groundbreaking approach to how to use your body. Barbara Sellers-Young combines body mechanics and eastern and western philosophy to create a new visceral awareness of the performance process. Its simple, step-by-step structure enables the reader to learn the concepts of Laban and Stanislavski while exploring eastern ideas of breath and energy. Breathing, Movement, Exploration is a useful blueprint for how to use your body on stage. It speaks to professional...

A Man for All Seasons

(1990)

The classic play about Sir Thomas More, the Lord chancellor who refused to compromise and was executed by Henry VIII.

The Joy of Music

(2004)

This classic work is perhaps Bernstein's finest collection of conversations on the meaning and wonder of music. This book is a must for all music fans who wish to experience music more fully and deeply through one of the most inspired, and inspiring, music intellects of our time. Employing the creative device of "Imaginary Conversations" in the first section of his book, Bernstein illuminates the importance of the symphony in America, the greatness of Beethoven, and the art of composing. The bo...

The Norman Conquests A Trilogy of Plays

(1994)

This brilliant comic trilogy details the amorous exploits of Norman, assistant librarian, whose one aim is to make the women of his life happy—these women being, as it happens, three sisters, one of them his wife, who can’t wear contact lenses because “life with Norman is full of unexpected eye movements.” Each play stands uproariously on its own yet interlocks with the others to form an ingenious Chinese puzzle of successive relations.

An Actor Prepares...To Live in New York City

(2004)

A guide for actors, and everyone else, to getting the best for less and surviving, thriving and living the good life in the Big Apple. Here is the ultimate guidebook for the hordes of aspiring young performers who arrive in the Big City determined to climb the ladder to stardom. But the purpose of Craig Wroe, an actor himself, is not to provide instruction on how to refine acting, singing or dancing talents or how to land a job in the chorus of The Producers. Plenty of other books do that. His a...

An Actor Prepares...To Live in New York City

An Actor Prepares to Work in New York City

(2004)

The author of An Actor Prepares to Live in New York City has compiled a valuable resource for actors who come to the Big Apple seeking fame and fortune - or just a decent job! All aspects of the profession are thoroughly detailed. "There are two certainties in an actor's life: uncertainty and waiting. Craig Wroe's indispensable Bible makes both agonies far more bearable...and will help to steady the actor as he gets on and off the roller coaster." - Frank Langella

An Actor Prepares to Work in New York City

The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?

(2004)

On his 50th birthday, Martin, a world-famous architect prepares for a recorded interview by an old friend in the TV business; but in the course of the conversation a secret emerges that threatens to turn celebration to tragedy. The Goat is hugely enjoyable parable that plumbs the deepest questions of social constraints on the individual expression of love."My plays are an examination of the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation...

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

(2006)

"Twelve times a week," answered Uta Hagen, when asked how often she'd like to play Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Like her, neither audiences nor critics could get enough of Edward Albee's masterful play. A dark comedy, it portrays husband and wife George and Martha in a searing night of dangerous fun and games. By the evening's end, a stunning, almost unbearable revelation provides a climax that has shocked audiences for years. With the play's razor-sharp dialogue and the stripping a...

Acting With Shakespeare: The Comedies

(2000)

In this book adapted from a television master class, actress Janet Suzman has crafted a superbly concise and clearly written account of how to develop fully realized characters in Shakespeare. Here she shares her poignant observations. Includes a foreword, and great photos throughout. Also available: DVD, HL00314739

A View From the Bridge

(2009)

Set on the gritty Brooklyn waterfront, A View from the Bridge follows the cataclysmic downfall of Eddie Carbone, who spends his days as a hardworking longshoreman and his nights at home with his wife, Beatrice, and niece, Catherine. But the routine of his life is interrupted when Beatrice's cousins, illegal immigrants from Italy, arrive in New York. As one of them embarks on a romance with Catherine, Eddie's envy and delusion plays out with devastating consequences.

So You Want To Be An Actor

(2006)

This handbook for aspiring actors is co-written by two of the best-known names in British theatre and television. It offers practical advice and do's and dont's to anyone thinking of taking up acting. The authors are passionate about actor training, know the profession inside and out and have more than a hundred years' experience between them. Charmingly informal but full of sound advice, So You Want To Be An Actor? is essential reading for anyone with their eye on a career in acting.

Performer Prepares: A Guide to Song Preparation for Actors, Singers and Dancers

(2000)

A Performer Prepares is a 13-part master class on how to perform on any stage from bleak rehearsal room to the Palace Theatre. The class covers the basic Broadway song numbers, from show ballad to showstopper. With precise, logical steps and dynamic and entertaining dialogues between himself and his students, David Craig takes anyone with the desire to shine from an audition to final curtain call. These lessons on the pages recreate as closely as possible the unique interpersonal dyamic of Craig...

Performer Prepares: A Guide to Song Preparation for Actors, Singers and Dancers

Merry Wives - The Musical

(2007)

When Sir John Falstaff sets out to woo a rich mistress to solve his financial worries, he soon discovers that the wives of Windsor are more than a match for him. Love, song, laughter, and merriment combine in a new musical version of Shakespeare's popular comedy.

The Big Life - The Ska Musical

(2005)

"Journeying over from the West Indies to England, Ferdy, Lennie, Dennis and Bernie are all eager to make successes of themselves and take full advantage of what they think The Big Life has to offer. So they pledge to abstain from women for three years." But Mary, Kathy, Zuleika and Sybil have other ideas. They know that man cannot live by bread alone! Will the men stick with their idea of The Big Life, or will Cupid have the final say?

Auditions: A Practical Guide

(2009)

Auditions are an integral part of every performer's life. From getting into drama school, through to a successful career in an overcrowded industry, Auditions: A Practical Guide offers crucial advice and tried-and-tested techniques to maximize success before, during and after each audition. Written by an established casting director and former actor with thirty years of experience on a wide range of productions, this book offers a wealth of personal and professional insights covering: dra...

Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions

(2010)

Stephen Sondheim is widely regarded as the most important composer and lyricist of musical theater in the second half of the 20th century. Celebrating his 80th birthday, this new edition of Sondheim on Music finds him in these guided interviews expounding in great depth and detail on his craft. As a natural teacher, thoughtful and opinionated, Sondheim discusses the art of musical composition, lyric writing, the collaborative process of musical theater, and how he thinks about his own work. Wher...

Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions

Jerry Herman: The Lyrics

(2003)

Jerry Herman is one of Broadway's most celebrated composers and lyricists. He is the author of two of the biggest successes in musical theatre history: Hello, Dolly! and Mame as well as many others. This book offers all of the lyrics to Herman's well-loved songs along with rare production photographs from all of his shows. It includes early lyrics from Herman's first Broadway revues and shows, songs cut from his best-loved shows, and new lyrics. Herman's songs have been sung by all the masters o...

Cole Porter: Selected Lyrics

(2006)

Cole Porter possessed to a singular degree the art of expressing depth through apparent frivolity. The effervescent wit and technical bravura of his songs are matched by their unguarded revelations of feeling. In the words of editor Robert Kimball, "Porter wrote tellingly of the pain and evanescence of emotional relationships. He gentle mocked propriety and said that few things were simple or lasting or free from ambiguity." Of the masters of twentieth-century American songwriting, Porter was on...

Musical Scene Study : The Musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein

(2007)

The Rodgers & Hammerstein Musical Scene Study Guide is the first book of its kind, featuring both comic and dramatic scenes and songs from 10 R&H musicals (Oklahoma!, Carousel, Allegro, South Pacific, The King and I, Me and Juliet, Flower Drum Song, The Sound of Music, State Fair, and Cinderella) for the purpose of musical scene study work. It contains a total of 22 scenes, organized by the number of men and women in each scene. Each scene includes: * an introduction to the musical from which it...

Musical Scene Study : The Musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein

Theater Geek

(2010)

What do Natalie Portman, Robert Downey, Jr., Zach Braff, and Mandy Moore have in common? Before they were stars, they were campers at Stagedoor Manor, the premier summer theater camp for children and teenagers. Founded in 1975, Stagedoor continues to attract scores of young performers eager to find kindred spirits, to sing out loud, to become working actors—or maybe even stars. Every summer for the past thirty-five years, a new crop of campers has come to the Catskills for an intense, often w...

The time of the cuckoo: A comedy in two acts

(1983)

A two act play with 3 scenes in each act for 5 males and 5 females. The plot concerns an older unmarried secretary who meets an attentive man while vacationing in Venice. When she finds out he is married and has children she is torn with the moral problem of whether to partake in a short affair.

The time of the cuckoo: A comedy in two acts

Selected Plays of Arthur Laurents

(2005)

If he had done nothing more than write the book for the musicals West Side Story and Gypsy, Arthur Laurents would be assured a place in the pantheon of American theater. But he has done much more, including directing, screenwriting, and playwriting. Here, for the first time, is an anthology of seven of Laurents' most acclaimed and challenging plays. It begins with Home of the Brave, the play that launched Laurents' career. This wartime drama known for its frank treatment of anti-Semitism and war...

Jerusalem

(2011)

A comic, contemporary vision of rural life in England's green and pleasant land. On St. George's Day, the morning of the local country fair, Johnny "Rooster" Byron, local waster and Lord of Misrule, is a wanted man. The council officials want to serve him an eviction notice, his son wants to be taken to the fair, a vengeful father wants to give him a serious kicking, and a motley crew of mates wants his ample supply of drugs and alcohol. ** Release Date: June 14, 2011 **

The Suitors

(2001)

Racine's only comedy is a treasure and ought to get a lot more productions. The tragedian wrote it for the renowned Scaramouche, whose commedia dell'arte company was doing a stand in Paris. Originally titled Les plaideurs (which might also be translated as "the pleaders" or "litigants"), it combines a deeply cut adaptation of Aristophanes' The Wasps with a sappy love plot, and it's so short, on paper, that you clearly have lots of scope for commedia bits, improv, chases and so forth. Steven,...

The Ploughman's Lunch

(1986)

The Ploughman's Lunch is a studied analysis of the media world in Margaret Thatcher's Britain during the time of the Falklands War. It was one of the first films to feature in Channel 4's inaugural "Film on Four" season in 1982, enjoying a successful and critically lauded theatrical release prior to its television screening.

Stages in Design

(1995)

This is a photocopiable pack of practical activities aimed at 14-19 year-old drama students and their teachers. It offers a structured and progressive approach to stagecraft, design and technology in the performing arts. Each assignment contains teacher's notes.

Mastering Monologues and Acting Sides: How to Audition Successfully for Both Traditional and New Media

(2011)

Mastering Monologues and Acting Sides: How to Audition Successfully for Both Traditional and New Media is everything an actor needs to be ready for that perfect part, from webisodes to Shakespeare. Scripts, acting technique tips, and exercises keep a performer toned and ready, while industry experts give advice on how to audition professionally. Invaluable Internet listings keep you on top of changing trends, as well.Casting directors, agents, managers, and actors share insights on proper proto...

Lady Godiva

(2000)

Set in the year 1012, act one and two, is an ante room in the castle of Mercia, home of Sir Leofric and Lady Godiva. Act three is set at the Coventry fair. Based on Lady Godiva's famous ride through Coventry. Medieval maids, men in tights, a saucy serving wench with her eye on the young Master, a daughter expelled from boarding school and a husband who delights in taxing the peasants are just a few of the problems facing Lady Godiva. The Friar from Coventry Abbey is trying to raise money ...

Exploring Theatre and Education

(1980)

Ken Robinson is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. He has worked with national governments in Europe and Asia, international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, national and state education systems, non-profit organizations and some of the world's leading cultural organizations. He was knighted in 2003 for his contribution to education and the arts.

Daring to Play: A Brecht Companion

(2011)

Translated into English for the first time, Daring To Play: A Brecht Companion is the study of Bertolt Brecht’s theatre by Manfred Wekwerth, Brecht’s co-director and former director of the Berliner Ensemble. Wekwerth aims to challenge prevailing myths and misconceptions of Brecht’s theatre, instead providing a refreshing and accessible approach to his plays and theatrical craft. The book is rich in information, examples and anecdotal detail from first-hand acquaintance with Brecht and ...

Complete Plays

(1998)

Though she died penniless and forgotten, Zora Neale Hurston is now recognized as a major figure in African American literature. Best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, she also published numerous short stories and essays, three other novels, and two books on black folklore.Even avid readers of Hurston's prose, however, may be surprised to know that she was also a serious and ambitious playwright throughout her career. Although several of her plays were produced during her lif...

Zombies from the Beyond - A Musical

(1998)

A musical comedy celebration of American ideals and foibles in the Eisenhower era. Songs, dances, and laughs abound in the unlikeliest of settings as the Cold War and space race paranoia threaten the good folks at the fictional Milwaukee Space Center in 1955, where the staff is all abuzz at the arrival of rocket scientist Trenton Corbett. The budding romance of Trenton and Mary the daughter of Space Center commander Major Malone is jeopardized when a flying saucer lands in Milwaukee. The craft i...

The Woman in White - Vocal Selections

(2006)

Andrew Lloyd Webber's latest musical is an adaptation of Wilkie Collin's sensational Victorian novel. This folio features nine vocal selections, including: All for Laura * Evermore Without You * I Believe My Heart * If I Could Only Dream This World Away * Lost Souls * The Seduction * Trying Not to Notice * You Can Get Away with Anything * You See I Am No Ghost. Includes four-page color section with cast photos.

Take Flight!

(2011)

Take Flight is a musical with book by John Weidman, music by David Shire and lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr.. The musical is inspired by the early history of aviation, interweaving the lives of the Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart and her publisher George Putnam, along with such sundry luminaries as Otto Lilienthal, the German "Glider King"; Commander Richard Byrd; French flying aces Nungesser and Coli, and various others.

Song and Dance

(1986)

Song and Dance is a musical comprising two acts, one told entirely in "Song" and one entirely in "Dance", tied together by a love story. The first part is Tell Me On A Sunday, with lyrics by Don Black and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, about a young British woman's romantic misadventures in New York City and Hollywood. The second part is a ballet choreographed to Variations, composed by Lloyd Webber for his cellist brother Julian, which is based on the A Minor Caprice No. 24 by Paganini.

State Fair - Vocal Selections

(1981)

USA Today says of State Fair, "This may be what the Golden Age of Broadway was really about!" Our deluxe revised Vocal Selections features 11 beloved songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, a biography, plot synopsis, history of the show and photos! Includes: It Might as Well Be Spring * It's a Grand Night for Singing * Our State Fair * You Never Had It So Good * more.

Pacific Overtures

(1993)

Pacific Overtures is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, a libretto by John Weidman, and additional material by Hugh Wheeler. The musical is set in 1853 Japan and follows the difficult Westernization of Japan, through the lives of two friends caught in the change. The title of the work is ironic, nodding toward "overture" as a musical form, noting that the initiatives of the Western powers for commercial exploitation of the Pacific nation were anything but "pacific" (or peaceabl...

Oliver!

(2000)

One of Broadway's beloved stage productions is now available from Hal Leonard with this classic arrangement from veteran writer Alfred Reed. With such memorable songs like Oliver, Where Is Love, I'd Do Anything, As Long As He Needs Me, and Consider Yourself, this concert arrangement should be a part of every orchestra's library.

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