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Patti LuPone: A Memoir
(9/14/2010) Broadway legend LuPone, a five-time Tony nominee and two-time Tony winner, raises the curtain on her life and career in this engaging memoir. Detailing both her travails and her triumphs, she takes the reader on a guided tour recalling some memorable moments in musical theater. She began in her teens when she and her twin brothers performed on Long Island as the LuPone Trio. On a 1968 scholarship at John Houseman's Juilliard Drama Division, she was "overwhelmed with fear," but then toured with H... |
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The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama
(6/25/2003) Known through three editions as the boldest and most distinguished introduction to drama, William Worthen's pace-setting text continues to provide exciting plays usefully situated within their historical and cultural contexts. |
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Theatre World 1994-1995, Vol. 51
(1/1/2000) Theatre World, the statistical and pictorial record of the Broadway and off-Broadway season, touring companies, and professional regional companies throughout the United States, has become a classic in its field. The book is complete with cast listings, replacement producers, directors, authors, composers, opening and closing dates, song titles, and much, much more. There are special sections with biographical data, obituary information, listings of annual Shakespeare festivals and major drama a... |
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Theatre World 1993-1994, Vol. 50
(1/1/2000) Theatre World, the statistical and pictorial record of the Broadway and off-Broadway season, touring companies, and professional regional companies throughout the United States, has become a classic in its field. The book is complete with cast listings, replacement producers, directors, authors, composers, opening and closing dates, song titles, and much, much more. There are special sections with biographical data, obituary information, listings of annual Shakespeare festivals and major drama a... |
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The Social Significance of Modern Drama
(1/1/2000) Out of print virtually since its completion in 1914, Emma Goldman's pioneer work Social Significance in Modern Drama bridges modern drama and political philosophy, pointing out the road that remains to be travelled toward a theatre of social empowerment. Activist, feminist, philosopher and anarchist, Emma Goldman was a passionate thinker about all things modern when the 20th century was still raw and new. The emergence of her treatise on the theatre after years of obscurity is certain to arouse ... |
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Free Shakespeare
(2000) This expanded edition of Free Shakespeare is a tool to liberate the works of Shakespeare from directors and academics who seek to impose their ideas upon the plays. John Russell Brown empowers actors and readers to approach the plays freshly and boldly armed with the many different interpretations inherent in the plays. Recognized as a benchmark for the understanding of Shakespearean performance in the twentieth century, a new chapter explores the technological and funding challenges facing Shak... |
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My Breath in Art: Acting from Within
(2000) Filled with invaluable advice for all actors and vocalists, this guidebook by Beatrice Manley addresses such topics as: how to clear the body of emotional debris * how to get feedback from your body * what to do with your hands * how to release habitual tension * the inner structure of feeling * avoiding overpreparation * and many more. |
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Black Comedy - 9 Plays
(2000) This first-of-its kind collection includes a wide range of works, from an early examination and critique of American society after World War II to plays that reflect socio-political concerns that kept pace with historical events, like the sit-in demonstrations, the bus boycotts, black nationalism, and the womenÕs liberation movement. A hybrid of comedic forms including satire, farce, comedy of manners, romantic comedy, dark comedy, and tragicomedy are presented through vernacular language, stan... |
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Bunny Bunny - A Sort of Love Story
(2000) Subtitled "Gilda Radner: A Sort of Love Story," this autobiographical play tries to recapture the non-sexual, but deeply felt relationship between Radner, one of Saturday Night Live's original Not Ready-for-Prime-Time players, and Alan Zweibel, who was a writer for the show. Alternately comic and heartbreaking, the play follows these two overgrown kids as they ride their bumper-car lives right up to Radner's death from ovarian cancer. Their loyalty and love glows through every scene. The book is... |
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Dear: A New Play
(2000) The script to "one of the most tender yet devastating plays of the Drexlerian oeuvre is the musical romance Dear. It takes place in the Eisenhower Fifties, the early years of television. There is an elegiac quality for the tragicomedy punctuated by the sentimental music of the era...The play is about Jessie Clup, a Queens housewife whose philandering husband has deserted her. Her only culpa is her fixation on Perry Como, the ex-barber, crooner kin, reigning TV star." - Rosette Lamont, StageView. |
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A Chekhov Concert Duets & Arias Conceived & Composed by Sharon Gans & Jordan Charney
(2000) "A tapestry of plays, stories, and letters artistically woven together to form a beautiful new work worthy of Chekhov's own heart and hand. The American artists Sharon Gans and Jordan Charney have reconceived Chekhov in their duets and arias with sensitivity and passion of the finest dramatic caliber. The true wonder and character of Chekhov shines through...enlightening!" - Moscow Contemporary Theater |
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Alarums & Excursions: Our Theatres in the 90s
(2000) Charles Marowitz casts a critical eye upon the highpoints of the last theatrical decade, in preparation for a new millennium. In a series of reviews, think-pieces, essays and commentaries culled from publications as varied as The London Times and Theatre Week magazine, Marowitz examines the work of such major playwrights as Mamet, Stoppard, Shepard, Neil Simon, Beckett, Gurney, Pinter, Kushner, Baitz, Shanley, Williams and McNalley. Marowitz dramatically captures the anger, anxiety, spectacle, a... |
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Mad About Theatre
(2000) Mad About Theatre is a systematic analysis of the major issues confronting our theatre today: The Decline of Broadway; The Generally Poor Quality of American Stage Acting; The Pretentiousness of our Avant-Garde; The Narrowness of our Playwriting; Broadway In Search of a Musical Fix; Subsidized British Theatre in the Age of Thatcher and Beyond; The Inflated Directing of the Classics; The Growing Vitality of our Regional Theatres (in Playwriting as well as Acting and Directing); The Innovative Use... |
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The Best American Short Plays 1995-1996
(1999) The latest edition of this useful series offers 12 one-acts reflecting the wide range of contemporary American theater. For those who prefer their theater comic, there is David Ives' humorous meditation on identity, Degas, C'est Moi, and Susan Cinoman's slice-of-life look at shopping rituals, Fitting Rooms. Those who think drama should be made of sterner stuff should sample Cassandra Medley's moving Dearborn Heights, about discrimination in the North, and Jonathan Levy's Old Blues, a touching p... |
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Spring's Awakening
(2000) Spring's Awakening is a tragi-comedy of teenage sex. Its fourteen-year-old heroine, Wendla, is killed by abortion pills. The young Moritz, terrorized by the world around him, and especially by his teachers, shoots himself. The ending seems likely to be the suicide of Moritz's friend, Melchior, but in a confrontation with a mysterious stranger (the famous Masked Man) he finally manages to shed his illusions and face the consequences. |
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Slings And Arrows: Theater In My Life
(2000) "He's a marvelous storyteller: gossipy, candid without being cruel, and very funny. This vivid, entertaining book is also one of the most penetrating works to be written about the theater." - Publishers Weekly |
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The Scarlet Letter
(2011) The Scarlet Letter is an 1850 romantic work of fiction in a historical setting, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is considered to be his magnum opus.[1] Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an adulterous affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt. |
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Script into Performance: A Structuralist Approach
(2000) An analysis of script interpretation for the theater. The text includes theories on performance as well as examples from the works of Shelley, Ibsen and Pinter.In his new preface, Hornby laments the modernization of classic plays which he believes subverts the original text. - From Library Journal |
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The Best American Short Plays 1994-1995
(2000) Christopher Durang ¥ Craig Fols ¥ J.E. Franklin ¥ David Mamet ¥ Steve Martin ¥ Elaine May ¥ Max Mitchell ¥ Rich Orloff ¥ Jacquelyn Reingold ¥ Ronald Ribman ¥ Murray Schisgal ¥ Jules Tasca ¥ Thornton Wilder ¥ Doug Wright. |
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Cyrano de Bergerac
(2003) Rostand's masterpiece-and the ultimate triumph of the great French romantic tradition-is the magnificent hero-for-all-seasons, Cyrano de Bergerac. |
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The Day the Bronx Died
(2000) This engrossing drama by Michael Henry Brown had its world premiere in 1992. This book features the complete script of the story of two childhood friends, one black, the other white, and their struggle to live in a racist world. |
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Ghost in the Machine
(2000) The playscript to Ghost in the Machine by David Gilman begins with a common situation - that of a missing fifty dollar bill - and spins it into intriguing questions of probability, chance and the complexities of musical composition: illusion and reality. |
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The National Black Drama Anthology: Eleven Plays from America's Leading African-American Theaters
(2000) "Though New York remains the de facto capital of American theater, much of the most daring and interesting work today is done by regional theaters. This is doubly true of plays by African American authors, who, despite a few notable exceptions (August Wilson, George C. Wolfe), suffer under a commercial apartheid that keeps black plays off Broadway. Of necessity, African American theater artists have to create their own venues from the ground up. This wide-ranging anthology edited by the founder ... |
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A Theater Workbook
(2000) "This wonderful, wonderful book, beautifully edited and staged (and I do mean that word) is four achievements in one: a record of a life's work presented brilliantly; a theatre workbook of practical value to every theatre design course in the country; an example to be followed of personal integrity, professionalism, and respect for the text; a model in publishing of how to link the written word and visual image creatively on the page." - The Royal Arts Society Journal. Includes 525 photographs, ... |
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Style : Acting in High Comedy
(2000) This book isn't a critical examination of high comedy. Rather, it's a collection of suggestions for the middlemen: the actors who have to catch the comic spark from the playwright and pass it on to the audience. The effort involved must be imperceptible: one has to acquire the cleverness, the articulacy, the febrility of the characters - and then make the whole laborious exercise seem like swimming through silk...The characters in high comedies don't find verbal sophistication difficult or unfam... |
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The End of Acting: A Radical View
(2000) From Richard Hornby's preface: This book is written for those who act, those who teach acting, and those who are interested in seeing it. It is both a theoretical work and a call for action. This book is an unashamed attack on the American acting establishment ... The concepts derive from my graduate seminars in acting theory and history in the School of Theatre at Florida State University ... Much of the feistiness of those classes carries over into this book ... If my arguments serve only to s... |
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The Actor's Eye: Seeing and Being Seen
(2000) With this landmark compilation of classes and exercises, anyone can afford to be coached by the man whose students are propelled from his legendary classes at Northwestern University to Broadway and Hollywood. "Acting is as simple as brick-laying and as great as Leonardo da Vinci's art," writes Downs. The Downs approach coaches the actor to make the essential connections between his character and the forces that govern him so that "craft is inevitable and art is made possible." |
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I Am a Man: A New Play
(2000) "...a play about power, leadership, and the rough-and tumble process of social change. In its multifaceted search for the meaning behind the headline-grabbing events in Memphis, and in its depiction of the roots of black-vs.-black power struggles, it offers both food for thought and an emotional punch." - Hedy Weiss Chicago Sun Times |
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Theatre World 1992-1993, Vol. 49
(2000) Theatre World, the statistical and pictorial record of the Broadway and off-Broadway season, touring companies, and professional regional companies throughout the United States, has become a classic in its field. The book is complete with cast listings, replacement producers, directors, authors, composers, opening and closing dates, song titles, and much, much more. There are special sections with biographical data, obituary information, listings of annual Shakespeare festivals and major drama a... |
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Accidentally on Purpose: Reflections on Life, Acting and the Nine Natural Laws of Creativity
(2000) The author is the son of Lee Strasberg (a major force in the history of the Actors Studio), brother of Susan (the actress) and a would-be theater guru in his own right. His book is a combination autobiography ("My parents were too busy with their own dreams of success... for me") and a how-to guide to creative acting, his answer to his father's famous "Method," which, he says, only taught actors to think like actors. Lee Strasberg is presented as a selfish martinet who came alive only at the Stu... |
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The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Stage Plays
(2000) A collection of five stage plays from this brilliant writer: Middle of the Night, The Tenth Man, Gideon, The Passion of Josef D., and The Latent Heterosexual. Includes an introduction by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. |
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My Life with Noël Coward
(2000) Payn, who performed as an actor and singer in several Coward plays, lived with the playwright as part of his extended family for 30 years and now administers his estate. Written with Barry Day, an advertising executive, this effusively affectionate memoir of Coward (1899-1973), best known for his sophisticated comedies (Blithe Spirit, Private Lives), is a giddily gossipy account of the luminary's long theatrical career and glittering social life. Renowned actors-Beatrice Lillie, Gertrude Lawrenc... |
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The Best Burlesque Sketches
(2000) Here is the first-ever collection of classic comic sketches from the bawdy, rowdy world of our slum music halls! Habitues of Burlesque (and sons of habitues) will revel in the boisterous stock scenes and blackouts of this uniquely American form of popular entertainment. Features a foreword by Dick Martin. |
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The Best Short Plays of 1988-1989
(2000) Lose yourself in a universe of forces familiar and frightening in the 21 plays presented in this exclusive volume. The playwrights included here succeed in pushing back the boundaries of conventional dramatic expression. Among them, Lanford Wilson dissects a survivor's anguish after his lover's death in A Poster of the Cosmos and Deborah Pryor spins an eerie tale of spellbinding romance in The Love Talker. Richard Greenberg plots a battle of wills between a young writer and his elusive muse, whi... |
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Julius Caesar
(2000) These popular editions allow the reader and student to look beyond the scholarly reading text to the more sensuous, more collaborative, more malleable performance text which emerges in conjunction with the commentary and notes. Each note, each gloss, each commentary reflects the stage life of the play with constant reference to the challenge of the text in performance. Readers will not only discover an enlivened Shakespeare, they will be empowered to rehearse and direct their own productions of ... |
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The Tempest
(2000) The Applause edition of Shakespeare's The Tempest allows the reader and student to look beyond the scholarly reading text to the more sensuous, more collaborative, more malleable performance text which emerges in conjunction with the commentary and notes. Readers and students are faced with real theatrical choices in each speech as the editors point out the challenges and opportunities to the actor and director at each juncture. Readers will not only discover an enlivened Shakespeare, they will ... |
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
(2009) A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 to 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors, who are manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular works fo... |
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King Lear
(2000) These popular editions allow the reader and student to look beyond the scholarly reading text to the more sensuous, more collaborative, more malleable performance text which emerges in conjunction with the commentary and notes. Each note, each gloss, each commentary reflects the stage life of the play with constant reference to the challenge of the text in performance. Readers will not only discover an enlivened Shakespeare, they will be empowered to rehearse and direct their own productions of ... |
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Environmental Theater
(1973) Here are the exercises which began as radical departures from standard actor training etiquette and which stand now as classic means through which the performer discovers his or her true power of transformation. Available for the first time in fifteen years, this new expanded edition offers a new generation of theater artists the gospel according to Richard Schechner, the guru whose principles and influence have influenced a quarter century of theater. |
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Mastergate and Power Failure: 2 Political Satires for the Stage
(2000) The complete scripts to two of Larry Gelbart's most popular and powerful political satires. Review of Mastergate: "If George Orwell were a gag writer, he could have written Mastergate. Larry Gelbart's scathingly funny takeoff on the Iran-Contra hearings is a spiky cactus flower in the desert of American political theatre." - Jack Kroll, Newsweek. Review of Power Failure: "There is in his broad etching all the ethical outrage of an Arthur Miller kvetching. And, oh, so much more fun!" - Carolyn Cl... |
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The First Lulu
(2000) "The complete script to Frank Wedekind's symphony - or rather a cacophony - of deotic sexual rhetorics. Eric Bentley's achievement here as translator is a beautifully playable and juicy English; his larger gift is the opening to us of what must be ranked as among the supreme masterpieces of nineteenth-century theater." - Donald Lyons, The New Criterion |
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David Merrick - The Abominable Showman
(1993) The chief theater critic for the New York Daily News has written a frank portrait of Broadway's most famous producer, a man as renowned for his outrageous behavior and sharp business practices as for the string of hits that began in 1954 with Fanny , continued through the '60s and '70s with Gypsy , Hello, Dolly! and prestigious British imports like Marat/Sade and climaxed in 1980 with the lavish stage version of 42nd Street , which ran for nine years. As documented in his source notes, Kissel ha... |
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The New Radical Theater Notebook
(2000) This book traces three tumultuous decades of avant-garde theatre in the U.S. It begins with the Living Theatre, and explores diverse ensembles such as The Open Theatre, The Performance Group, and Bread and Puppet Theatre. It also looks at the women's theatre movement, and examines the work of Robert Wilson, Meredith Monk, Richard Foreman and more. There are sections devoted to ritual concepts, theatre in the streets, radical participation of the spectator, workshops in prisons, spectacles such a... |
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A Flea in Her Rear (or Ants in Her Pants) and Other Vintage French Farces
(2000) Ten French farces as translated by Norman R. Shapiro, including the title play by Feydeau and: The Poor Beggar and the Fairy Godmother (Allais) * Boubouroche, or She Dupes to Conquer (Courteline) * It's All Relative (Labiche) * Mardis Gras (Meilhac and Halevy) * and more. |
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Telling Moments: Fifteen Gay Monologues
(2000) Seventeen men are caught in the limelight of defining moments that range from poignant to crazily funny. Among this vivid cast are a priest sliding towards heresy, a self-styled aristocrat, a hustler looking for security, an enraged abandoned lover, and an overwrought porno director. |
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Chekhov: The Major Plays
(2006) "What makes his work great is that it can be felt and understood...by anybody," said Leo Tolstoy of Chekhov's plays, which express life through subtle construction, everyday dialogue, and an electrically charged atmosphere. |
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Creating a Character: A Physical Approach to Acting
(2000) For over 20 years, Moni Yakim has taught his unique blend of physical training and emotional exploration to a generation of American actors that include Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, and Kevin Kline. Now, for the first time, his acting process is available to every actor and theater professional. |
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Complete Works of William Shakespeare
(1997) This complete and unabridged edition contains every word that Shakespeare wrote — all 37 tragedies, comedies, and histories, plus the sonnets. You'll find such classics as The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew. This Library of Literary Classics edition is bound in padded leather with luxurious gold-stamping on the front and spine, satin ribbon marker and gilded edges. Other titles in this series include: Charlotte & Emily Bronte: The Complete Novels; Edgar Allan Poe: ... |
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The Craftsmen of Dionysus: An Approach to Acting
(2000) This book, by Jerome Rockwood and endorsed by actors such as Bruce Willis and Burgess Meredith, has been praised as the best acting textbook on the market today. It covers auditioning, blocking, relaxing, improvisation, standard stage speech, dialects and accents, movement in period plays, and much more. |
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One on One: The Best Women's Monologues for the Nineties
(2007) Three 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 s... |
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