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The Cambridge Companion to August Wilson
(3/1/2007) One of America's most powerful and original dramatists, August Wilson offered an alternative history of the twentieth century, as seen from the perspective of black Americans. He celebrated the lives of those seemingly pushed to the margins of national life, but who were simultaneously protagonists of their own drama and evidence of a vital and compelling community. Decade by decade, he told the story of a people with a distinctive history who forged their own future, aware of their roots in an... |
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Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent
(7/1/2006) Rent can be characterized as a Tony- and Pulitzer-winning rock musical and film, but it can be described also as an ensemble experience that just kept growing. Nobody can describe that deeply human process better than actor Anthony Rapp, who played video artist Mark Cohen in both the Broadway play and the movie. His heartwarming personal memoir shows the continuity between the musical's genesis and the emotional lives of the artists workshopping it. With You takes you backstage and into the hea... |
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The World of Theatre: Tradition and Innovation
(11/29/2005) The World of Theatre is the first introduction to theatre book to truly focus on diversity and globalism, integrating coverage of multicultural, international and experimental theatre throughout. Theatre is presented as a global and multicultural form that reflects both traditional and evolving world views. While the American commercial theatre and European forms are central to the text, alternative theatres are placed side by side for comparison and contrast in each chapter, thus avoiding the s... |
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Theatre and Travel: Tours of the South
(3/2/2005) Presents rare information on traveling circus, minstrel, opera, and Toby shows. This collection of essays explores an understudied but pervasive aspect of American theatre: theatre on the road, from minstrel shows and Toby shows to contemporary African American theatre, 19th-century circus rail travel, and small-town opera houses. The challenges in gathering and compiling data on these ephemeral productions, from such far-flung sources as railroad schedules and weather reports, minutes f... |
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New York Then/New York Now
(2/21/2005) New York Then/New York Now—a collection of essays, memoirs, interviews, commentary, and plays—contemplates New York City’s history and future as a center for groundbreaking theatrical forms and ideas. Featuring the work of theater artists, producers, and critics, this special issue of Theater is concerned with the ideas and practicalities of making theater in and for New York within specific historical, political, and economic contexts. The first section, “New York Then,” reflects on ... |
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The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin
(1/10/2005) Gathered together in one volume for the first time: all of the incomparable song lyrics of Irving Berlin, whose career and work are the most important and all-encompassing in the history of American popular music. Berlin came from a poor immigrant family and began his career as a singing waiter, but by the time he was nineteen he was publishing his songs and quickly found fame with "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1911. In the extraordinary six decades that followed, Berlin wrote one popular hit... |
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The Cambridge Companion to Edward Albee
(1/1/2005) Edward Albee, perhaps best known for his acclaimed and infamous 1960s drama Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, is one of America's greatest living playwrights. Now in his seventies, he is still writing challenging, award-winning dramas. The essays in this collection provide a comprehensive, multi-faceted survey of Albee's career. Written in an engaging and accessible way, this book should appeal equally to students, scholars, and general readers. |
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The Complete Annotated Gilbert & Sullivan
(1/1/2005) Lovers of Gilbert and Sullivan will be in heaven with the publication of these two books, which nicely complement each other. Stedman (English, Roosevelt Univ., Chicago) offers an outstanding study of this playwright and his often overlooked works, with much of its value deriving from its study of Gilbert without Sullivan. The author is a recognized expert on Gilbert as well as the Victorian time period, and she shows him to be a complex and interesting man who often found himself at odds with ... |
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The Cambridge Companion to David Mamet
(1/1/2004) This collection of specially written essays offers both student and theatregoer a guide to one of the most celebrated American dramatists working today. Readers will find the general and accessible descriptions and analyses provide the perfect introduction to Mamet's work. The volume covers the full range of Mamet's writing, including now classic plays such as American Buffalo and Glengarry Glen Ross, and his more recent work, Boston Marriage, among others, as well as his films, such as The Ver... |
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Golda's Balcony: A Play
(11/21/2003) The sold out off-Broadway smash has moved to Broadway! The rise of Golda Meir from impoverished Russian schoolgirl to Prime Minister of Israel is one of the most amazing stories of the 20th century. Now her life has been transformed into a one-woman play of overwhelming power and triumph by William Gibson, author of The Miracle Worker. Golda's Balcony earned actress Tovah Feldshuh a 2003 Drama Desk award."Enlightening ... Now, hearing from someone who was there at the birth of the country, who ... |
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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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The Lyrics of Noel Coward
(1/1/2002) Mad Dogs and Englishmen, Don't Put your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs Worthington and over 250 more lyrics from Coward's musical masterpieces. Noel Coward is one of the greatest lyricists of the twentieth century. Songs such as A Room with a View, The Stately Homes of England, Mad Dogs and Englishmen and Mrs Worthington are known, sung and loved the world over. This edition gathers together over 250 of Coward's lyrics, arranged in chronological order and grouped by show. In addition, these masterp... |
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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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Polaroid Stories
(1/1/1999) Naomi Iizuka’s 1997 play, Polaroid Stories, consciously uses stories, characters and themes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses to tell the stories of street kids living on the edge in a desolate, urban landscape. Because these characters are named after Orpheus and Eurydice, and Echo and Narcissus, or based on stories of Dionysus, and Ariadne and Theseus, and because scenes are entitled “The Story of Semele” or “Theseus in the Labyrinth,” Iizuka creates a world that has two dimensions: the g... |
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The Complete Lyrics Of Lorenz Hart
(1/1/1995) This expanded edition includes an appendix of previously uncollected and newly discovered lyrics. |
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Musicals!: A Complete Selection Guide for Local Productions
(12/2/1994) From A . . . My Name Is Alice to The Zulu and the Zayde, this second edition of a title first published in 1984 contains information about 500 musicals (100 of which are new to this edition) available for production by community theaters and schools. Listed alphabetically by title, each entry includes date of original production, playwright, composer, lyricist, plot summary, licensing agent and music publisher, recordings and librettos available (for in-depth research by the user), and cast (num... |
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The Story of Starlight Theatre
(3/1/1992) Starlight Theatre is a magic place where an evening of musical theatre under the stars in Kansas City's Swope Park speaks so strongly of emotion that the audience is transformed by the presence of the creative experience. This book is filled with historical photos and provides a "behind the scenes" look at the real workings of the second largest outdoor theatre in the United States. A must for theatre goers everywhere. Unlike many other art forms, live outdoor theatre is a participatory expe... |
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Rabbit Hole
(2007) A story of loss, heartbreak, and forgiveness-told through daily moments and emotional hurdles-as a family moves on after the accidental death of their four-year-old. With a critically acclaimed Broadway premiere, featuring Cynthia Nixon and Tyne Daly, Rabbit Hole has been hailed as an artistic breakthrough for the highly regarded David Lindsay-Abaire. |
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Bug: A Play
(2006) Set in a seedy Oklahoma City motel room, the play centers on the meeting between Agnes, a divorced waitress with a fondness for cocaine and isolation, and Peter, a soft-spoken Gulf War drifter introduced to her by her lesbian friend, R.C. Agnes stays at a hotel in hopes of avoiding her physically abusive ex-husband, Jerry, who was just released from prison. At first, she lets Peter sleep platonically on her floor, but not long after she promotes him to the bed. Matters become more complicated as... |
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This Is How It Goes: A Play
(2005) Belinda and Cody Phipps appear a typical Midwestern couple: teenage sweethearts, children, luxurious home. Typical except that Cody is black--"rich, black, and different," in the words of Belinda, who finds herself attracted to a former (white) classmate. As the battle for her affections is waged, Belinda and Cody frankly doubt the foundation of their initial attraction, opening the door wide to a swath of bigotry and betrayal. Staged on continually shifting moral ground that challenges our rece... |
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The Shape of Things
(2003) In a modern version of Adam's seduction by Eve, The Shape of Things pits gentle, awkward, overweight Adam against experienced, analytical, amoral Evelyn, a graduate student in art. After a chance meeting at a museum, Evelyn and Adam embark on an intense relationship that causes shy and principled Adam to go to extraordinary lengths, including cosmetic surgery, and a betrayal of his best friend, to improve his appearance and character. In the process, Evelyn's subtle and insistent coaching result... |
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The Mercy Seat: A Play
(2003) Set on September 12, 2001, The Mercy Seat continues Neil LaBute’s unflinching fascination with the often-brutal realities of the war between the sexes. In a time of national tragedy, the world changes overnight. A man and a woman explore the choices now available to them in an existence different from the one they had lived just the day before. Can one be opportunistic in a time of universal selflessness? |
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Some Girl(s): A Play
(2006) Your career as a writer is blossoming, your beautiful, young fiancee is waiting to get married and rush off to Cancun by your side—so what is your natural reaction? Well, if you're a man, it's probably to get nervous and start calling up old girlfriends. And so begins a single man's odyssey through four hotel rooms as he flies across the country in search of the perfect woman (that he's already broken up with). Some Girl(s) is the latest work from Neil Labute, American theater's great agent pr... |
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Fat Pig: A Play
(2004) Cow. Slob. Pig. How many insults can you hear before you have to stand up and defend the woman you love? Tom faces just that question when he falls for Helen, a bright, funny, sexy young woman who happens to be plus sized-and then some. Forced to explain his new relationship to his shallow (although shockingly funny) friends, finally he comes to terms with his own preconceptions of the importance of conventional good looks. Neil LaBute's sharply drawn play not only critiques our slavish adherenc... |
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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... |
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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... |
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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... |
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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... |
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Noel Coward Autobiography
(2007) Noël Coward was one of the most celebrated characters in British theatrical history, with a career that spanned almost sixty years as a writer, actor, producer and director. This volume brings together his three autobiographies: Present Indicative charts his progress from a 'brazen odious little prodigy' to the immense success of Cavalcade in 1931; Future Indefinite deals with the war years, which saw the publication of Blithe Spirit, Present Laughter and In Which We Serve; and Past Conditional... |
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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. |
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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". |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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... |
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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... |
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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... |
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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. |
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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... |
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The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett
(2004) From A to Z, this is an indispensable guide to the works, life, and thought of one of the most important writers of our time. The Nobel Prize-winning author Samuel Beckett was a literary treasure, and this work represents the only comprehensive reference to the concepts, characters, and biographical details mentioned by, or related to, Beckett. Painstakingly and lovingly compiled by acclaimed Beckett scholars C. J. Ackerley and S. E. Gontarski, it is alphabetical, cross-referenced, and laid out ... |
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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. |
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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... |
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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 |
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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... |
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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... |
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Edward Albee: A Singular Journey
(2000) The American playwright Edward Albee's greatest glories came early in his career. When his first play, The Zoo Story, debuted in Provincetown, Mass., in 1960, he was called, as Gussow (cultural writer for the New York Times) puts it here, "our homegrown equivalent of Beckett." After his masterpiece, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was staged in 1962, Albee was heralded as the voice of his generation. Then came two decades of debilitating alcoholism and commercial and critical flops. However, his... |
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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 |
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The Theatre of Suzuki Tadashi
(2007) Suzuki is Japan's best-known director. He has been internationally acclaimed for his postmodern adaptations of classics by Nanboku, Euripides, Shakespeare, and Chekhov since the 1970s, and, equally, for his powerful actor-training system, which combines elements of Noh and Kabuki with Western realism. Inviting artists from around the world to perform at his Toga and Shizuoka International Festivals, Suzuki has fostered productive exchanges with Jean-Louis Barrault, Robert Wilson, Kanze Hisao, A... |
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