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Improvisation for the Theater 3E: A Handbook of Teaching and Directing Techniques
(1999) 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... |
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Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic
(1997) This volume offers a major selection of Bertolt Brecht's groundbreaking critical writing. Here, arranged in chronological order, are essays from 1918 to 1956, in which Brecht explores his definition of the Epic Theatre and his theory of alienation-effects in directing, acting, and writing, and discusses, among other works, The Threepenny Opera, Mahagonny, Mother Courage, Puntila, and Galileo. Also included is "A Short Organum for the Theatre," Brecht's most complete exposition of his revolutiona... |
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Sense of Direction: Some Observations on the Art of Directing
(1984) 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. |
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Bang The Drum Slowly
(1992) 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... |
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Scene Design and Stage Lighting
(1985) Stressing recent innovations in stage lighting, the authors reveal the techniques and skills involved in designing sets for theatrical productions. |
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True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor
(1999) True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor by David Mamet is an instructional book on acting, and the life and habits of the successful actor. In it, Mamet outlines his thoughts on acting, and gives advice for those practicing the craft and for aspiring practitioners. In the book, Mamet derides the practice of teaching drama students the system of Constantin Stanislavski or method acting of Lee Strasberg. In Mamet's opinion, time spent searching for emotion memory or considering cha... |
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The Prop Builder's Molding & Casting Handbook
(1989) Demonstrates how to work with molds, castings, and vacuum forming equipment, stresses safety precautions, and discusses materials from paper-mache to breakaway glass. |
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Stage Makeup: The Actor's Complete Guide to Today's Techniques and Materials
(1999) Whether you are an actor in a summer-stock or regional theater, an acting conservatory program, a high-school or college production, a community theater, a local holiday pageant...or anywhere else, this is the best all-purpose "how-to" guide to makeup for the theater. Besides period makeup, age makeup, and special-effects applications, the book delves into fantasy makeup, animal faces, and other kinds of stylization found on the contemporary stageand with the use of the most up-to-date materials... |
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Designing with Light: An Introduction to Stage Lighting
(1983) This comprehensive survey of the practical and aesthetic aspects of basic stage lighting design treats its subject as an art closely integrated with that of the director, actor, and playwright, and as a craft that provides practical solutions for the manipulation of stage space. An eight-page color section provides a discussion of the practical applications of color theory as well as an analysis of the color choices for the lighting design of an actual production. Numerous illustrations of techn... |
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The Pot of Gold and Other Plays
(1965) One of the supreme comic writers of the Roman world, Plautus (c.254–184 BC), skilfully adapted classic Greek comic models to the manners and customs of his day. This collection features a varied selection of his finest plays, from the light-hearted comedy Pseudolus, in which the lovesick Calidorus and his slave try to liberate his lover from her pimp, to the more subversive The Prisoners, which raises serious questions about the role of slavery. Also included are The Brothers Menaechmus, which... |
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The Threepenny Opera
(1994) Brutal, scandalous, perverted, yet humorous, hummable, and with a happy ending- Bertolt Brecht's revolutionary masterpiece The Threepenny Opera is a landmark of modern drama that has become embedded in the Western cultural imagination. Through the love story of Polly Peachum and "Mack the Knife" Macheath, the play satirizes the bourgeois of the Weimar Republic, revealing a society at the height of decadence and on the verge of chaos. Complemented with music by Kurt Weill, it was one of the earli... |
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Stage Makeup
(1990) Key Benefit: A classic in the field, this book helps makeup artists and actors learn the proper technique when applying stage makeup. Key Topics: This easy, step-by-step guide is comprised of 20 comprehensive chapters covering all aspects of stage makeup application. Topics include: basic techniques as well as new methods and materials for all types of stage makeup; updated information on hairstyles and fashions. Revered as the stage makeup bible, this book includes listings of makeup colors fro... |
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The Stanislavski System: The Professional Training of an Actor
(1984) This clearly written guide to the Stanislavski method has long been a favorite among students and teachers of acting. Now, in light of books and articles recently published in the Soviet Union, Sonia Moore has made revisions that include a new section on the subtext of a role. She provides detailed explanations of all the methods that actors in training have found indispensable for more than twenty years. Designed to create better actors, this guide will put individuals in touch with themselves... |
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A Challenge for the Actor
(1991) This volume completes Hagen's earlier classic, Respect for Acting (Macmillan, 1973). The beliefs, professionalism, and standards of training and performance that make Respect required reading for all actors are explored in this acting textbook that represents a lifetime of performance and teaching. Unlike the more academic texts, Hagen's study reflects exercises, insights, and techniques that have been taught and practiced in acting studios and on stages for many years. Readers should not be pu... |
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An Unsocial Socialist
(1972) An Unsocial Socialist was published in 1887, having been written in 1883. The tale begins with a humorous description of student antics at a girl's school then changes focus to a seemingly uncouth laborer who, it soon develops, is really a wealthy gentleman in hiding from his overly affectionate wife. He needs the freedom gained by matrimonial truancy to promote the socialistic cause, to which he is an active convert. Once the subject of socialism emerges, it dominates the story, allowing only ... |
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Bacchae
(1999) Euripides' classic drama about the often mortifying consequences of the unbridled--and frequently hysterical--celebration of the feast of Dionysus, the God of wine. |
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Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre
(1987) Impro ought to be required reading not only for theatre people generally but also for teachers, educators, and students of all kinds and persuasions. Readers of this book are not going to agree with everything in it; but if they are not challenged by it, if they do not ultimately succumb to its wisdom and whimsicality, they are in a very sad state indeed . . . .Johnstone seeks to liberate the imagination, to cultivate in the adult the creative power of the child . . . .Deserves to be widely read... |
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Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation
(1994) Who would have ever thought that learning the finer points of improvisation could be such fun? The "Harold," an innovative improvisational tool, helped Saturday Night Live's Mike Myers and Chris Farley, George Wendt (Norm on "Cheers") and many other actors on the road to TV and film stardom. Now it is described fully in this new book for the benefit of other would-be actors and comics. The "Harold" is a form of competitive improv involving six or seven players. They take a theme suggestion from... |
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Acting for the Camera
(1997) Culled from Tony Barr's 40 years' experience as a performer, director and acting teacher in Hollywood, this highly praised handbook provides readers with the practical knowledge they needwhen performing in front of the camera. This updated edition includes plenty of new exercises for honing on-camera skills; additional chapters on imagination and movement; and fresh material on character development, monologues, visual focus, playing comedy and working with directors. Inside tips on the studio s... |
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The Empty Space: A Book About the Theatre: Deadly, Holy, Rough, Immediate
(1995) In The Empty Space, groundbreaking director Peter Brook draws on a life in love with the stage to explore the issues facing any theatrical performance. Here he describes important developments in theatre from the last century, as well as smaller scale events, from productions by Stanislavsky to the rise of Method Acting, from Brecht's revolutionary alienation technique to the free form Happenings of the 1960s, and from the different styles of such great Shakespearean actors as John Gielgud and ... |
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Acting One
(1997) Used to teach beginning acting on more campuses than any other text, Acting One contains twenty-eight lessons based on experiential exercises. The text covers basic skills such as talking, listening, tactical interplay, physicalizing, building scenes, and making good choices. |
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Zoot Suit and Other Plays
(1992) This collection contains three of playwright and screenwriter Luis Valdez's most important and recognized plays: Zoot Suit, Bandido! and I Don't Have to Show You No Stinking Badges. The anthology also includes an introduction by noted theater critic Dr. Jorge Huerta of the University of California-San Diego. Luis Valdez, the most recognized and celebrated Hispanic playwright of our times, is the director of the famous farm-worker theater, El Teatro Campesino. |
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Sanford Meisner on Acting
(1987) Meisner, a member of the Theater Guild and the Group Theater, has devoted most of 50 years to teaching acting and is one of the great unsung resources in American theater. This book is not an acting text, but a journal of a 15-month course taken by 16 adult actors. We follow them as they progress from early exercises through preparation to detailed scene work. Meisner emphasizes emotional truth and acting as the reality of doing. His students find the course difficult, but most improve markedly.... |
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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
(1988) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist, existentialist tragicomedy by Tom Stoppard, first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966. The play expands upon the exploits of two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet, the courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The action of Stoppard's play takes place mainly "in the wings" of Shakespeare's, with brief appearances of major characters from Hamlet who enact fragments of the original's scenes. Between these episodes the two ... |
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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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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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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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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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Backstage Handbook: An Illustrated Almanac of Technical Information
(1994) First published in 1988, Backstage Handbook is one of the most widely used stagecraft textbooks in the United States, with about 10,000 copies sold every year. This handy reference book brings together under one cover an incredible variety of information useful to designers, technicians and students who work behind the scenes in theatre, film and television. Its sturdy leatherette binding will stand up to years of constant use. The third edition updates this popular reference book with new... |
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An Actor Prepares
(1989) Stanislavski's simple exercises fire the imagination, and help readers not only discover their own conception of reality but how to reproduce it as well. |
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A Practical Handbook for the Actor
(1986) 6 working actors describe their methods and philosophies of the theater. All have worked with playwright David Mamet at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. |
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Living Theater: A History
(1994) An updated and expanded edition of Wilson and Goldfarb's Living Theater: A History. The authors combine an engaging narrative style with impeccable scholarship to present the history of theater from ancient Greece to Rome to the present day. Rather than resorting to dry, encyclopedic coverage, Wilson and Goldfarb demonstrate the liveliness, vitality, and distinctiveness of theater as it has unfolded through the ages. Along the way the authors emphasize the constantly changing nature of theater a... |
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Audition
(1979) Michael Shurtleff has been casting director for Broadway shows like Chicago and Becket and for films like The Graduate and Jesus Christ Superstar. His legendary course on auditioning has launched hundreds of successful careers. Now in this book he tells the all-important HOW for all aspiring actors, from the beginning student of acting to the proven talent trying out for that chance-in-a-million role! |
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Backwards & Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays
(1983) This guide to playreading for students and practitioners of both theater and literature complements, rather then contradicts or repeats, traditional methods of literary analysis of scripts. Ball developed his method during his work as Literary Director at the Guthrie Theater, building his guide on the crafts playwrights of every period and style use to make their plays stageworthy. The text is full of tools for students and practitioners to use as they investigate plot, character, theme, expo... |
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No Exit and Three Other Plays
(1989) 4 plays about an existential portrayal of Hell, the reworking of the Electra-Orestes story, the conflict of a young intellectual torn between theory and conflict and an arresting attack on American racism. |
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Here We Go Again: My Life in Television
(1997) Her late husband, Allen Ludden, once remarked that White had been one of the pioneers in silent television. That is just barely an exaggeration, because she got her start in Hollywood on Television in 1949 and has not been off the tube for any length of time for the past 46 years. Best known for her roles as Sue Ann on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and as the terminally naive Rose on The Golden Girls, she has had four Betty White Shows, starting in 1950, as well as a show close to her animal-lover's... |
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Parcel Arrived Safely: Tied with String
(1999) This is the long-awaited autobiography of one of Britain's best-loved and most internationally successful actors. By turns funny, charming, and poignant, here is Michael Crawford's vivid account of his war-torn childhood of a loving mother, violent stepfather, and the painfully revealed truth about his absent father. His early memories include being taught to sing by the great composer Benjamin Britten, and later, when he entered show business, his friendships with David Hemmings, John Lennon, ... |
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